The Grammy Awards have their own show for unveiling their nominees. The Oscars simply just announce theirs with the whole world watching. As for us, you get this column.
Awards have been handed out the past two years in this league, but never LIVE. We've never had nominees, and we've never announced, "And the NFL ATS Award Goes To ..." But we will do all of those things this year.
My favorite part about this league is that it provides opportunity. Sure, a select few will go away with some cash, but the majority of us won't. Instead, the rest of us can compete for made up hardware named after Bill Walton or Gus Johnson. With our league, everyone can potentially be a winner, and at the very least, enjoy the process of watching and reading it take place.
So after seventeen weeks of football, and seventeen weeks of picking games, we are left with our awards ceremony. It was always my hope that we could physically gather at a neutral site to do this, but that will probably be nothing more than a failed pipe dream. The next best idea involves a LIVE BLOG where our members can join, chat, make fun of each other, and see who walks away with the trophies.
What lies ahead of you is an itinerary of this coming Monday's events. It also shows the final nominees for each award. Please feel free to develop some sort of "Acceptance Speech" if you plan on attending. It would be rather lame if I had to accept each award on everyone else's behalf.
2009 NFL ATS PICK 'EM: AWARDS CEREMONY ITINERARY AND NOMINEES (All times EST)
8:00 - Welcoming by our commissioner and fellow participant Luke Florence (aka Skywalker, Flo, King of Arguments, KOA, L-Flizzle). Okay, I made the last nick-name up.8:10 - Toast to those who started the year with us, but unfortunately could not make it to the end. (Please have a drink on-hand if you plan on attending. Unfortunately it is a BYOB event.)
8:15 - Mel Kiper III Award - Given to the person with the best overall ATS record for the 2009 season. Nominees: Nick Lay, Justin Whelan, Jamie Reamer, Luke Florence and Kevin Hunt.
8:20 - Casey Blake Award - Given to the person with the worst overall ATS record for the 2009 season. Nominees: Josh Florence and Bart Borer.
8:25 - Special Section Award - Given to the person who wrote the best special section over the course of the 2009 season. Nominees: Bart Borer's "Thoughts That Matter," Ryan Polito's "Knowledge Dropping," and Jason Fazzone's "In The Zone."8:30 - Swami Award - Given to the person with the most amount of wins with their Special Pick during the 2009 season. Nominees: Brian Boesch's "F'd Up Pick," Luke Florence's "Not Gonna Watch And I Have Sunday Ticket," and Kevin Hunt's "Ballbuster Pick."
8:35 - Wait Till Next Year Award - Given to the person who despite not making any money this year, is the odds-on favorite to win it in 2010. Nominees: Eric Hug, Luke Polito, Matt Barnes, Shane Kline, and Chris Woodard.
8:40 - Katy Perry's Hot 'N Cold Award - Given to the person who was the most inconsistent of the bunch in 2009. Nominees: Chris Rapking, Erik Smith, Jake Young, and Matt Barnes.
8:50 - Most Valuable Player Award - Given to the league member who showed the most value throughout the 2009 season. Nominees: Matt Barnes, Brian Boesch, Justin Whelan, Jason Fazzone, and Kevin Hunt.
8:55 - Jake Delhomme Award - Given to the league member who was acting Delhomme-esque more so than the rest of us. Nominees: Ryan Polito, Anthony Tynan, Jake Young, and Josh Florence.
9:00 - E-Mail Of The Year Award - Given to the league member who had THE best e-mail of the season. Nominees: Nick Lay (Week One - Tecmo Super Bowl Theme), Brian Boesch (Week Fourteen - F'd Up Pick Of All F'd Up Picks), Shane Kline (Week Eight - Word Association), Kevin Hunt (Week Thirteen - All Poems), Bart Borer (Week Five - Las Vegas Story), and Matt Barnes (Week Nine - Anchorman Theme).9:05 - Jeff Normand Award - Given to the league member who showed the most consistency (with regards to comments, not actual results) throughout the year. Nominees: Brian Boesch, Kevin Hunt and Erik Smith.
9:10 - Bill Walton Award - Given to the person with the most Bill Walton points at the end of the season. Nominees: Brian Boesch, Kevin Hunt, Jeff Schaffer, Matt Barnes, Nick Lay, and Jason Fazzone.
