Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): The 14th weekend of this year's Bookie Challenge competition was more of the same as it concerned the mundane handicapping that has become the new normal by the handicappers of the competition. With the exception of TCU, aka Too Tall Tommy, who this past weekend nailed his first 6-point parlay hit of this season and vacated 4th place of the Run-&-Shoot divisional race, and as a result, he surpassed Theopholis for third place in the division, there was only one other slight change of divisional hands and it took place within the Red Zone divisional race. More specifically, Blitzkrieg also vacated the cellar of the Red Zone division, but was only able to gain second place within the division over rookie Matty_Ice because of the league's number-one tiebreaker, of which is more best-bet wins (Blitzkrieg 12 wins vs Matty_Ice 10 wins). In the case of Blitzkrieg, despite the tiebreaker victory to gain second place over Matty_Ice, Blitzkrieg still trails the Red Zone Divisional leader 7mick7 by a substantial 10 points (the Mick 30 pts vs the Blitz 20 pts). All in all, when considering that every divisional race is being handedly led by its respective divisional leaders, as is evident by the following divisional leads in the Corozal division (the Nihilist 18-pt lead), the Run-&-Shoot division (Vikings17 10-pt lead), the Red Zone division (7mick7 10-pt lead), and in the Hail Mary division (Kr@tos 8-pt lead), the one race that is hogging all the oxygen in the contest is the race for this year's regular-season championship. That particular battle for this year's regular-season championship is mainly a three-way handicapping war of attrition among the Biased Nihilist (38 pts), Vikings17 (36 pts), and Kr@tos (35 pts). But before anyone else joins the three-way fray, they've got to start somewhere, and start right now because having time to mount a season-changing comeback is not a luxury that many handicappers have. So, in that regard, Too Tall Tommy doesn't really have the time to admire his kick-start to perhaps becoming relevant once again as a main contender for this year' overall Bookie Challenge championship. In other words, Too Tall Tommy is going to have to be a lights-out handicapper and take his handicapping skills to the next level if he wants to topple Vikings17 from the divisional lead, or for a more doable goal, he can at least try to replace Driveline for the division's wild-card slot.

This past weekend, Too Tall Tommy exhibited a familiar handicapping moxie from his early years in his Challenge career and finally connected on one of his parlay combinations that consisted of only over/under selections. To begin with, TCU lost both of his best bets on this past Sunday, but his overall parlay combination ran the gamut for the three stages of the games on this past Sunday, to mean that one of his over/under selections within his parlay game was scheduled within the first slate of games on this past Sunday, and his second over/under selection was scheduled within the second slate of games, and finally, his last over/under selection was the one played on Sunday night, or the primetime game. Things got real interesting for Too Tall Tommy after he correctly predicted the first two games during the earlier slates of games played on this past Sunday. Specifically, he selected the game between Indianapolis and Jacksonville to go over the total of 48 points and the game eventually ended up with a combined 55 points being scored. For the second game of his parlay combination Too Tall Tommy had selected the game between Chicago and Green Bay to go over 45 points--and fortunately for TCU--it did (49 combined pts scored). And so with two games won on his parlay combo on this past Sunday, TCU entered Sunday night's game needing the game between Houston and Kansas City to say below 42 combined points for him to knock down his first parlay hit of this season. What a pick! The Texans' defense went on to smother the Chiefs' offense enroute to pulling off a 20-10 upset of the Chiefs, and in Kansas City no less. The 6-point parlay winner was TCU's first parlay winner since week #8 of last year's competition, of which after doing the math, it's been 25 long handicapping outings since Too Tall Tommy had connected on a 6-point parlay winner. To say the least, it was not only a much needed parlay winner but also it was a crucially needed momentum builder for the die-hard Dallas fan. Additionally, because no one else in the competition connected on a 6-point parlay winner, TCU easily was credited with the "week-won" despite him losing both of his best bets.

While Too Tall Tommy's handicapping story from this past weekend made for a "feel-good story", what happened to Jets69 was so painful that trying to describe it could possibly make tears well up within every participants' eyes. In what has to be deemed as the number-one "bad beat" of this year's competition, Broadway Al, aka Jets69, endured the most excruciating defeat of a 6-point parlay hit in recent memory after the Denver Broncos botched a sure-fire pointspread cover over the Las Vegas Raiders. It was downright nasty! What follows is how the agonizing backdoor cover by the Raiders detrimentally affected Jets69's weekend, not to mention that it's possible the "bad beat" could also serve as the dagger that is plunged into Jets69's playoff hopes of pulling off a decent postseason qualification. Here's how it all went down. "Broadway Al" had chosen a parlay combination that consisted of Seattle (-7 over Atl), the LA Rams (-8 over Ari, and Denver (-7 over LV). As it turned out, Seattle clobbered Atlanta 37-9 and the LA Rams ran roughshod over Arizona 45-17. And from all appearances, it looked as if Jets69 was headed for a third blowout win within his parlay combination and his first parlay hit of this season after the Broncos defense delivered a goal-line stand at their own 10-yard line to keep the Raiders from cutting into their 21-7 lead with slightly over 14 minutes left to play in the 4th quarter. Now granted, the drive by the Raiders that stalled at the Broncos' 10-yard line surely made for some anxious moments for Jets69, but what happened next definitely made "Broadway Al" breathe a big sigh of relief. Specifically, the Broncos put together one of those back-breaking drives that, for all intents and purposes, should have iced the pointspread cover for Jets69, as they went on a 19-play drive that covered 90 yards and chewed up a whopping 10 minutes and 17 seconds off the play clock. The long and grueling drive ended with the Broncos kicking a 23-yard field goal to extend their lead to an insurmountable 24-7 edge with just 3:56 left to play in the game. However, sometimes things are not what they appear to be.

