Congratulations to our 2025 Champions (Yes…plural)
Well… well… well…
Here we are again. Another season of the Ferg’s Family Football Pool has come and gone, and once again your commissioner is left staring into the abyss wondering where it all went wrong… and more importantly, how THREE of you managed to screw up my nice, clean “one winner” narrative.
That’s right folks — for the first time in what feels like forever, we have a three-headed monster atop the standings. Not one. Not two. But THREE champions. It’s like the football gods decided parity was more important than my ability to write a clean closing email.
Your 2025 Co-Champions: Greg. Jules. Matthew.
(Please hold your applause… or don’t. I’ve already lost control of this thing.)
Let’s break down how this chaos unfolded:
Greg: The east coast assassin. No flash. No drama. Just lurking… waiting… striking.
Came out swinging with an early win in Week 2, just to let us know he existed. Then disappeared into the bushes like Homer Simpson… only to re-emerge at Week 5. But the real damage? Oh, that came late. Weeks 16 AND 18. When the rest of us were mentally checked out, eating holiday leftovers and guessing based on vibes alone, Greg was out here closing. Absolute closer mentality. Kobe Bryant with a Back to the Future almanac.
Jules: The golden haired heroin none of us deserved.
If this were a show, this is where the cast realizes they are just extras.
Week 3, Week 6, Week 7, Week 9. That’s not a hot streak… that’s a hostile takeover. At one point, it felt like every Sunday ended the same way: “Let me guess… Jules again?” Yes. Yes, it was. While the rest of us were overthinking spreads and googling injury reports like amateur scouts, Jules was apparently picking winners with the confidence of someone ordering wine they can’t pronounce.
Matthew: the reigning champ turned Chat-GPT forecaster
Week 8, 10, 12, and 17. Just enough spacing to make sure we never forgot about him. Every time we thought he cooled off, BAM — back again like a bad sequel nobody asked for. Week 17 in particular… when most of us were throwing darts blindfolded… Matt strolls in and casually grabs win #4 like it’s a stocking stuffer. At this point, the only thing I can think of is he must have found Dad’s secret football pick ’em excel sheet under a newspaper stack.
And the rest of us?
Scott – strong early, strong late… just not strong enough. A classic “almost had it” campaign.
Mom – two wins, which is honestly more than some of you deserved. Respect.
Sean – Week 13 champion. A lone wolf. A moment in time. A hit ’em and quite ’em specialist.
Commissioner’s Closing Thoughts:
This season had everything – False hope, Midseason collapses, Questionable picks that will never be explained, And now… a three-way tie that will haunt me all offseason. I had speeches ready. Narratives crafted. Jokes locked and loaded for a SINGLE champion. Instead, I get a three-person group project where everyone somehow gets an A.
Unbelievable.
Final Verdict:
Greg. Jules. Matthew.
You are all officially 2025 Ferg’s Family Football Pool Co-Champions. Enjoy your shared glory. Split the bragging rights. Rotate the group chat arrogance. I expect a carefully coordinated offseason of trash talk so we don’t have a full-blown civil war.
And to everyone else…
Rest up. Regroup. Reflect. Because next season, we’re coming back stronger. Smarter. And ideally… with a tiebreaker. (Any takers for a all or nothing K1 go-kart champions race?!)
Respectfully (but also not really),
Your Old Commissioner
Previous Champion Stories:
Congratulations to our 2024 Champion
And here we are again. Yet another dramatic season of the Ferguson Family Football Pool which has left at least this commissioner, shaking his head on how it all went wrong.
2024 will be the year of Simone Biles stacking golds, President Trump ending “wokeness” (Thank God), and most of all – a deluge of unsolicited “choo-choo” chants, gifs, and ChatGPT texts from this year’s champ. Our champion earned his crown early this year by at least winning or tying 3 weeks in a row. And 4 of 5. Poor Downtown Brown, who took us out of the gates with back to back wins to kick off the season, must have thought he was piloting one of those Lionel model trains when Matthew cow-plowed him to the side after week 6.
I would love to say that we all offered him strong competition for that matter, but this year’s champ slapped that idea away about as fast as Jake Paul b$tch-slapped Tyson on Netflix. It was as if Matthew was doing his rendition of LeBron James after the King joined the Miami Heat in 2010.. Winning “Not one…not two…not three… not four…. not five…..” but 6 weeks. While the rest of us were busy second-guessing our picks and arguing over whether olives belong on pizza, this years champ was racking up points like Ja’marr Chase (who was on seemingly everybody else’s fantasy team but mine). The season couldn’t end soon enough for the rest of us. By the end of it Los Angeles was up in flames and the quippy chat GPT’er was sitting on top of this league’s Mahomian throne.
