Friends in football,

Commish loves himself a bold proclamation. I've been doing this for 15 years, and while that might make you question my sanity it should at least give you faith in my wisdom.

Last week in this space, I boldly proclaimed a 1-loss Playoffs Pick'em champ was likely, and a 2-loss champ was in play.

Then the Divisional Round happened, where the three big favorties won and the fourth winner (Chiefs) was barely a surprise.

Was I wrong? Not so fast...

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS

What happened, in one paragraph

The 1-seed Ravens took a warm-up half before dominating. The 1-seed Niners barely escaped the Packers. The Lions held serve. And the Bills still can't solve the January Chiefs.

Main Playoffs Pick'em

• Weekly performance: 69% win rate (3-1 average), which is close to the best ever week in this pool's MANY years. Our top three picks all won
• Leaders: We went from 36 people being 6-0 to six of those brave souls at 10-0. A large pack of 93 people sits 10 points back (9-1, with the lone loss coming in the Wildcard Round)
• Best Squad: New leaders! "Bearbros" and "Capital Knockers Survivor" are tied with 272 points from their top 3 performers. That is WILD when you consider 272 means they have TWO pickers with a single loss, and a third at 8-2. The race behind them is tight, so much could change from here

100 Tier Playoffs Pick'em results

• Weekly performance: 69.2% win rate (3-1 average). In the last PICKS email, Commish spoke to his surprise at 100 Tier picking being SO similar to the main pool. Thus, our win rate was nearly identical
• Leaders: And then there were zero (undefeateds). This is how 100 Tier is supposed to work, in theory - far fewer participants, and thus lower winning scores. We have a 4-way tie at 94 points (9-1 with a Wildcard loss) between @cactus58, @Ziqness, @sheaujay, and @PaddyK27. It's definitely possible that none of those four go 3-0 from here on out, which would make for a wild finish
• We don't yet have Squad competitions for 100 Tier pools. Working on it!

SO WILL THE MAIN PICK'EM HAVE AN UNDEFEATED CHAMP?

This is similar to asking "will the 1-seeds both win Sunday?"

Because, as Commish outlined in last week's Update email, the closer you get to the end of a Pick'em, the more the leaders will pick straight chalk.

Not everyone, of course. (WE HAVE FREE WILL, COMMISH!) But years and years of data tell us that, on average, they'll go straight chalk.

Typically when we see an undefeated Playoffs Pick'em champ, it's because they zagged when the rest of their fellow leaders zigged, and got it right.

See: @Super_Grover and the Bengals in 2021-22.

You can't win a SZN pool without a little Moxie. Our leaders have already shown some in picking Packers-over-Cowboys (and Texans-over-Browns in the Wildcard Round).

How much Moxie those 6 undefeated people have left in them is the story to watch for in our upcoming PICKS email...

Yours in football,
The Commish