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Some terse notes from Week 13:

• More 14’s. Good job.
• Peepa’s now the leader. Congrats so much.
• Going down to the wire. Just as I’d hoped.

Pick good.

Some Week 12 notes:

• Colleen and Uncle Ed were perfect through the one o’clock games, but their bids for perfection were undone by some questionable picks thereafter.
• It was a high-scoring week overall:
  • Brady and Marie suffered hard-luck, last-place finishes despite posting double-digit scores.
  • I, your fearless yet gracious leader, put up a 12 – tied for my second-best performance of the season – but still gave up ground to all of my closest challengers.
  • Through Week 11, the highest score of the year was a 13. Seven players matched or bettered that in Week 12.
• Ciara topped everyone with a 14, setting a new season high for the league. This officially marks the culmination of the best comeback story in McManus Picks history. After 12 years of utter apathy, Ciara’s perfect participation to-date has put her picking prowess on full display, as she now sits just five off the overall lead. From the ashes, she has risen.

As we enter the fiercely competitive home stretch, however, her flight to the top won’t be without obstacle. Choose wisely.

The following things happened in Week 10:

• The “big boy” indeed came back: Brady emerged from the Pit to claim a share of the win with Cait and Uncle Ed.
• His dad, however, did the exact opposite. Matt and Ciara couldn’t handle the pressure at the top of the leaderboard and bungled their way to a last-place finish.
• Marie’s boldness mostly gaveth, but also tooketh. Her hipster picks of the Bucs and Niners put her in a tie for the lead heading into the Monday night game. But she was denied a win when she tried to stick it even further to the man by being the only one to pick Jay Cutler on the road.

Good luck everyone. The stakes are rising.

Congrats to Matt, who took home the outright win in Week 9 and moved into a tie for the overall lead with me. Bittersweet for Matt though, as he also saw his firstborn son banished to the Pit of Misery.

It’s tight at the top right now: Five players are within three points of the lead. And with outcomes as unpredictable as ever, who knows who’ll be leading by next week?

Pick wisely, my friends.

Congratulations to me for going perfect in Week 8. It was just the second time in league history and the first since Tim did it in Week 4 of ’09. It’s been so long that the following things were true back then:

• Ciara was a junior in high school.
• Brett Favre was still in the league.
• Cait and Joe were fiances.
• The Browns had never won a Super Bowl.
• Someone else was living at The Bungalow.

Try it, it’s fun!

Picks are up. The Thursday nighter is as follows:

New England Patriots (2-2) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2-1)

This will be a hotly contested game in one sense, as the franchises once claimed the top two spots on this prestigious list.

As mentioned previously, Nan and Peepa took home the win in Week 4, in possibly shady fashion. We will monitor their performance in the weeks to come and make sure they’re not conspiring to split the non-existent winnings.

If in fact they are, their plot would be especially sinister, given the true underdog quest that they would be denying. For atop the leaderboard sits Ciara, who previously had never even submitted picks in four-straight weeks to start a season. But submit she has, and get most of them correct she also has.

Good luck, Ciara. We’re all rooting for you. Especially those of us with six titles who couldn’t care less who wins at this point.

Picks are up. Here’s tonight’s game:

Chicago Bears (1-2) at Green Bay Packers (2-1)

A few Week 3 notes:

• Another strong performance by Marie put her in sole possession of first place. Her performance wasn’t as strong as Joseph’s, however, who claimed the outright win.* His dad, like the Giants, outright lost.
• Aunt Terry failed to submit picks. But because I failed to explain all of the rules to our newcomers, I gave her home teams instead of a goose egg. This leniency backfired because she ended up with 11 correct, good for a tie with Joseph! Her penalty is now the shame of sharing a win* with a four-year-old despite not earning it at all.
• For our newcomers: A number of years ago, we voted to give a figurative goose egg to those who fail to submit picks. It has ruined Ciara’s picking career.

Good luck!

*Joseph gets credit for the win, since Aunt Terry’s 11 was achieved by default.

[Editor’s note: Once again, this was just an email that got long enough for me to justify using it as a post.]