The Top 100 and ties will collect season prize money. The list will be updated weekly in this column. Full standings can be found at the Standings link.

Hatala streaks toward record

70.

It's a magical number in Pigskin Mania. No player in the history of the pool has scored 70 points in one season - not when the game lasted through the Super Bowl, not since bonus points were added for the Lock and the Special.

You might even be able to find some players who don't score 70 in two or three seasons.

But Jason Hatala is in striking distance after his 12th week scoring at least 4.0. His 5.0 in Week 16 put him five points ahead of the field and needing only 7.0 in the last three weeks to hit the number.

The scoring record is 68.5 set by Greg Leimkuehler in the 2011 season, which went 18 weeks. This season is 19 weeks. Leimkuehler also has the record scoring average of 3.81 per week. Hatala is currently at 3.94.

Most of the rest of the field lost ground this week, including Matt Mecca who was two points behind headed into the week but is now five points behind, still in second place.

It was a strange scoring week in that the Pigskin Special was a virtual gimme for the field. A total of 488 players picked the winner, the Patriots, and only 115 were on the losing side with the Broncos. Historically, a lopsided winning Special like that has meant a high number of perfect weeks, but not this time. The pool was so bad in the rest of the NFL-heavy schedule, that there were only seven perfect weeks, the lowest total of the season.

The dreaded push

One of the reasons for the otherwise dismal week was a push in a game involving a Bandwagon pick, Raiders vs. Chargers. It was the 13th push of the season and triggered a Facebook discussion - actually a complaint - about how a push is treated under the PM Rules.

The rule is simple. A push is a loss. It stems from the way parlay cards are treated in sports books. A push on a parlay card (as opposed to a parlay bet from the board) is a loss and makes that ticket a losing ticket. When a parlay bet is made from the games posted on the board, sports books usually eliminate the bet from the parlay, so a 3-leg parlay becomes a 2-leg parlay.

But in either case, a push does not count for anything in a sports book and it's the same in PM. Some have proposed treating it like a tie and awarding a half-point in a push.

That would create a math headache in that a push in a Special or a Lock would result in quarter-points and we just don't want to have to track that math.

But more importantly, the Founding Fathers, who also serve as the PM Rules Committee, are not inclined to soften the rules. These are the same people who were a little hacked when The Poolmaster made the executive decision to post game times on the point spreads. They wanted players to have to work a little harder.

Anything that reeks of handing out participation trophies is not a direction the Founding Fathers have generally wanted to go. But feel free to ask.

Week 17 begins Tuesday 

With college bowl season in full swing, the weekly schedule for the next two weeks is on a Tuesday through Monday schedule to allow players to play the Tuesday and Wednesday bowl games.

Point spreads will be up in time for players to take the Tuesday games.

The first game of Week 17 is Tuesday at 5 p.m., MST (7 p.m. EST). Point spreads will be up by noon MST on Tuesday. There are 10 bowl games on the schedule this week along with the usual 16-game NFL regular season schedule.

Dirty Dozen is back

The Dirty Dozen Bowl Pool gets underway with games starting on Dec. 26. The Bowl Pool page has been updated and picks are being accepted. There aren't any rules changes other than the deadlines. The point spreads have been posted and are final through the rest of the bowl season.

Anyone can jump in on the Bowl Pool. You don't have to be a regular-season PM player to join. The entry fee is $10.

There will be a section somewhere on this page dedicated to bowl pool updates as soon as the games begin.