Dethronified!

Longest dramatic pause. Ever.

I give you the FINAL RESULTS OF YAB’S DETHRONE THE KING ’07!

Wow, what a season. The nice thing about running a pool such as this one is the fact that even if first place is out of reach, mediocre beat writers keep everyone in striking distance of glory. And this year has been no exception, as Peter King failed to deliver accurate predictions on a weekly basis and proved me right yet again. Can a casual football fan outpick a man whose job it is to analyze and dissect the great fame of football?

Yes. 13 times over.

13 of you ably bested the King in our 256 game Pickdown. Some did it by the narrowest of margins, like Mattias Caro – who rode a 12-4 final week to overtake Pedro Rex. And some did it by DESTROYING ALL LOGIC WHATSOEVER. Katie Condon outlasted King by 17 games. That’s right. If this had been a competition between just the two of them. She could have rested all her picks in Week 17 and still clinched with ease. In fact, in the SI.com competition, where there are over 50,000 entries, Katie would have finished in a tie for 8th.

Even I can't make that up.

Peter King ended the season at 162-84, good enough for a 14th place tie in a 26 person pool. My, that’s average. And considering we lost four valiant Shawnee Groupers over the waning weeks, that makes his efforts far less impressive. That said, I award the SAV ROCCA BETTER LUCK NEXT YEAR AWARD to those who punted – Karen Yelito, David Kull, Rob Harford, and Joseph Brescia.

To our champ, Katie Condon, goes the YON MIGHTY THRONE AWARD. She has won herself first place, a wicked sweet NFL prize (TBD), and folklore. Lots and lots of folklore. (Clara, when you were very little, Mommy should have gone to Vegas a lot more. She didn’t, which is why you’re stuck in your room writing college scholarship essays.) (179-77)

Second place goes to Josh Stock, as well as the HACK THE PLANET AWARD. Stock, came on very late in the year to break up the ladies’ tea party on the podium. Of course it should be noted that his two best weeks occurred when technology failed him. A returned e-mail and a Blackberry botch coincided with two weeks totaling 29-1. To avoid skepticism next year, Josh, get some training on these newfangled gadgets. We hear great things on the radio about Computer Learning Center. (175-81)

Third place and the MIGHTY PARADOX AWARD goes to Kristen Morea. Not only were her picks worthy of a mainstay locale on the Podium, they often were sent to me with an e-mail that said something like, “I’m totally going to suck this week” or “Man, these were hard ones!.” Liar. (170-86)

In a tie for fourth place, we have Kristen Fischer and, yes, Me. Let’s see, what do we have in common? We don’t hold spousal superiority, since I got housed by mine. Hey, we like musicals! Yeah, that’s it. So Kristen, join me in accepting this HOW WE GONNA PAY LAST YEAR’S RENT award. Cash prizes rarely fall off the podium, and that’s precisely we’re we’ve landed. (167-89)

Who likes a sixth place tie? Jeff Collins and Liz Arsenault. Liz gets the PERFECT 10 Award – which isn’t necessarily good. It just points out that she got exactly 10 games right in a week 7 times. Collins gets the SNEAKY FAST Award, for distancing himself from the Ocean City contingent in a matter of weeks without anyone realizing it. (166-90)

All alone in 8th place is Stewart Robinette. Somebody give him a hug. And a symbolic award. (165-91)

A three-way tie for ninth finds Eric Goldman, Jasen Andersen, and Mike Nordberg huddled together, two games ahead of Peter King. Goldman wins the RETURN TO SENDER Award, for emailing me his picks within 40 seconds of the email going out, Andersen gets the HAIL TO THE REDSKINS Award, as he boldly went where no one else dared – Washington over New England – and Mike Nordberg gets MOST IMPROVED. He rebounded from dead last early on to dethrone the King. Mike, can you please get your slacker brother in on this action next year? (164-92)

12th place – the DOUBLE CUTTING IT CLOSE Award – goes to the aforementioned Mattias Caro, as well as Christina Toms. Along with Jon Rogers, Toms made compiling the picks highly enjoyable, as she provided insights and vignettes on every single game. (163-93)

And finally, in 13th – the TIE GOES TO THE FISCHER Award is bestowed upon Tim Fischer, who picked up a game on PK in Week 16 and hung on in 17 to maintain pace. (If it helps, Tim, it was the Eagles over the Saints that got you caught up.) Because of your worthy effort and homerism, we will count you as a winner. While you may not have dethroned him, you probably were the one who hired the court jester to annoy him from here to the Pro Bowl.