9:15 - Gus Johnson Award - Given to the person who did Gus Johnson proud. Nominees: Brian Boesch, Kevin Hunt, Matt Barnes and Nick Lay.
9:20 - Quote Of The Year Award - Given to THE best quote from 2009. This award will be taken care of throughout the ceremony. We have 17 nominees, and we will be counting down as we go along, so when the time comes, there will be three contenders left.The 17 Quote Of The Year Candidates
Week One - "Picking the 49ers was cheating. Virtual Jerry Rice was about as stoppable as Bart's anus after 20 volcano tacos." - Nick Lay.
Week Two - “Scoreboards are too big. They may fall off the ceiling. Romo is homo. (yes, there's your haiku of the week)” - Kevin Hunt.
Week Three - “‘Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk’ - Apparently, Donte Stallworth has no friends. I mean, Ray Lewis stabbed a guy but his friends didn't let him drive drunk. That's being responsible.” - Matt Barnes.
Week Four - “With both Maurice Jones-Drew and Mike Sims-Walker, the Jags have a distinct advantage in amount of last names on a roster. How do YOU intimidate your opponents?” - Jeff Schaffer.
Week Five - “Braylon Edwards created the blueprint on how to get out of Cleveland: take out someone in LeBron’s posse. Can’t wait to hear about Grady Sizemore kicking Maverick Carter (Bron’s agent) in the balls outside a Cleveland nightclub, then doing a Tiger Woods fist-pump in celebration.” - Jason Fazzone.
Week Six - “Fantasy play of the week: Picking up Matt Cassel and dropping DA. I could've started Jamie Reamer at QB and gotten more points than DA would've given me.” - Nick Lay.
Week Seven - “The Wikipedia reference worked wonders for the Raiders last week. Well, how about one that will rattle the Sanchize. According to Wikipedia, Sanchez is ‘a symbol of Mexican-American identity and a role model for children.’ Good thing I'm not Mexican-American or a child.” - Brian Boesch.
Week Eight - “Matt Schaub. Fantasy. Megan Fox. Racist Robots. Black Jokes. Matt Barnes.” - Shane Kline.
Week Nine - “Way to go Browns. "You woke up the Bears". Apparently, they could also smell the menstruation coming from Eric Mangini.” - Matt Barnes.
Week Ten - “Jake Young kept creepily smiling at me and touching my chest at the bars Tuesday night. If that isn't a waving of the white flag by Packer nation, I don't know what is." - Brian Boesch.
Week Eleven - "RB Chris Johnson is Stephen Hawking. For all we know, he operates as a machine, not even as a human. Though I have a feeling Stephen Hawking's wheelchair seriously lacks, 'gettin' away from the cops speed.'" - Kevin Hunt.
Week Twelve - “Jake Delhomme = Tony Romo of December, except it’s all year long.” - Eric Hug.
Week Thirteen - "Despite going over 100 miles an hour, both Adrian Peterson and Bernard Berrian couldn’t get away from the cops. Somewhere, Gus is shaking his head." - Jason Fazzone.
Week Fourteen - "I'd rather be Tim Tebow's Jacksonville home after the team is sold and moves to Little Rock, Arkansas." - Kevin Hunt.
Week Fifteen - "I’m backing Tony Romo against an undefeated team in December. Either this is the reason I’m doing worse than the Raiders or Christmas is the time for miracles after all." - Brian Boesch.
Week Sixteen - "Rex Ryan is turning into that annoying relative that tells you stupid stories or jokes whenever you visit him. Just be serious for 10 minutes, Rex. I'll reward you with a cupcake, or 10." - Brian Boesch.
Week Seventeen - "St. Louis has won six games in the last three years. SIX! Tell a ten year old that the Rams were the most exciting team in the league when he was born, and he'd believe you as quickly as Billy Madison believed that Chris Farley got some of Miss Vaughn." - Brian Boesch.
9:25 - Time to hit the road. One final toast for the 2009 season.
It should only take 90 minutes, but hopefully the memories last a lifetime. (Classic over-sell) Nonetheless, I really hope everyone can make it on January 11th as we cap off the 2009 NFL ATS season.
Best of luck.
Until next time, "read it, roll it, hole it."
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