The Rhinos Wallow

      A couple of years ago, in a bid to appease Muttley I used a picture of my Grandpug as a placeholder. I never even receive an Email of Hope with either of my franchises that season so I can guarantee that I won't be making that mistake again. This year I have used a photo of a horse. I hope that you like it. I also hope that it it lucky for me - kind of like having a horseshoe in my... back pocket

      Any errors, omissions, misspellings or mistakes in these pages are on me. There is nobody else I can blame although maybe responsibility for anything wrong should go on Beau The Dope's shoulders because he makes me laugh and I lose concentration. Yeah, that is right. If you have any complaints about anything written here contact Kneel and give him heck.

      I have two franchises in the pool, The Rhino and Show Us Your TD's which cheers for the Detroit Lions and uses different methodology in making picks. I must admit that neither is usually very successful. That being said, I probably owe a debt to St Jude (the saint of lost causes) for the success that the Lions enjoyed in the playoffs last season.

      Our pool treasurer is The Chainman. You should be nice to him as Doug is the one who collects your entry fees and after the season sends you your winnings. We are all grateful for the work he does although I must admit the I would be more grateful if he were sending more winnings in my direction.

      That reminds me, the prizes that we pay out come from the entry fees that you remit. If you have not sent in your entry fee to Doug please do so. The usual method of payment is by e-transfer and Doug is registered for auto deposit. The e-transfers you send do not have a return email address so please send an email to Doug with your contact information. THIS IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY! At the end of the season if Doug does not have your contact information he will retain your winnings until such time as you provide it!

      As those of you who are returning well know the scoring system in our pool changed dramatically this year. This was done by CBS and I have no control over that. It remains to be seen what effect this has on your picks but for sure it will be less top weighted than under our old system. They (CBS) have also changed the options for when picks have to be entered. They now must be in prior to kickoff of the first game of the week, rather than 1 hour prior. Picks lock after this deadline. If you fail to enter picks you will now receive the lowest earned score minus 1.

     If you are going to be unable to enter your picks for some reason - vacation, work etc. please contact me and I can enter for your using a formula of your choice such reno odds etc. I may not be available at the last minute so suggest that you should try to give me some notice if you want this done. Once picks lock for the week I cannot help you.

     You can enter picks early and alter them as often as you wish. This insures that you do have some picks entered. If you wait until the last minute and then cannnot get on the CBS site you may not be able to enter your picks. This is the voice of bitter experience speaking.

      There are other, non financial prizes that are mostly for prestige (or humiliation). Every week the Celler Dweller award goes to the franchises that finishes last. The Monica Lewinski, "Close but no cigar!" award each week goes to the franchise that finishes closest, but not in the prize pool. The Play Of the Week (POW) award goes to the franchise or franchises that I decide made the best choice of the week. Sometimes the best choice is buying a bottle of mediocre red wine, writing your name on it and leaving it on my doorstep. Just saying in case any of you really want to see your name in print!

      At the end of the season the Tin Cup award goes to the franchise with the most points but no winnings. There was an actual Tin Cup which was purchased years ago by JakeDSnake (thank you Jake!) but Krypton failed to pass the cup on to The Brady Bunch when Davis won it. I guess this means that there will no longer be a cup to pass on so it is now a metaphysical honour.

     We have had a couple of name changes in the offseason. Much as the Washington Redskins became the Washington Football Team and then the Washington Commanders the BigFart Family has morphed into Miss P. Paula says that this is what her father used to call her. She is adamant that she is still a Cowboys fan just as Dan was. She is not to be confused with "Miss Pee" who apparently has a bladder problem. Another longtime franchise Dos Cervezas (two beer in Spanish) has transformed into Grande Cerveza. Help me understand this... two beer has become one big beer?? Does this mean Matt has a better head on him now.

      we have 7 franchises competing for the prestigious ROY (Rookie Of the Year) award this season. Zach Munt, Wyatt Bray, Ben Naaykens and Trevor Posch can form their own "I have no imagination" division. Miller (High Life), Hurts Donut and Knows Picker can console themselves with the thought that they, on the other hand, have more than enough imagination. Picking winners is the skill that they are lacking and truth be told that may be humiliating but it will make you very popular in this pool.

