Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): DOOMSDAY SUNDAY weekends are supposed to be brimming with nail-biting suspense in which several handicapping battles usually go down to the wire. In past DOOMSDAY SUNDAYS, the Bookie Challenge competitions have seen Divisional championships change hands, and there were also several times in which regular-season championships were finally determined by a few DOOMSDAY SUNDAY showdowns. Oh, and never mind that the postseason qualifications for divisional wild cards and the league's Special-Wild-card were downright ubiquitous in a bevy of previous competitions, meaning that those lower-end playoff qualifications were rife with some captivating do-or-die finales that would almost always have the handicappers in the league buzzing about them. But on this past DOOMSDAY SUNDAY? Forget about it! It were as if the football Gods canceled DOMSDAY SUNDAY, of which to the Bookie-Challenge die-hards was something akin to canceling Christmas. Yes, the only thing that happened on this past DOOMSDAY Sunday was that nothing happened. Well, maybe not, maybe that last statement has to be walked back. In retrospect, two things did happen on this past DOOMSDAY SUNDAY that are worthy of touching upon in this week's weekly review. The first one involves this year's top handicapper in the league, of whom is the highly over-confident Biased Nihilist. The second thing to happen this past weekend was the highly contentious battle-of-attrition for this year's Hail Mary divisional championship between Kr@tos and dbucc. But before getting into the specifics of the Nihilist's weekend and the handicapping-duel-to-the death between Kr@tos and dbucc, let's backtrack and explain what was meant earlier when it was written that "nothing happened" on DOOMSDAY Sunday.

Amazingly, and which is something that's hard to believe, not a single slot in all four of the league's divisional races changed hands this past weekend, not a single one. The Biased Nihilist won the regular-season championship by a landslide over Vikings17 (55pts vs 43pts) after he connected on the only 6-point parlay hit from this past weekend. Moreover, in the previous weekend, week #17, the Nihilist had already mathematically clinched the Corozal divisional title over his son jcvike28, and in turn, jcvike had already clinched the division's wild-card slot over Hall-of-Fame City Kid, albeit by default (Jcvike won divisional wild card because HOF City Kid had quit the competition before the start of this year's divisional races). As already mentioned, the only divisional race that went down to the wire was the one in the Hail Mary divisional race between divisional leader Kr@tos and second-place dbucc. In the last-two remaining divisional races, Vikings17 won the Run-&-Shoot divisional title over second-place Driveline by eight points, and over in the Red Zone divisional race, 7mick7 easily held on to win its divisional championship over Blitzkrieg by nine points. As it concerns the divisional wild cards and the Special-Wild-Card, the divisional wild cards were won by jcvike28 (Corozal), dbucc (Hail Mary), Driveline (Run-&-Shoot) and Blitzkrieg (Red Zone). The Special-Wild-Card entrant was maintained by Jets69 (from the Hail Mary division). The lowest playoff qualification, that of an "at-large participant", were designated to Kennypie86 (Hail Mary), TCU (Run-&-Shoot), Theopholis (Run-&-Shoot) and Matty_Ice (Red Zone). Not surprisingly, both rookie entrants this season--Kennypie86 and Matty_Ice--qualified as lowly "at-large participants" and neither handicapper did anything special to be distinguished in their greenhorn debuts. As a consequence, and barring a spectacular performance in the upcoming postseason by either one of the newbies, there probably won't be a Rookie-of-the-Year Award doled out for this year's competition.

Now, let's go back to the two storylines from this past weekend that are worth reviewing. First, there was the Biased Nihilist and his stunning performance on this past DOOMSDAY SUNDAY. Simply put, the Nihilist's handicapping performance at the end of this year's regular season was quite fitting. It was fitting because he put the final touches on one of the best regular-season handicapping performances of all time. The "Corozal Kid" connected on one of his best-bet picks and also nailed down a 6-point parlay winner in which he easily won each of his parlay picks within his parlay combination: Minnesota (-7) over Green Bay (final Minn 16-3), New England (-11) over Miami (final NE 38-10), and Buffalo (-7) over NY Jets (final Buff 35-8). Subsequently, the Nihilist's 7-point outing would turn out to be good enough for him to register his record-breaking fifth overall week-won for this year's regular season (previous all-time record of 4 was held by Tony Soprano). But more impressively, the Biased Nihilist set the new all-time scoring record for a regular-season of handicapping after he tallied his 55th point of this year's regular season (the previous all-time record of 54 pts was co-shared by the Nihilist and Soprano--both tied the record back in Challenge year #11). After this year's regular season came to its close, the Nihilist led the league in points scored (55pts), weeks-won (5), and 6-point parlay hits (4). Also, after this past weekend, the Nihilist became only the third handicapper in the history of the Bookie Challenge to not have a scoreless outing for an entire regular season, meaning he never recorded a goose egg nor a golden goose egg in this year's competition. Let's not also forget that after the Biased Nihilist won this year's regular-season championship over Vikings17, he not only snapped Vikings17's two-year streak of winning back-to-back regular-season titles but he also collected the $100 payout for winning the overall regular-season championship, not to mention that the Nihilist had already won $50 for winning this year's overall number-one top seed at this year's divisional seeding.

