Late comeback again wins 2019 Field Gulls Armchair GM Draft Challenge

For the second consecutive year, the Field Gulls Armchair GM Draft Challenge was decided on a late comeback. For those who don’t recall, the 2018 version of the challenge was decided on a tiebreaker after the Hawks used their final pick in the draft on Alex McGough to tie two contestants and send the challenge to overtime.

It was not quite as dramatic this year, but the outcome was determined on a late Day 3 pick.

After the Seattle Seahawks used their second of three fourth round picks on Phil Haynes the standings were bunched together, with seven different entrants having between 45 and 62 points. Of these seven participants vying for the title, five of the seven had amassed the majority of their points through guessing L.J. Collier and Gary Jennings. A couple of others were also in the running having guessed Marquise Blair and Phil Haynes. Collier and Jennings were the guesses the most fans had correct, but the difference makers would prove to be elsewhere.

For starters, I’ll give a quick recap of how many entrants guessed each of the drafted players this year. There were only 93 entries because I didn’t do nearly as good of a job publicizing the competition this year, and that’s my fault. However, I’m not going to lie that it was nice that a smaller number of entries certainly made it easier to tabulate the results. In any case, of those 93 entrants, the number who guessed each draft pick were as follows:

• L.J. Collier: 33
• Marquise Blair: 8
• D.K. Metcalf: 3
• Cody Barton: 0
• Gary Jennings: 26
• Phil Haynes: 2
• Ugo Amadi: 3
• Ben Burr-Kirven: 6
• Travis Homer: 0
• Demarcus Christmas: 2
• John Ursua: 0

As noted, through the end of the fourth round, the standings were bunched at the top and were as follows for the top seven:

1. sconway2244: 62 (Collier 30 + Metcalf 17 + Jennings 15)
2. rgaydeski: 53 (Jennings 27 + Collier 26)
3. sonicreducer: 51 (Jennings 28 + Collier 23)
4. 12thManderson: 51 (Blair 30 + Haynes 21)
5. Hawks4372: 47 (Haynes 28 + Jennings 19)
6. GoHawksDani: 46 (Haynes 26 + Collier 20)
7. FisteeFisterer: 45 (Jennings 23 + Collier 22)

The fifth round selection of Burr-Kirven didn’t change the top seven at all, and things went to the sixth round. In the sixth the Hawks took Travis Homer, but there were zero entries who had guessed Homer, so nothing changed.

Then John Schneider and Pete Carroll came on the clock for their tenth and final pick of the weekend, which they used to draft a second straight player from the state of Florida, Demarcus Christmas of Florida State. That selection changed things in a major way. There were only two entrants who had guessed Christmas as one of the Seattle draftees, Anita_Cocktail (27 point guess) and kelphelper (28 point guess). For kelphelper, that was the only selection that was guessed correctly, and ended up with just the 28 points for correctly guessing Christmas.

However, Anita_Cocktail had previous guessed both Collier (15) and Jennings (21), and it was like (Demarcus) Christmas in April, as the 27 points vaulted Anita_Cocktail from a three way tie for 18th place to being all alone in first place with 63 points. The tenth and final selection by the Hawks had put Anita_Cocktail in first place by a single point!

Thus, the standings for the 2019 Field Gulls Armchair GM Draft Challenge after the Seahawks made their tenth and final selection of the draft were as follows:

1. Anita_Cocktail: 63 (Christmas 27 + Jennings 21 + Collier 15)
2. sconway2244: 62 (Collier 30 + Metcalf 17 + Jennings 15)
3. rgaydeski: 53 (Jennings 27 + Collier 26)
4. sonicreducer: 51 (Jennings 28 + Collier 23)
5. 12thManderson: 51 (Blair 30 + Haynes 21)

BUT HOLD THE PRESSES!

Schneider and Carroll then reopened the drama by trading back into the seventh round and setting the team up with an eleventh pick. As we all know, that team used that pick on Ursua, however, as we know from above was guessed by zero entrants, and thus the standings remained unchanged.

Thanks to all who participated and congrats to Anita_Cocktail on being the winner!