      Assuming none of the "No Shows" return we have 55 franchises in the pool this year so the weekly prizes will be $110.00, $82.50, $55.00 and $27.50 for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th places if there are no ties. Again assuming no ties the final prizes will be $440.00, $330.00, $220.00 and $110.00 and the streak prize will be $110.00.

     The HOF page is not relevent this year. If we are still unable to revert to our old scoring system after this season I will have to consider starting a new HOF page. In the meantime the only applicable section of the page is the list of winners in the pool since 1984.

      We have several franchise that failed to enter picks this week and are probably dropping out of the pool. I will leave them on the CBS page until picks lock for week 2 just in case they just missed the deadline this week. This has happened! When picks lock next week I will remove all the franchise who are still not participating. If 1 or 2 do enter picks next week the prizes will change a little bit.

     I will be tracking the winnings on my web page not the CBS site. Just go to the "Pool Finances 2024" page to view them.

      Several people had problems entering their picks on the new CBS site this week. Part of the problem is that people have dragged their picks into their preferred order but not clicked on their winners. I would suggest you may want to click on the winners first and then drag them into order. In truth this is piss poor programming on the part of CBS - the save button should not be enabled until all winners have been chosen and I have emailed to them suggesting this but you can drag a donkey to water but you cannot make him into a racehorse or however that is supposed to go.

      All I can say is that Brady Bunch missed the memo about getting your friends (and I use that term loosely) WITH NO FOOTBALL KNOWLEDGE to join the pool.

     The box at the bottom of the main page on my site is not for members of this pool but rather for the dimwits who phone me every week or so, usually when I am in traffic, offering to "improve your page so as to increase business".

The Monica Award - My "B" team, Show Us Your TD's ended up 1 point from the prize pool. It is a bit disappointing but for me that is a good start - just not a great one!

    The POW Award - Rarely do I give the Play Of the Week award to a losing pick but this week there is no alternative. It is obvious that the only deserving pick was made by Zach Munt who downgraded the Bengals and took them to win but only for 1 point. Zack lost a lot fewer points than the rest of the pool. 19 franchises had this game as their top (16 point) pick. Congrats Zach - a good start for you!

    The Celler Dweller - I am not going to pile on Hummer this week. He probably had very good picks but just failed to enter them properly. BadGasBrown on the other hand ended up trailing the next competitor but over 20 points. 22 actually but who is counting. Bruce ended up with 47 points. If he were to double that to 94 he would have ended up in 49th place. This is the definition of a dismal week. Thank you Bruce for making the rest of us feel better about our efforts.

   Without further ado, this weeks winners, and we honour and congratulate them are....

1st - Zach Munt Zach wrote to me, "Let’s go San Fran, thanks to Davis for getting me paid. Idiot had me in the last one and got smoked, guess he wanted to lose again" Well, Davis, you may be able to console yourself with the though that he called YOU and idiot and then sent in the team photo that is now posted on my page.

3rd - Sassy Chassis - I liked Krystal a lot better when her picks looked like something a monkey would achieve using a dart board. Now it almost appears as if she knows what she is doing. Bit scary that!

4th (T) - Ben Naaykens - If you are another friend of Davis' Ben - well, you know what he thought about your abilities. That is all I dare say about that

4th (T)- Dobies - John never responded to his EofH. Things are going to the dogs, and that is a good thing.

     Rather than a quote I am going to feature a Thought Of the Week every week this season. I am starting off with, "Still trying to get my head around the fact that 'Take Out' can mean food, dating, or murder " Ponder on that for a while! Now the pressure is on... can I come up with 17 more thoughts for the season?

       'Til next week then...

          The Rhino