Regardless of how riveting this year's regular season turned out to be for the Biased Nihilist, and regardless of how the Nihilist has so far dominated his peers in this year's 15th annual Bookie Challenge competition, the handicapper who hails by the username of dbucc is the one who provided this past weekend's mind-blowing theatrics. More popularly known by his Challenge moniker as "the Joker", this past weekend dbucc almost had the last laugh over Kr@tos, who entered DOOMSDAY SUNDAY with a 7-point divisional lead over second-place dbucc for this year's Hail Mary divisional championship. In turn, dbucc had entered the past weekend with the slim and narrow leads of just two points over third-place Jets69 and a three-point lead over fourth-place Kennypie86. In other words, dbucc was far from clinching the division's wild-card slot. However, dbucc would eventually hang on to his divisional wild card after he tallied three points for this past weekend, of which he tallied the three points on the strength of two best-bet winners and a one-point exact-score hit. But, with a little more luck, the Joker's weekend could have easily turned out to be a lot better, as in he could have won the Hail Mary divisional championship over Kr@tos. In fact, Kr@tos ought to be counting his lucky stars that he was able to hold on and win this year's Hail Mary divisional crown by five points (40pts vs 35pts) over the Donald (aka dbucc).

This past weekend had started out innocently enough for dbucc after he connected on both of the best bets he had decided to take on this past Saturday, of which his two best-bet winners comprised Carolina (+3) over Tampa Bay and Seattle (-1½) over San Francisco. On DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, both Kr@tos and dbucc were doing fantastic with their respective parlay combinations, with Kratos having already won two of his parlay picks within his three-team parlay combo. More specifically, Kr@tos easily won his parlay pick of Buffalo (-7) over the Green Slime (aka NY Jets) and Jacksonville (-13) over Tennessee. However, Kr@tos would eventually lose his third parlay selection during the second-slate of games played on this past DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, of which his third parlay pick was Chicago (-3) over Detroit (Det won 19-16). All in all, this past weekend Kr@tos only scored one point for the weekend, which the point came in the form of a best-bet he had chosen for this past Monday night's game between Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Ironically, the ONLY point that Kr@tos won over the weekend was his best-bet selection of the Pittsburgh Steelers (+3) to cover against the Baltimore Ravens. Monday's night game, as it concerned who between Kr@tos and dbucc would win the Hail Mary divisional championship, came down to the pontspread winner between the Ravens and the Steelers.

The Monday night game between the Ravens and Steelers was made more enthralling by the fact that dbucc needed Baltimore to defeat Pittsburgh in order for him to win his 6-point parlay combination and end his weekend with at least a PERFECTA outing (worth 8 pts). Still, though, because Kr@tos would end his weekend with 40 points for the regular season, it meant that the Joker needed to at least score nine points for the DOOMSDAY SUNDAY weekend, seeing as dbucc needed that ninth point to win the divisional title outright over Kr@tos. Otherwise, if dbucc ended up in a tie in total points with Kr@tos, he would lose the divisional title to Kr@tos because of the tibreaker Kr@tos would hold over him (more best-bet wins). And so it came to pass that with 10:52 left to play in the 4th quarter, the Ravens and Steelers would go back and forth and score successive touchdowns. Incredibly, the Ravens scored a TD with just 3:49 left to play in the game to take a 4-point lead over the Steelers (24-20), and even more extraordinary was that when the Steelers got that 24-20 lead late in the game, the 24-20 score was exactly what dbucc had chosen as his exact-score selection for the game! So as crazy as it played out, with 3:49 left to play in the game, and with the Ravens winning 24-20, dbucc was staring at the possibility of winning the Hail Mary divisional title by FIVE points over Kr@tos. However, with just 55 seconds left to play in the game, the Steelers scored another TD, but if one could have believed it, the Steelers missed the extra point and had to settle for a 26-24 lead over the Ravens. At that point in time dbucc's heart must have broken in half. Oh, don't get it wrong, the Ravens marched down to the Steelers' 24-yard line, and ran two plays from the Steelers' 24-yard line, of which one never knows--maybe someone breaks a play and finds the end zone, huh? The point being made here is that dbucc still had a chance, although it was a miniscule chance at best, but he still had that chance. However, as impossible as the odds were, dbucc would have needed a miraculous TD that would have still given him the Hail Mary divisional title--but no dice. That's just the way it goes sometimes. The strange thing about the end to this past Monday night's game was that Kr@tos ironically won his only point for the weekend after the Steelers (his only winning best-bet) covered the spread. Just as strange was that dbucc picked up his third point of the weekend after he ended up correcty selecting theRavens to score 24 points on this Monday night (Pitts won 26-24). Also worth noting is that dbucc's heart was not the only one that got broken after Tyler Loop missed a 44-yard field goal that could have sent the Ravens to the playoffs. Instead, as a consequence of the "wide right" miss by Loop, 7mick7, jcvike28, Driveline, and Vikings17 each saw their preseason Super Bowl pick of Baltimore (worth 10 pts) to win this year's Super Bowl bite the dust.