On the Raiders' ensuing possession, it took them only six plays and 1:39 off the play clock to traverse 65 yards and score a touchdown that reduced their deficit to the Broncos to 10 points (24-14). At that point in the game, and by all rights, the Broncos should have run out the clock on their next possession as there only remained 2:17 left to play in the game. However, just six plays later, after starting their drive from their own 44-yard line, the Broncos drove to the Raiders' 34 but turned the ball over on downs with just 1:56 left to play in the game. Amazingly, the Raiders drove 44 yards and in a stunning decision they kicked a 44 yard field goal with time expiring. It was a meaningless field goal, to say the least, but it was not a meaningless field goal to Jets69, who horrifically saw his fait-accompli pointspread cover bite the dust and destroy his golden opportunity to make some serious headway within the Hail Mary divisional race. Even the Biased Nihilist thought that the Broncos were a sure-fire pointspread cover that he prematurely chalked it up on his hard copy of his Picks-&-Results page as a 6-point parlay hit by Jets69, only to have to scratch over the "W" for Jets69's Denver selection and change it to an "X", which signifies a loss on the Biased Nihilist's hard copies of his weekly Pick-&-Results pages.

It's a crying shame that Jets69 suffered what has to be deemed as the worst bad beat of this season, especially when considering that the failed 6-point parlay attempt could have rejuvenated his hard-luck handicapping season if only he could have come through with a parlay winner, if only fate had not been so cruel to him, not only on this past weekend but also on many previous outings this season. Case in point, after this past weekend's excruciating near-miss of a 6-point parlay winner, it marked a league-leading eighth outing this season in which Jets69 produced near-misses of his parlay combinations. As a consequence of the debilitating bad luck, Jets69 continued to stay in the dungeon of the Hail Mary divisional race and is presently a dispiriting 15 points behind the division's leader Kr@tos, who always seems to be a thorn in Broadway Al's side ever since their battle for last year's Rookie-of-the-Year honors. Moving forward, only Jets69 can pick himself up from the ground and dust himself off after this past weekend's devastating outing and stay the course, pray that his bad luck changes and that he can hit a couple of 6-point parlay winners down the stretch of this year's regular season. If anything, Jets69 can possibly pull out the Hail Mary divisional wild card over upstart rookie Kennypie86, as he presently trails the "Ken Doll" by a 7-point deficit, of which is a deficit that makes overtaking Kennypie86 very doable.

• WEEKLY TICKER..................After this past weekend, the Biased Nihilist has yet to register a goos egg or a golden goose egg and is trying to become only the 3rd handicapper in the history of the Bookie Challenge to go a complete season without having a scoreless outing. Only dbucc and jcvike28 have accomplished the extraordinary feat in previous Bookie Challenge competitions..........................The Red Zone division is the only division in which all of its divisional counterparts--7mick7, Blitzkrieg, and Matty_Ice--all have losing best-bet records....................In one of the strangest statistical anomalies of the Bookie Challenge competition, in weeks' #11 and #12 of this year's contest, both Blitzkrieg and rookie Matty_Ice each posted identical 0-1-1 best-bet records for each of the aforementioned weeks. To note, no one in the history of the Bookie Challenge has ever registered an 0-1-1 best-bet record for two consecutive weekends, so imagine the odds that two handicappers would each do it for the first time and in the same consecutive weekends...........................Entering this past weekend, the Nihilist had four consecutive parlay combinations in which he did not win a singe parlay pick within his combined parlay combinations for four-straight weeks. However, he finally snapped the parlay futility after recording one winning parlay pick within his parlay combo for this past weekend. But in a major coincidence, Kr@tos failed to register any winning parlay picks within his parlay combination over this past weekend, of which marked the fourth-straight weekend he has done as much. Unfortunately for Kr@tos, he could possibly run his parlay slump to FIVE weeks in a row in which he has missed all his parlay picks within all of his parlay combinations........................