Nemmers Scrum

Hello Footballers!

Well, it came down to the wire – I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do if the Chargers and Raiders tied last weekend….but they didn’t, and so we can wrap up our season.

CONGRATULATIONS TO GERRI LEFTON as the 2021 Scrum WINNER!!!!

Gerri triumphed over all of us knuckleheads, proving that hard picks are a strategic advantage.  Nice work! Your winnings are on the way to you!

Also congratulations to Ceila and Dan, who got a perfect 5 points in Week 18. That’s pretty amazing, no matter the week.  And, a special call out to Dan who started in week 2, had a few rough weeks at the start, and then managed to close out the season with two 5 for five weeks, moving from 5th from the bottom to 9th place.

Also props to Heidi, Stephanie, Dana, Mary, Jim and Adam who were in the hunt until the very end.  Nice work!

While we are sharing good news, it seems like we should end with the good news I know.  In addition to Gerri winning I’m happy to say:

• Judy Nemmers has conquered her bout with COVID and is home from the hospital – woo hoo!
• Gabe Carter completed his Crucible (a 54-hour training exercise that validates the physical, mental and moral training Marine recruits endure throughout  training), and is now officially a Marine (and Stephanie is a proud Marine Mom).  A big Hoo-yah! Thanks, Gabe, for your service, we are all super proud and wish we could be there this month in San Diego to help celebrate – we are counting on Stephanie, to share lots of photos.
• Molly Hergenrother has committed to Notre Dame!  She’ll start as a freshman in the fall (and be able to pester big sister Dana from the same campus).

Those are the biggies I know – if you have other news to share, please send it on.  I’m not opposed to an off-season update.

Thanks again to everyone who played and made this year fun.  I so enjoy getting to hear from all of you!  Have a great 2022, enjoy the playoffs, and we’ll see you in September.

Hello Footballers,

Here’s the picks for this week. With such big spreads, I thought we’d see a more consistent set of picks. But, I guess some of us are going to go out with a bang one way or another.

Because Gerri and Heidi have the same picks, it looks like Heidi cannot catch Gerri.  But, if Minnesota loses, then Stephanie and Gerri could tie.  Here we go….

Enjoy your football watching today.  For me, I’m just cheering for the Steelers (well, and Jacksonville…)

Cheers,

Emily

Hello Footballers,

Well here we are.  We have made it to week 18.  It’s the final countdown on another amazing season of football and fun.

Let’s start off with congrats to all who got perfect 5 picks this past week. Way to go:  Stephanie, Mary, Dan, Kevin, Charlie N and Molly. Some bold picks paid off. And, the Rams v. Ravens game really came down to the wire. So exciting – we were all yelling at the pick sheet a little bit around here! It was also super nice to see the storybook ending to the Steelers game, glad that everyone who picked them could enjoy that moment.

After all the points were totaled, we see that Gerri managed to hold on to her lead, and now has a one point advantage over Heidi.  With this one last week there are still 7 people who still have the mathematical possibility of winning.  Everyone with less than 50 points – well, it was nice playing with ya. (But, still please pick this week to finish it out).

So, this week we’ll keep with our regular system.  If we only have one person at the top of the leaderboard after the game Monday night, then that person will be our 2021 winner.  If we have a tie, all players that are tied for the top spot will begin a play-off picking process that will include picking winners and point totals.  People not tied for first place at the end of week 18 will have been eliminated. (queue sad trombone.)

The picks for week 18 are:

CHI v. MIN
NO v. ATL
LAC v LVR  (I only had to retype this one once from San Diego v. Oakland: how times change)

Good luck to everyone.  And GO STEELERS (with an extra hope sent to the Jaguars to beat the Colts).

Happy New Year Footballers!

I hope everyone had some joy and cheer over the holiday season.  We had a great time here in Dallas, and on our drive up to Missouri.  We sure hope to see everyone that we didn’t get to see at Christmas sometime soon.  And, we send you all wishes for health and prosperity in 2022.

The picks for this week are kinda wild…and by wild I mean I can’t believe how many people joined me in cheering for the Steelers.  Well done, Footballers, well done. Even more telling for the pool than our collective newfound love for the Steel City, is the fact that Gerri and Dana, tied for the top spot are going Head to Head with their power picks today.  This will leave us with one clear first place person…at least I think…I can never figure out exactly all the possible scenarios that might crop up. All the same, it should make for a great day.

And, for our pictures this week, I’d like to present the winners of the Columbia Hallmark Christmas Movie Bingo challenge.  Turns out watching Hallmark movies is way more fun if you get to play bingo.  We needed a prize for the winner, and decided a photo in the football pool was a good choice.  So, congrats to Kevin and Celia for checking all the right bingo boxes, including “Drinks Eggnog” “Wears a red dress” and “Movie includes a second romance between side characters.” Well done!

Enjoy the football and the New Year!  GO STEELERS!

