Parts Unknown (DP--Disassociated Press): DOOMSDAY SUNDAY came and went this past weekend with a little less handicapping theatrics than was anticipated after many of the predicted scenarios concerning the probable outcomes of three of this year's four divisional races pretty much played out as projected, to include the all-important battle for this year's regular-season championship. That's not to say that DOOMSDAY SUNDAY didn't have a few pockets of heart-pounding suspense throughout the final two days of the regular season, nor was this past weekend totally void of any nail-biting outings by a handicapper or two from the Challenge field that would subsequently impact any divisional races as happened in the previous weekend (wk #17). But if the truth be told as it concerns the main reason for the somewhat subdued level of handicapping drama that transpired over this past weekend's DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, it was primarily because three of the league's four divisional leaders who entered the regular-season finale this past weekend each had substantial leads in total points over their respective second-place divisional counterparts. To be more precise, heading into this past weekend Vikings17 held an 11-point lead over DawgPound for the Run-&-Shoot divisional title, 7mick7 held an 8-point lead over the Hall-of-Fame City Kid for the Red Zone divisional title, and the Biased Nihilist held a 7-point lead over Theopholis for the Corozal divisional title. Additionally, before this past weekend's handicapping action got underway, Vikings17 held a 4-point lead over 7mick7 for this year's regular-season championship. Therefore, because the three aforementioned divisional leaders were all virtual shoo-in favorties to seize divisional crowns with little fanfare, their respective divisional leads heading into this past weekend essentially took some of the wind out of the weekend's overall drama. Also, apart from the outcome of the highly contested Hail Mary divisional race, the ultimate winner of the Special Wild Card, and a handful of all-time records that stood to be broken in the final weekend of the regular season, everything was already pretty much settled in the competition as it pertained to the anticipated finishes of most of this year's divisional races. Consequently, as it turned out, Vikings17 not only won the regular-season championship by two points over 7mick7 (50 pts vs 48 pts) but he also won the Run-&-Shoot divisional title over DawgPound by nine points (50 pts vs 41 pts). By the same token, 7mick7 easily won the Red Zone divisional title over HOF City Kid by 10 points (48 pts vs 38 pts), while the Biased Nihilist defeated Theopholis for the Corozal divisional title by eight points (44 pts vs 36 pts). All in all, it came as no surprise that all those aforementioned season-ending scenarios played out as previously figured they would, of which by and large left the handicapping excitement for the closing weekend of the regular season to be hogged by the conclusion of the Hail Mary divisional race, and to a lesser extent, the winner of the Special Wild Card. Oh, and not for nothing, but that final showdown for the Hail Mary divisional championship among jcvike28, Driveline, and catman23 turned out to be the handicapping humdinger that is was previously billed up to be, and then some.

