Bengals Player Pick 'Em FINAL STANDINGS & AWARDS

Wow. I hate to be the debbie downer, but I’m sorry, I saw that egg-laying coming a mile off. I wish I hadn’t. But I called it when I said that if "if we play even half as bad[ly] as we did last week, it will be [the last game of the season]". Well we played fully as badly, or perhaps even worse. And we had no chance at all. Now I still think Marvin has done great things in getting this team to be even competitive. But we clearly have a shortage of depth, and possibly also of elite players as well. We have more work to do before we can consider ourselves truly playoff-worthy, much less likely to (finally) win a playoff game or two (or hopefully more).

To close things out, we put up one of the worst statistical weeks in memory. We didn’t quite manage to have nobody score, which is why it’s only one of the worst… but this week was a close second. 31 people made legitimate picks, of which only Cedric Benson managed to score. We didn’t catch a single INT, didn’t force a single fumble, and didn’t even seem to put up a fight anymore in the fourth quarter. Well I guess that last bit doesn’t account for scoring in this game, but it was still pathetic and deserves to be lambasted.

Two people (Rocket_Man_G and 70sav) picked Benson so they will each earn 29 points. I’m a bit torn after that, however, as one of them wants to donate points to our resident player stuck on zero points all year long. I never made it against the rules, but I never said it was OK either. I guess for this year I’ll allow it… the future, however, I will not make any final commitments to at this time.

If you're viewing this in a list somewhere, then hit the jump for the final standings and awards section...

Added to previous standings, this gives us a final leaderboard of:

1. Paul Cannon – 319 pts
2. The Dealio – 300 pts
3. Mr. X – 295 pts
4. BonnieBengal – 281 pts
5. Boomer Lion – 275 pts
6. BoomerEsiason’sLoveChild – 274 pts
7. James Schmid the great – 264 pts
8. JerseyBengal – 248 pts
9. diehard bengals fan 20 – 242 pts
10. Cry – 228 pts
11. 70sav – 216 pts
12. MCSubtext – 213 pts
13t. duffmane – 202 pts
13t. Jordan G – 202 pts
14. Rockhound-11 – 201 pts
15. rudebengal18 – 197 pts
16. bill schwab – 196 pts
17. jim0ijk – 193 pts
18. ephram – 192 pts
19. TruWhoDey – 190 pts
20. WHYUS!! – 180 pts
21. KyleStyle11 – 175 pts
22. Aether – 173 pts
23. Cedric Benson Boat Party – 170 pts
24. ItsAlwaysSunnyInDayton – 169 pts
25t. Grizzlyfox – 163 pts
25t. featherman – 163 pts
26. Throw the ball – 159 pts
27. Pardon_My_French – 155 pts
28. Luke – 144 pts
29. cincyplayoffwin2012 – 134 pts
30. LookingDeep – 133 pts
31. FriarBob – 123 pts
32. Alexneyer – 111 pts
33t. biggie22 – 106 pts
33t. CBJKing – 106 pts
33t. Rocket_Man_G – 106 pts
34. Richard L – 92 pts
35. these3words – 90 pts
36. jimbasa – 88 pts
37. DiabeticBengal – 83 pts
38. Striped_To_Impress – 81 pts
39. bengalsfanforlife – 72 pts
40t. i am will – 70 pts
40t. JADefense – 70 pts
40t. K312 – 70 pts
40t. Joe Goodberry – 70 pts
40t. BradDwayne – 70 pts
40t. CincyMike56 – 70 pts
40t. emeybee – 70 pts
41. sexsalad – 55 pts
42. the Flying Pig – 52 pts
43. occams_tiger_teeth – 45 pts
44. casapennec – 44 pts
45. Purple City Middie – 33 pts
46. ThreeofSpades – 28 pts
47. boynamedsue – 22 pts
48. supergrover – 1 pt

And now for the awards section

First off, let’s make sure to congratulate Paul Cannon for capturing the first place prize. I believe this may be the first year he’s participated as well, which makes this even more impressive. Take a bow, please, Paul!

Secondly, the rest of our top-5 should get a round of congrats. In order, they were The Dealio, Mr. X, BonnieBengal, and Boomer Lion. And for each of you a curtain call as well.

Third, we have the "white elephant" prize. I’ll admit I hesitated a bit on this one, but it’s just too funny not to mention. And hey when we can’t find things to laugh at it’s a dark and depressing world. So we give this unwanted prize to a participant who managed to make the deadline every week… until the very last. And worse yet, he put in a pick after the deadline for none other than Cedric Benson. Had he gotten his pick in on time, he would have bumped his score up to grab second place. That’s definitely worthy of this "prize". BoomerEsiason’sLoveChild, please take a bow… and please make sure to laugh.

Finally we’ll also give a shout-out to all of our participants over the course of the season, and especially those who played every week. We had quite a few of you who got picks in every week, and regardless of the final score you deserve credit for sticking it out and continuing to try.

And that’s it for this season. I expect we’ll be back next year to give it another round. Until then, it’s curtains for us all.