The new moms and dads in the group will blame it on watching too many Ms. Rachel & Bluey episodes while others will claim that print media just isn’t what it used to be. But alas, none of it would have mattered. Not even the tireless Thomas the (“I think i can”) Train could have tracked down this rail pilot in 2024.
That’s two chips in the last four years for this tycoon bringing his season total to 5. This champ’s boisterous train horn is about to reign all summer long. I hope everyone is bunkered in for a long summer – “Choo-chooooooo. Choooooooo-chewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!
Congratulations to our 2023 Champion
I find myself chuckling this morning. No, it’s not because I just took down the season championship but instead because I have the dichotomous decision of having to choose whether I should make it rain on my feeble opponents this morning or humbly tip my cap, and move on to next season quietly. These are the plights of being the admin for the infamous Ferguson family football pool website. Hmmm…. If I do this, they’re gonna act like that… And if I do that, they’re gonna act like this… Oh, the toils…Oh, what the heck let’s have some fun shall we?
There I was, it was a Thursday morning I believe. Sipping my cappuccino in what I would describe as an overly opulent, smoky town, called Paris. Thinking to myself I’ve got Mom and Scott closing on the league faster than a Cole Trickle stock car and I have to deal with my Dad trying to share my position on the top of Mount Champion. Scott had just won week one and I’ll be damned if I was going to accept his trash talking and banter that I knew would ensue if I didn’t get this season under control. Out of the country, over 3000 miles away and this Admin thought to himself, Game Time.
Wouldn’t you know it, I won week two and then week three. I cheekly said in the moment “could I be heating up?” I did what anybody else would’ve done in that moment. I pulled out my dusty Super Nintendo, blew in the game cartridge, and started the game NBA Jam, trying to wittedly remember all the cheeky one-liners from the 1993 masterpiece. I’ll admit, that night was humbling as I got beat by the Bullets, Clippers, and even the Orlando Magic. But I had found what I was searching for. “He’s heating up! He’s on fire!! Whoooooooaaa, Boomshakalaka!!!” I had my new theme to rally around.
As week three came I couldn’t wait to say the words “he’s on fire”. And I even spent the week 5 trash talking my opponents warning them not to let me say one of the rarest phrases NBA Jam has to offer. But with the Steelers upset over the Ravens that week, I knew it was my time to roar “Whooooooooooaaaaaaa, Boom Shakalaka!” Four in a Row… Had it been done before? Was this some kinda record? Poor Julie had to live with me through what must’ve been the longest month of her life. Love you sweetie
This season would end with Sean winning 7 weeks, Matt winning 2 1/2, Dad winning 2 1/2, Scott winning 3, Greg winning 2, and Jules winning 1. What are year. What a theme. Thank you all for making 2023 something to smile about. You will all be happy to know, six months later, this morning’s coffee is a little less bitter.
Congratulations to our 2022 Champions
And there we have it. The eye-popping conclusion to the NFL 2022 regular season. Who needs movie theatres when you can get this kind of popcorn-eatin’ drama every Sunday?! Remember back just 5 months ago when the Rams were said to be Super Bowl favorites and Russell Wilson would save rocky mountain pride? While I’m pretty sure PRIDE has risen across Colorado, my Broncos sure haven’t. And who would have thought the Seaturkeys would make the playoffs this year with a bunch of rookies? Or that the pathetic 3-14 2021 Jaguars would become the Song of the South in 2022?
We Ferguson Family foozballers were not to be out done though; having quite the share of drama ourselves. 5 weeks into the season almost every player had taken a bite out of the winning apple (well almost everybody..ahem…Dad). It was such a joyous time to be shared by us all. High-fiving and shaking hands n’ stuff (Ahh..the good ole’ days..) Well that was until Mom and Scott decided they weren’t interested in sharing no mo’… Instead weeks 6 through 12 were championed by Mom and Scott throwing haymaker after haymaker towards their feeble opponents. Together winning 5 out of the next 6 weeks, leaving the rest of the league scratching our heads to find answers. But none were to be found. Scott did what no Southwest pilot could in 2022…he showed up to work. He proved that real men wear caps & uniforms. Crushing his opponents with upset pick after upset pick. And Mom, in what may go down as the most dramatic week 18 ever played, won the week in the last 4 minutes of the regular season, when the Lions upset the Packers to bring herself into a pronounced season tie with Scott with 4.5 victories each!!
Some of the other players would later admit that they’d probably spent too much time focused on fantasy football. When interviewed for comment, Mom and Scott would equally retort – “thinking you could ever beat us is the real fantasy.”
And there you have it. Straight from the press. That brings Mom and Scott’s total season victories to 2 each. These two are closing in on the league faster than a Cole Trickle stock car.
Congratulations to our 2022 Ferguson Family Pool Champions… Well done champions. We salute you.