Heading into this past weekend's DOOMSDAY SUNDAY, jcvike owned a precarious 1-point divisional lead, 37 points vs 36 points, over second-place Driveline for the Hail Mary championship, and he also held a 7-point lead over last-place catman (37 pts vs 30 pts). In fact,it was the only divisional race on the final weekend of the regular season in which all three divisional combatants could still outright win the division by knocking down a PERFECTA outing. To say the least, all three handicappers left it all out there, of which their combined handicapping efforts treated the Bookie Challenge competition to one of the better endings to a divisional race in the history the Bookie Challenge, maybe even the best ever. As unbelievable as it may sound, out of all of the trio's combined selections for the weekend, 15 selections in all (excluding exact-score picks), there was only ONE losing selection out of their combined 15 picks for this past weekend. Unfortunately for jcvike, it was him who suffered the one losing selection after he misfired on one of his parlay picks--Chicago (+3) to cover versus Green Bay. The game turned out be a close one, which the Packers only led 7-6 at halftime. Eventually, however, the Packers were able to position themselves to cover the 3-point spread after they scored on their opening possession of the 2nd half and increased their lead t0 14-6, of which they would maintain the lead in the game for the rest of the way, and more to the detriment of jcvike, the Packers never relinquished its 3-point pointspread cover. The Bears, however, didn't go down without a fight, and halfway through the 4th quarter they faced a 2nd-and-6 at the Packers' 34 yard line. It was a drive that turned out to be jcvike's last gasp to hang on and win the Hail Mary divisional title. But it just wasn't meant to be, as an offensive holding penalty by the Bears set them back to the Packers' 44 yard line, and worse yet, on the next play Justin Fields was sacked at the 50 yard line for a 6-yard loss, leaving the Bears to convert a 3rd-&-22 to pull out a first down, of which they failed to do. The Pack eventually won the game by a 17-9 final, and as a consequence, jcvike lost his parlay combination after the first slate of games from this past Sunday became finals. It got worse from there for jcvike, as the rest of his DOOMSDAY SUNDAY resulted in nothing but a disappointing dose of doom after he had to witness both Driveline and catman each blast out PERFECTA outings. Luckily for "El Duque" (aka jcvike), his two best-bet winners over the weekend at least enabled him to narrowly edge out the Tomcat from Handicapping Alley for the division's wild card by just one point (39 pts vs 38 pts). But it was Driveline whose name would end up being featured on the competition's marquee lights for this past weekend after the Hail Mary divisional race was all said and done. For starters, Driveline nailed down a one-point exact-score hit on Saturday night's exact-score game between Houston and Indianapolis, of which the exact-score winner, Driveline's first of the season, subsequently allowed him to edge out catman by just one point (9 pts vs 8 pts) for the week-won after both handicappers registered PERFECTA outings to close out their respective weekends. But above everything, the 9-point outing by Driveline enabled him to dramatically win the Hail Mary divisional championship over jcvike by a final 6-point margin of 45 points versus 39 points. Moreover, the highly suspenseful and clutch outing by Driveline has to be ranked right up there with the best finishes by handicappers who have won divisional crowns at the 11th hour of regular seasons from previous Bookie Challenge competitions.

To best accurately define Driveline's 11-year Bookie Challenge career, which includes this season, would require to invoke Winston Curchill and one of his iconic quotes, specifically his qoute about Russia after they and the Germans signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on August 23, 1939. The quote goes like this: "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." When keeping that Curchill quote in mind, it needs to be added that Driveline's handicapping heroics from this past weekend masked some handicapping baggage after he won a second straight divisional title for the first time in his Challenge career, which is something extraordinary when considering that over his first-nine years of handicapping the Bookie Challenge he had failed to win so much as one divisional title. Regardless, the divisional title he won this past weekend marked only the second time in the history of the Bookie Challenge that a divisional champion won a divisional crown and also led the league with the most amount of best-bet losses, of which Driveline now co-shares with H.E. Pennypacker the shoddy all-time tally of 22 best-bet losses by divisional champions. To be totally concise, handicapping best bets has been the bane of Driveline's Bookie Challenge career, as is quite clear after he entered this season with the worst all-time best-bet record (214-255-16--.456 win%) among all active participants who qualify for the league's all-time records. And just to get a better idea of how truly bad his handicapping of best bets has been throughout his Challenge career, just consider the following: 1) Driveline presently owns the worst all-time, single-season best-bet record of 12-35-2 that factors out to a pathetic .255 winning percentage, of which is a deplorable overall handicapping feat that he accomplished in Challenge year #8. 2) Driveline also holds the worst all-time best-bet record for a Challenge postseason, of which is a pitiful tally of 1-12-0 (.077 Win%) that he had also set in Challenge year #8. What's more, while we're at it, let's point out one other handicapping futility that is a shameful part of Driveline's handicapping track record, as in he is the present all-time leader when it comes to producing scoreless outings (57 scoreless outings in all, which includes 51 goose eggs and six golden goose eggs). But let's not go overboard with the bashing of Driveline's handicapping faults, for there is another side of Driveline's handicapping game that over the last-four years accentuates his penchant for pulling off tremendous handicapping miracles, the types of miracles that has transformed him into one of the league's top handicappers. Simply put, the stunning reversal of Driveline's handicapping over the past four seasons is the reason why he's better known nowadays as the "Fisher of Winners" and not as the "Fisher of Losers", which was the disparaging moniker he was mainly attributed with during his first-six seasons of his Challenge career.

But before hashing over some of the best highlights from Driveline's enthralling rise to Bookie Challenge stardom over his recent handicapping seasons, it's best to first point out what has been the main catalyst behind his extraordinary turnabout, meaning the one that morphed him from being the league's worst handicapper over the span of his first-six seasons of handicapping the Challenge competition into being one of the league's top handicappers over the course of his last-five seasons (to include this season). Without question, it has been his highly laudable trait for not being a quitter and for adroitly playing out the remainder of Bookie Challenge competitions regardless of how dire those competitions may have seemed to appear. Case in point, in the postseason of Challenge year #9 he entered the playoffs with the Special-Wild-Card qualification. And because he played out the string in that year's competition, he registered a breathtaking handicapping comeback in that season's final playoff round, or the Super Bowl round, and racked up a record-setting 27 points for that year's final round. The shocking year-end performance enabled the "Fisher of Winners" to steal the overall Bookie Challenge championship from then-rookie carldaddy in the closing minutes of the game, and thanks to Kansas City's comeback victory that allowed Driveline to win 10 bonus points after he selected KC to win all the marbles in that year's competition. The championship run in Challenge #9 by Driveline could have been considered his breakthrough season, but his real breakthrough season came in Challenge year #12, or last year's competition, after Driveline won his second overall Bookie Challenge competition in spectacular fashion. Specifically, he not only won his first-ever divisional championship but also hauled in that season's regular-season championship, not to mention he pockected the $40 third-place prize for winning the regular-season title. Moreover, after he registered a career-high of 46 points in last year's regular season, Driveline then proceeded to set an all-time scoring record for that postseason after he rattled off 54 total points, and when adding the 46 points he tallied in the regular season, the "Fisher of Winners" set an astonishing single-season scoring record of 100 points. What's also awe-inspiring about Driveline's championship run in last year's competition is that he had to make a stunning comeback in last year's postseason after he had started the first round with a goose egg outing. Once again, however, Driveline exhibited his no-quit demeanor and rallied to win last year's overall Bookie Challenge, but this time around he ultimately did it in a runaway fashion after he recorded a third-round 6-point parlay hit, of which was his first ever for a postseason and one that resulted in another high-scoring playoff round (20 pts). He then followed that third-round scoring outburst with yet another scoring barrage of 22 points in the Super Bowl round. And as good fortune would have it, not only did Kansas City again provide him with 10 bonus points for having selected them in the preseason to win last year's Super Bowl, as happened in his championship run of Challenge year #9, but he also benefitted by winning his preseason Super Bowl matchup selection (KC vs Phil) and so was awarded five bonus points after last years NFL Championship round.

If anybody reading this weekly review is wondering why Driveline is getting the lion's share of handicapping love in this write-up, it is because he's very much continuing to display his recent flair for pounding out late-season handicapping dramatics, and he's doing it again in clutch time, or at the critical closing stages of a Bookie Challenge competition, when everything is on the line. But more to the point, he is one of three divisional titlists, and with all three being wily veterans of the competition, who are experienced and battle-tested enough to seriously challenge the preordained notion that Vikings17's odds to win this year's overall Bookie Challenge championship might not be all that it's being hyped up to be. To put it differently, what has been lost in the shuffle, what was not brought to the forefront of the competition because the Nihilist was hospitalized and couldn't pen a weekly review for week #16, is the raw fact that Vikings17 cannot win any substantial bonus points off his preseason Super Bowl selections, as Cincinnati, Vikings17's pick to win this year's Super Bowl, have been eliminated from the playoffs. But the rest of this year's divisional champions--the Biased Nihilist, Driveline, and 7mick7--all have both of their respective preseason Super Bowl picks still fully intact, and if any of those potential scoring opportunities come to fruition, they could possibly turn out to be the difference makers in the final two rounds of this year's postseason. But what is almost always the case in the Challenge playoffs, winning an overall Bookie Challenge is going to come down to which handicapper gets the super-hot handicapping hand, can boost his scoring if he's fortunate enough to hit a 6-point parlay or two in the postseason, and can reap the benefits of winning bonus points from his preseason Super Bowl selections. So, with that being said, here's some food for thought, out of all four of this year's divisional champions--only the Biased Nihilist and Driveline have already shown that they are very much capable of pulling off those three aforementioned handicapping manuevers to win overall Bookie Challenge championships...and it's because they've already been there and done it.

• CHALLENGE FIELD SURPRISINGLY ENDS REGULAR SEASON ON A HIGH NOTE AFTER REBOUNDING FROM THE WORST-EVER START TO A BOOKIE CHALLENGE SEASON: If one can believe it, this year's Challenge field battled back from the worst-ever start to a regular season by a Challenge field, and as a result, over this past weekend this year's field banged out an eye-popping measure of redemption, and so complete was the redemptiom that it amazingly salvaged the field's regular season. To its credit, the field flipped its overall statistical line for this year's regular season from the red to the black, and did as much on many statistical levels. To begin with, over the last-three weekends, the field sandwiched an appalling best-bet performance from week #17 in between two of its better best-bet outings of the season, which coincidentally turned out to be identical best-bet tallies of 17-9-0 (each good for an outstanding .654 win%). More importantly, the field culminated its regular season with an overall best-bet record of 249-237-14, which factored out to a .512 winning percentage. The winning best-bet performance for this year's regular season marked the fourth time over the span of the last-five seasons, which includes this season, that respective Challenge fields have posted winning best-bet tallies. Additionally, this year's field registered the lowest amount of golden goose eggs, just three for its regular season, and only the two golden goose eggs laid by the field from the Bookie Challenge's inaugural season had a lower amount of golden goose eggs produced for its respective season. What's more, the Challenge field even ended its regular season with a winning consensus record, which was a pretty decent record of 15-10-0 that resulted in a praise-worthy .600 winning percentage.

  Another handicapping feat from this year's field was something that also ended in a positive note, of which was the overall parlay wins within the field's combined parlay combinations for the regular season. Specifically, this year's field concluded its regular season with 383 parlay wins within its combined parlay combos. The 383 tally of parlay wins the field registered for this regular season was the second highest over the span of the last four Bookie Challenge regular seasons: this year (#13)--383 parlay wins; in Callenge year #12--337 parlay wins; in Challenge year #11--401 parlay wins; and in Challenge year #10--314 parlay wins. And lastly, this year's field set a new all-time regular-season record for compiling the most propositional points for a regular season of handicapping. No, let's backtrack that last statement. This year's Challenge field shattered to smithereens the previous high of 53 propositional points that the field from Challenge year #8 tallied for its regular season after this year's field rattled off 80 overall prop points for this year's regular season. However, that huge discrepancy between the 80 prop points this year's field amassed for its regular season and the 53 prop points the field from Challenge year #8 garnered for its regular season comes with a really "sharp" footnote, one that could better be coined as a doubled-edged-sword. On the one hand, the Challenge field from Challenge year #8 set its initial record for the most prop points (53 pts) through the combined handicapping of 23 participants (tied with the Challenge roster from Challenge year #4 for the largest rosters in history of competition). On the other hand, this year's roster, despite consisting of just 14 overall participants to begin its regular season, benefitted tremendously with the addition of the newly incorporated one-point exact-score selection, of which the newly implemented exact-score selection accounted for a whopping 35 total points of the overall 80 prop points this year's field racked up for its regular season. In fact, when including the five-point exact-score hit that the Biased Nihilist registered this season, exact-score points accounted for half of the record-setting 80 overall propositional points that were accrued by this year's field. In retrospect, after all things being considered, this year's field got off to the most miserable handicapping start to a Bookie Challenge competition, so inept was the totality of its combined handicapping, that an obituary was written for this year's Challenge field even before it was declared to be dead. But, at the end of the day, so to speak, this year's field got off the canvas, and through some tenacious handicapping to end its regular season, it turned out to be a special group of handicappers, after all. It was a field that might go down in Challenge history as the most resilient bunch of handicappers to ever handicap a Bookie Challenge competition.

Now that Tony Soprano is no longer an active participant of the Bookie Challenge competition, it leaves Driveline as the lone handicapper who can rival the Biased Nihilist in stature and prominence in the Bookie Challenge competition. And Driveline didn't waste any time in being the Nihilist's main handicapping antagonist after he matched the Nihilist this season for producing the greatest comeback in a divisional race in the history of the competition. What's more, after the Fisher of Winners concluded this year's regular season with yet another thrilling and riveting handicapping performance to snatch the Hail Mary divisional title over a tough handicapper in jcvike28, he has set himself up to perhaps become only the third overall participant to win three overall Bookie Challenge championships, and if he indeed pulls it off, he will become only the second handicapper, apart from the Biased Nihilist, in the history of the Bookie Challenge to win back-to-back Bookie Challenge championships. One thing is for certain, the new and improved Driveline can no longer be taken lightly, for at every turn of a Bookie Challenge competition he seemingly always shows up like clockwork to sabatoge the championship hopes of all of his handicapping peers within the Challenge field, and that includes the Biased Nihilist.

Too Tall Tommy's first-five seasons of his Bookie Challenge career went as smoothly as possible, qualifying for the first-five postseasons four times as a divisional wild card and once as a divisional champion. But in last year's competition, the wheels came off of Too Tall Tommy's stage coach and he registered his worst season of his Challenge career, and it wasn't pretty either, as he produced a league-low of only 15 points for last year's regular season and did not record a single 6-point parlay hit for the first time since joining the competition. Regardless of the fall from grace, every handicapper deserves a mulligan for having an off year of handicapping the Challenge competition. But it appeared early on at the start of this season that TCU's horrific season from last year's competition was more the exception than the rule. After winning both of his best bets to open up this year's competition, and in the ensuing second weekend of this year's contest, Too Tall Tommy became the first contestant in this year's handicapping competition to register a week-won after he landed a 6-point parlay hit for a 7-point outing and skyrocketed to second place in this year's early point standings. What's more, he would continue to be one of the year's top contenders in the point standings for the better part of the first-five weeks of this year's competition, of which after the conclusion of the first-five weeks he sported the league's top best-bet record, going 8-2-0 and owning a remarkable 80 percent winning percentage of his best bets. Better yet, after the first-five weeks of this year's handicapping campaign, Too Tall Tommy had seemingly sorted out his handicapping and was back to his winning ways. Essentially, he had shaken away all the handicapping cobwebs from his previous season, and by all indications, TCU was back on track to being a serious contender once again in the Bookie Challenge competition. However, after his promising five-week start to this season, Too Tall Tommy relapsed and suffered through a five-week stretch of handicapping in which he laid a goose egg in week #6, a golden goose egg in week #7, and after a 1-point outing in week #8, he laid another goose egg in week #9, of which he followed that disconcerting 4-week slump with two consecutive 1-point outings (wks' #10 & #11). In all, from week #6 through week #11, or a 6-week span of handicapping, Too Tall Tommy only scored three total points. Worst of all, and much to the chagrin of TCU, he never fully recovered from that 6-week handicapping free fall. In fact, apart from recording six points on Thanksgiving day, the die-hard Dallas Cowboy fan would finish his remaining seven outings of the regular season without so much as registering a two-point outing, meaning he tallied just one point for six of his remaining seven outings and also laid one more goose egg along the way.

In retrospect, there is not one member of the Bookie Challenge competition who could have envisioned Too Tall Tommy becoming so bereft of his handicapping A-game that he would become the first handicapper in the history of the Bookie Challenge competition to have the league's worst tally of total points for two consecutive regular seasons (15 pts last year and 30 pts this year). Granted, his 30 points accrued for this year's regular season is a stark improvement from the sickly 15 points he tallied in last year's regular season, but it doesn't change the fact that he still registered the league's lowest and worst point total for this year's regular season, which means he will enter the postseason as a lowly at-large participant for a second season in a row. Speaking of which, before the start of last year's competition, the first-two rounds of the playoffs' format were tweaked to give the regular-season champion better scoring advantages and also the divisional champions. To that regard, several at-large participants before the start of last year's playoffs felt they didn't have enough scoring opportunities to make their respective participations in last year's postseason worth their while, to include Too Tall Tommy--who ultimately decided to opt out of last year's postseason. To be fair, the scoring disadvantages in the first-two rounds of last year's postseason that the at-large participants had to endure could have been deemed somewhat draconian, but that's why the competition has divisional races in the first place. In other words, if members want better scoring opportunites in the first-two rounds of a Challenge postseason, then they have to earn them. Conversely, however, the Bookie Challenge wants to keep the interest of its handicappers for the entire season, and so if there's a silver lining in this year's playoffs for not only TCU but also for the rest of the at-large participants, it is that the scoring for at-large participants have been tweaked, to a certain extent, for this year's postseason so as to slightly enhance their scoring opportunities. First and foremost, the primary goal for at-large participants within the first-two rounds of the postseason is to try and stay as close as possible to the point totals of the main front-runners, meaning the point totals of the regular-season champion and all the divisional titlists. Before this year's postseason, at-large participants were never able to post 6-point parlay combos for the first-two rounds of a Challenge playoffs, but for the first time ever, at-large participants will get to submit 6-point parlay combinations in the second round of this year's postseason. As already known by most members of the Bookie Challenge, after the first-two rounds of the playoffs, every participant will be on the same playing level and will be under the same scoring format for the last-two rounds of the postseason. With that in mind, it is imperative that at-large participants position themselves as best they can to stay within striking distance of the playoff qualifiers who have the better scoring advantages in the first-two rounds of aChallenge postseason.

Also of huge benefits to at-large participants, or any participants for that matter, are their respective preseason Super Bowl matchup selections (the two teams they believe will play in this year's Super Bowl) and their picks for which team will win the Super Bowl. Those selections, if correctly selected, could pay enormous dividends after the NFL Championship round and also after the Super Bowl round. Just ask this year's defending champion Driveline why no handicapper should ever quit on a Bookie Challenge competition, and should battle it out to the bitter end regardless of how dire things might look from the onset of a Challenge postseason. As it concerns TCU's preseason Super Bowl selections, he chose Buffalo to play Dallas in this year's grand finale, and if all goes as planned, he could possibly rake in five bonus points after this year's NFL Championship round and he could also win an additional 10 bonus points after the conclusion of this year's Super Bowl if his Cowboys indeed go on and win this year's Super Bowl. So who knows? Because not for nothing, but Too Tall Tommy is the only handicapper in this year's competition who has Dallas defeating Buffalo in this year's Super Bowl. And should it come to pass, there's no telling what 15 bonus points could do for TCU in the final two rounds of this year's playoffs, whether the extra bonus points will enable him to finish this season with a share of the Latinum jackpot or whether he'll just wind up going home empty handed. But it has to be first things first for Too Tall Tommy, meaning he has to be in it to at least have a chance. Conversely, if he opts out of the Challenge playoffs for a second straight postseason, he only guarantees himself zero chance to pull off any handicapping miracles in this year's playoffs.