Two left standing

After 19 weeks, more than 1,000 football games, and more than 82,000 picks, Pigskin Mania 27 ended in a tie.

AMcKenny and Pulley96 both ended the season with a pool record score of 71.0, breaking the record of 70.5 held by Kyle Skinner and Jason Hatala. The two split the prize money for first and second place and each will collect $3,706.20. First place would have been worth $5,220 if there had not been a tie. It is only the third time in the history of the pool that first place ended in a tie. There are no tiebreakers.

 The pool paid 109 places from a record a pot of $54,540. Prize winners in the regular season and bowl pool will receive an email with instructions on how to collect as soon as accounting for the season is completed and all accounts are updated. Payouts are expected to go out around the time of the Super Bowl.

First place came down to the second to last game of the season. AMcKenny had been in sole possession of first place since Week 3 on the strength of three perfect weeks and a string of 5.0s. Pulley96 rallied late in the season to close to within 1.0 headed into the final week.

On the final Sunday, Pulley forced the tie when the Eagles covered against the Bears in the second to last game of the season. Both players picked Alabama in the Pigskin Special so that game had no bearing on the top spot.

Rounding out the top five and all collecting more than $1,000 each were Allen J, ekaberon and blakew. Season payouts for all 100 places can be found on the Money page. Total payouts including weekly prizes are on the Standings page.

 We hope everyone had a fun season. Next up is March Mania, our NCAA Tournament pool. We’ll send everyone with a PM account an email when that rolls around. Until then, enjoy the rest of the NFL playoffs and we’ll be back again next season.

Till we meet again

Here are a few numbers to recap the 2018 season.

• A total of 421 players out of 910 collected a piece of the pot, and 376 players won at least their entry fee back, collecting $60 or more.

• There were a total of 483 perfect weeks during the season, four fewer than the 2017 season even though there were 79 more players.

• With a perfect week in Week 19, Chuck Stanifer became the third player in the history of the pool to have five perfect weeks in a season. He finished in 10th place and collected a total of $822.

• Stanifer's NFL winning percentage of .740 is the second highest in that category in pool history.

• When the 2019 season kicks off, Bill Stewart and BRIBREN31 will continue to chase the record of 195 weeks without a perfect week held by Feder16. The pair ended the 2018 season at 169 weeks.

• After scoring perfect weeks in the first two weeks of the season, blatulippe had a rough go the rest of the way and finished in 741st place. Still, the entry will collect $90.

• Overall, the pool’s winning percentage was about average. It was .488 on 82,659 picks. The all-time cumulative winning percentage is .490. However, the pool was well below average on the college side at .480, and nearly got to the .500 mark in NFL games with a .496 winning percentage.

• Locks were not so lucky this year with a total net loss of 282 points and a .482 winning percentage.

• The Special was in the black at +234.5 and a .517 winning percentage.

• Defending champion Kyle Skinner finished in 268th place with a score of 49.0. He scored 70.5 last year, tying the scoring record.