For those who fell short, my condolences. There will be next year, and Peter King will be fatter. The full standings are posted in the side bar, and will be there until March Madness. Thank you all for participating, and we will see you next year! For those who did in fact Dethrone the King, I’ll e-mail concerning your slightly less wicked sweet prize.

Dethrone the King!

I’m not a big fan of people who have the surname “King.” It’s like some shot of nomenclature self-entitlement has fused with their general personality, because some time long ago one of their relatives fell into a fortunate position of royalty. They’re aren’t many monarchies these days; people continuing to exist with the “King” name are hard-pressed to find a throne and scepter to call their occupation. So instead, they are forced to take non-ruling positions in our global work force. Talk about a shot to the ego.

After all, your last name probably is based upon either 1) the place in which your ancestors hailed from or 2) the job your ancestors held. Most of these words have dulled over time, and have become non-offensive to those who use them today. Rob Harford, for example, probably can attribute his family handle to some tiny hamlet back in England. Chris Smith, no doubt, comes from a long line of smiths, those who worked with metal for a living. Karen Yelito – erm, well, uh, no doubt got her name when a great-great grandfather cried whilst falling off a cliff. Everyone’s got a story.

But those who choose to continue using “King?” I have no patience for these people. Larry King is perpetuating idiocy in the media by lobbing softball questions at repentant Paris Hilton and putting his support behind crappy movies like Rush Hour 3. Stephen King, though a great writer, prides himself on not owning a cellular phone. One of these days he’s going to be alone in a spooky house and something from the undead will be closing in, tracking his every move. And since the undead know to kill the phone lines, Stephen King will one day regret his anti-technological stance. James King – he, wait no, SHE is that pretty blonde nurse who bites it in the bombing scene from Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor. Her androgynous moniker confuses me to this day. (And judging from Josh Hartnett’s perpetual confused face, he doesn’t know what to make of it, either.) And that Martin Luther King – my GOD – no, wait –

We’re cool with Martin Luther King. Junior.

But Peter King? No freakin’ way.

Peter King is the football journalist Emeritus over at Sports Illustrated. He’s well-respected for his weekly Monday Morning Quarter Back (MMQB) column, where he covers the week in the NFL, among other things. He’s parlayed his surging readership to an occasional desk appearance on NBC’s Sunday night football coverage. And he prides himself on having a cell phone with every possible football contact in its address book. And yet,

I CAN’T STAND HIM.

You want reasons, in a blinding, over-crowded paragraph form? Sure! He name drops so much, it’s like he dropped a phone book on his foot. He showed repeated bias towards the New England Patriots, his hometown team. He constantly mentioned his daughter’s collegiate sports prowess, and then gets mad when other websites poke fun at it. He thinks that his views on coffee are shaping the entire industry. He invokes a “Quote of the Week” feature, and then proceeds to list 9 Quotes of the Week. He takes moral stances on things that have nothing to do with his expertise – like the amount of violence in The Departed. He makes list of the 500 Best Players in the NFL, and insists that Packers CB Al “I Am Served Often with Jam” Harris is better than 1,554 other guys. He reviews movies that came out 9 years ago because he just got around to seeing them. (Saving Private Ryan was recently featured.) He makes obvious statements like “This LaDanian Tomlinson kid may turn out to be a decent back in this league.” Oh, and he sucks at fantasy.

WHAT WILL WE DO TO COMBAT THIS?

YAB will be holding a weekly “Pick the Winners” known as Dethrone the King, a way to prove that you, the average person, know more than a guy who follows football for a living. Each week, I will e-mail you my patented DtK form, and all you have to do is e-mail it back to me before the games start that week. The standings will be maintained in the sidebar here at YAB, and anyone who ends up with a better record than Peter King at year’s end will receive a YAB bumper sticker that proclaims your scrumtrilescense.

If you are interested, let me know in the comments.