Hello Footballers,

I hope you are enjoying your new Erector Set, Barbie doll, or whatever magic you found under your Christmas tree. The Manteeth are in Columbia with Judy and Charlie, Celia and family and Adam and Lisa. We are eating and talking a lot! So much fun.  Thanks to everyone for sending in photos of their trees. It was great to see all the celebrations going on.

Week 16 was a good one for the lower half of the pool, with all 3 perfect scores coming from the lower environs. Congrats to John, Dan and Kevin for putting on a strong showing and rallying to the middle of the pack.

On the top of the leader board, Gerri and Dana are holding strong, with Heidi still right in it too. Good job, ladies! Let’s see who can keep it up for 2 more weeks.

With end of season injuries, COVID, and motivation to make the playoffs all playing into things, making the picks has been getting a little trickier in the past couple weeks.  This week is no different, with Week 17 picks as follows:

Eagles v Football Team
Rams v Ravens
Browns v Steelers

Good luck to everyone!  All the games are on Sunday and Monday this week, so no Saturday mad dash like last week. But, please get your picks in on time. GO STEELERS!

Merry Christmas Footballers,

I hope everyone is having a beautiful and fun Christmas morning. There were no bikes or dolls under the tree this year, but there was a socket set and a waffle maker, so we’ll still count it as a success!

Here are the picks. I can’t imagine picking against the Saints on Christmas day, but about half of you heathens did. I am also surprised that here in week 16 we still have all six choices being used as the power pick. Whoah, that’s crazy. We’ll see what that does to the leaderboard. And, shout out to Charlie N. who was the only one to go with all animal choices. I hope everyone gets to eat early so they can at least check in on the Colts and Cardinals – a LOT of power picks on this game – on BOTH SIDES.

Here are a sampling of our Christmas trees from around the league.  I’ll leave you to guess which is which.  i sure to wish we could come see them all in person.  Merry Christmas to all…and to all a GO STEELERS!

Merry Christmas Footballers,

I hope you are spending your week smiling and singing and full of life itself.  Or at least eating Christmas cookies.

Last week we had four perfect pickers – congrats to Mary, Violet, Celia and Fletcher for scoring a mighty 5 points each.  Despite their big wins, our top 3 spots didn’t change, although Mary did manage to sneak ahead of Charlie H. for 4th.  And…as Violet explained to me, “If everyone else gets zero points this week, and I get all 5, I will be tied for the top spot.” Makes perfect sense to me.

This week I am late on purpose.  After the NHL shut down for a few weeks, I wanted to see if the NFL was going to make any changes for the weekend.  As it stands now, we’ll have the 3 games listed below.  If any of them get cancelled, then we’ll remove that game from our pool and no one will get a power pick for the week.  It’s the best I can come up with.

This week send a photo of your Christmas tree or favorite Christmas decoration when you send in your picks. I’ll share all our Christmas cheer when I send out the picks on Saturday (probably later in the day). Try and get those picks in before the Yuletide carries you away.

Week 16 picks:

Colts v. Cardinals
Broncos v Raiders
Dolphins v Saints   (and send in a picture of your Christmas tree!)

Merry Christmas everyone.  And GO STEELERS!!!

Hello Footballers,

I cannot believe that this late in the season we are still managing to get a selection of all 6 teams as a power pick…or as Uncle Bill called it this week, “The Big Juicy”

Some bold choices might mean big moves are made if any upsets happen. But, all I really know is that I will be cheering for the Steelers.

Good luck to everyone. Merry Christmas! Stay safe out there and wash your hands!

Emily

Hello Footballers,

When it comes to “challenge accepted” I really took Kevin as his word.  Yeppers, I managed to get a big ol’ goose egg for the second week in a row.  Boo.  But enough about me, let’s talk about the good stuff from Week 14:

First off – congrats to Gerri for being the only player who got all 5 points last week.  That’s pretty impressive.  So impressive in fact, that she is also newly atop the leaderboard. Congrats too to Dana and Heidi for sharing the top spot. Can Heidi’s good luck hang on for another week? Will Charlie H sneak back into a top spot? Welp, we are about to find out.

The picks for week 15 are as follows:

NE v IND
TEN v PIT
MIN v CHI

Good luck to everyone, but especially the Steelers!

Hello Footballers,

You may remember back in week 13, a certain “acting” commissioner suggested that we should try to get zero points, as that’s as hard as getting a perfect score.  And, congratulations to the 7 people who accepted this challenge.  Yep – seven players didn’t move at all last week, and another seven only got one point. So, maybe not as hard as we thought.

On the flip side – congrats to Heidi as the only player who got perfect picks last week.  She was rewarded with their placement atop the leaderboard. We’d also like to welcome Jim and Stephanie as they also make their first forays into the top standings this week. Adam and Charlie H have their work cut out for them to stay in it.

Here are the picks for week 14. Clearly the AZ game is the favorite for power picks, but there are some variants. We are running out of weeks, so hopefully this one counts. Good luck to everyone. No sense in cheering for the Steelers, as they already are done for the weekend.

And…much overdue, here’s some pics from everyone’s Thanksgivings. We do have so very much to be thankful for. (Also, we are one good looking family!) It was so great to see all your smiling faces: