Nemmers Scrum

Hello Footballers,

It is the first week of a new year of football scrum.  So excited to have everyone here to play.

I’d like to take a second to welcome 4 players who were not with us last season:

Celia Lillegard is back.  After a LOOOONNNNGGGG hiatus, she is here to defend her championship from way back in 2011.  Look out – she’s got a big brain and she’s not afraid to use it.

Also returning is Calvin Carter. When he’s not making football picks he’s wrestling – either other wrestlers or cows. Proving that even in middle school, he’s way tougher than the rest of us.  So, welcome back Calvin…and good luck with wrestling and raising cattle.

We’ve got new players too – yay! I love when we have new players

Maddison Sherburne joins us from San Antonio. Madison is a junior in high school, and with her decision to jump into the fray, she’s put the San Antonio contingent at full power. John and Margie (her parents) do so well every year, it will be a tough call for the rest of us to stand up to another powerful picker from the Sherburne clan.

Cassie Anzalone is here for her first season as well.  Cassie is Charlie Hergenrother’s girlfriend – and as she explained to me at Erika’s wedding – she’s got a big family and isn’t afraid of jumping right in.  Personally, I’m excited because she’s in Milwaukee.  I’m hoping if someone needs to go talk trash or tp Uncle Bill’s place she can help me out.

Welcome (and welcome back!) to everyone. It’s gonna be a fun year.

Speaking of Fun – here’s a photo of last year’s winner – Bill Nemmers.  I am putting this here as a motivator for his siblings. Remember what it felt like to have Bill beat you? Well, choose wisely this year and see if you can change the outcome.

This week’s picks are interesting – especially the Seattle v. Indy game with power picks on both sides of the ball.  There’s picks for all 6 teams, so we may actually see a little bit of separation in week 1. I guess that’s why they play the games.

Thanks everyone for getting in picks – if you haven’t paid up yet, now is the time to do so! Good luck!

GO STEELERS!!!!

Hello Footballers,

Well that was sure exciting, wasn’t it? The games came down to the wire….and I’m pretty sure nobody at the beginning of this crazy season would have predicted that it would come down to Doug Pederson benching Jalen Hurts.  Like, did any of us even know who Doug Pederson or Jalen Hurts even were back in August?  Geez.

All that to say…..(drumroll, please)….Congrats to Bill Nemmers as our 2020 Scrum Winner!  In addition to having the most points at the end of the season, Bill also filled my inbox each week with his game selecting philosophies (“I’ll go with all teams that are verbs”) and a great thesaurus-ical effort of giving the “Power Pick” a new name each week.  Some of my favorites included:  “The Big Naboo”, “The Gobble-Gobble Pick” (thanksgiving week), “the Whoop-tee-doo” pick, and “The Big Cahooza”.  I’m not saying these silly names made any changes in the standings, but it did make getting picks from Bill quite a joy.

I’d like to shout out some other top competitors who kept it interesting until the very end…good job to Margie, Jim, Kevin and Adam, who all hung around near the top for most of the season.

And….a high five to the folks who got a perfect 5 for 5 in the final week.  With all the unknowns of which teams were benching starters, what the weather would end up like, and all other end-of-season shenanigans, this was a particularly hard week.  Somehow, Dianne, Heidi, Mary and Molly all managed to get them all correct!  Nice work, ladies!

I can hardly believe that we’ve been at this for a decade. Thanks to everyone who has played and commented and talked trash. I enjoy every minute of it and hope you do too. Just to recap our decade of football competition, here are our Champions of the first 10 years:

2011: Paul Hergenrother and Cecilia Lillegard (co-champions)
2012: Kevin Mantooth
2013: Team Sherburne
2014: Team Sherburne
2015: Jim Mantooth
2016: Stephanie Carter
2017: Molly Hergenrother
2018: Gerri Lefton
2019: Paul Hergenrother
2020: Bill Nemmers

Whew! That’s a whole lotta awesome.

Enjoy the playoffs.  I hope you cheer for the Steelers, even if it is just a little bit.

Happy New Year Footballers,

We have made it to the final week.  It is hard to believe we’ve been at this for 16 weeks…and yet the title of 2020 Nemmers Scrum Champion is still up for grabs.  And, I didn’t spend too much time looking at it, but I am pretty sure that any of the top 4 players still have a puncher’s chance at winning.

Good luck to everyone – but especially to Margie, Bill, Jim and Kevin as they duke it out for the top spot.

Thanks so much to everyone for playing along for the whole season.  For some of us, picking past week 7 or so was a new experience. Speaking for myself, I kinda liked the way this season worked out. And, its always a highlight of my year to hear from everyone, but especially from all my nieces and nephews. I love being a teensy part of their lives.

Oh, and one more time:  GO STEELERS!!!!

Happy New Year Footballers!

Week 16 wrapped up with a lot of people having solid performances. Special shoutout to Charlie N for his strategy of telling everyone his plan, and then getting 5 points out of 5. I daresay that maybe some of you boldly copied him. Either way, it was a fun week with lots of 4 and 5 point winners. Speaking for myself, I was heading into the Sunday night game with 4 points and really hoping that Tennessee would beat Green Bay to crush all the folks who had picked the Packers, but as soon as I saw the snow in pre-game, I knew I was in trouble.  Dang it – I coulda been a contender!

Going into our final week, Margie is in the lead by one point, and Bill and Jim are right on her tail.  Knowing it was so close, for this week I went with close games where each team had something on the line.  And….that means both NFC East games are on the list.

The week 17 Games are:

Dolphins v. Bills
Cowboys v. Giants
Football Team v. Eagles (feels funny typing that).

Also, this seems like a good place to layout what happens here at the end as far as determining a winner so here are the steps:

• If one person is alone atop the leader board with the most points, that person will be declared the winner.
• If there is a tie of two or more people atop the leader board, we will continue picking into the playoffs, but only the people who are tied for the lead.
• We will still use the “pick 3 games with one as your power pick” style of picking.  I will send out the games early in the week. The first week there is one contestant with more points than the others, that person will be declared the winner.
• On this week’s standings, I have made  gray everyone who is mathematically ineligible to win the pool.

We sure hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas. Ours was tiny, but we ate like kings and definitely got to relax a little. Let’s all say a cheer for 2021, may it be full of family visits and lots of joy.

And, even though Pittsburgh is gonna sit Big Ben, I still say GO STEELERS!!!!

Merry Christmas Footballers,

I hope you got something good in your stocking and maybe even a surprise under the tree.  I am betting that no one else got a super comfy couch blanket that looks like a tortilla.  Try not to be jealous.

This week, even Charlie N picking the Packers couldn’t dissuade most of the Scrum from going with Green Bay to be Tennessee on Sunday night. All but 3 people picked them, and all but 8 choosing it as their power pick. (Or, as Bill called it – “the big Cahooza”.  Whatever a Cahooza is, I’m not quite sure.  But, as one of the 3 people who went with Tennessee, I’m hoping that it means disaster.

I can’t believe we’re down to just this week and next. So exciting here at the end. Let’s see how the games shake out.  Good luck to everyone and GO STEELERS!!!!

This week’s picture is of me as a burrito in said tortilla blanket.

Merry Christmas Footballers!

In another crazy week that proves the prognosticators don’t know anything…we had a shuffle at the top of the scrum.  Props to Kevin and Jim for their perfect scores, and especially to Kevin who moved into second place.  Lots of other strong performances this week too. Nice work everyone!

With the extra distractions of the holiday week, please take a second and get your picks out of the way early. Just because it is Christmas does not mean I went easy on ya. We are down to the wire and the top of the pack is dense – just 6 points separate the top 12 players – so we gotta shake it up. The picks for Week 16 are as follows:

Eagles v. Cowboys
Rams v. Seahawks
Titans v. Packers

Good luck and Merry Christmas! (oh, and GO STEELERS!!!!)

This week’s picture is a tree that we went to go see last night.  It is about 50 feet tall and covered all the way up.  So pretty!

Hello Footballers,

I hope that everyone is smiling and singing, caring and sharing, rejoicing in life itself.  Also, I hope you are ready for a day of good football.  I am pretty sure nothing will compare to last Monday’s game, but we still should have some nice match ups.

The pool doesn’t have a lot of variation, but one thing we all agreed – Cleveland is gonna win on Sunday night.  Maybe Dad didn’t pick them, but as the guy at the bottom, that’s more strategic than cheering for the Giants.

This week’s picture is from the Nemmers kids family Christmas Zoom call.  Look closely, that white bearded man isn’t Santa, its Uncle Bart.

Good luck to everyone and GO STEELERS!!!!

Hello Footballers,

It was for sure a crazy week for the pool.  Whew-boy, those night games were something. Did you see it, with all the twists and turns? Were you excited? Of course I am talking about the fact that the Sunday Night Game (Steelers v. Bills) featured two head coaches that were teammates at William and Mary about the same time as some other great human you all know. Go Tribe!

Oh, and there was also that edge-of-your-seat craziness in Cleveland. So many twists and turns, and even a potty break. You can’t make this stuff up. But, I bet a lot of people who had money on the game wished that the Browns would have made up something other than a safety on the last play to leave Baltimore covering the spread. 2 seconds on the game clock were never so expensive.

Congrats to Mary and Whoosie, whose dedication to the Bears made them the two perfect pickers for week 14.  Well Done!  The pool also saw some major shake ups at the top, with 2 of the leaders going into the week both got goose eggs. After the dust had settled, we’ve got Bill, Margie and Adam in the 1 to and 3 spots respectively. And, a tight pack of about 7 or 8 more right on their tails. It’s gonna come down to the wire!

Here’s the picks for Week 15:

49ers v. Cowboys (got bumped from the Sunday night game)
Bears v. Vikings (tied records, division on the line)
Browns v. Giants (the Sunday Night game that the ‘boys got flexed for).

This week’s picture is meant to calm your frantic brains after all the football chaos we’ve seen this week – it’s the view from Whoosie’s window during the weather last weekend.

Good luck to everyone. Go Steelers!

Hello Footballers,

With only 4 weeks to go, we might view this week’s Monday Night Game as a watershed moment in the 2020 season.  With all but 7 people putting their “bonus pick” powers on the Monday night game, it already was set to have a lopsided impact on the pool.  But…even better – we have lots of people on both sides of the victory.

And, as far as split deciding goes….the Steelers / Bills game also has power picks on both sides.  Boom!

All this to say that it will for sure shake things up in the pool as someones big 3 point win will be 3 point deficit of a competitor.  I do love it when it gets exciting.

Good luck to everyone all the same, but especially to those of you who picked Pittsburgh on Sunday night.

GO STEELERS!

Hello Footballers,

I hope that everyone is having a good week.  Even though the Steelers let us down (against “Football Team” no less!) we are having a nice week here in Dallas enjoying some sunshine, trying to figure out what to get everyone for Christmas (for your children we have picked out puppies and drum kits), and looking forward to basketball season (only 2 more weeks until we see Luka!)

Congrats to the many many people who did great this past week. For all the belly aching about how hard it was in week 13, most of the pool got either greater than 4 points. With all that success, I was encouraged and selected games with small spreads again. If you didn’t do so good, maybe pull a George Castanza this week and go with the complete opposite of your instinct. Who knows? Each week is its own little mystery.

As you can see from the overall standings, the top of the leaderboard is still pretty tight. Only 5 points separating the top 5 players.  Is there time for anyone to make a surge? I guess we’ll see soon enough.  But, congrats to Paul for staying out in front.

The picks for Week 14 are:

Texans v. Bears
Steelers v. Bills (Sunday Night)
Ravens v Browns (Monday Night)

With each week getting more wobbly, I am keeping my fingers crossed that all these games get played.  Please make sure to get your picks in by the end of the day on Friday.  Really, that’s just tomorrow, so just do the picking now and get it crossed off you’re weekend to-do list.

I didn’t get any fresh photos this week, so here’s one of a Christmas lights display near our house that we took Mom and Dad to when they were here in December a few years back.  If you come see us in December, we will probably try to take you as well.