WCG’s 2021 season pick winners

For those of you who have read Windy City Gridiron for years, you understand that the people who write, record, and edit here are some of the most passionate Bears followers around. While the team may not always love us back with the results they produce (or lack thereof) on the field, our staff checks in with a navy and orange hard hat and lunch pail 12 months out of the year.

But even while we love the Bears, that does not mean we aren’t cosmopolitan NFL fans. A great deal of us does pay attention to the league’s overall happenings and spend entire Sundays glued to our couch, hoping for a morsel of drama and excitement.

We’ve only been doing leaguewide game picks of the sort for a few years now at WCG. 2021 was also the second year we had access to a more formal database like Tallysight, making these picks palatable. And while there isn’t anything on the line—aside from pride and internal bragging rights—we on staff like to think there’s some correlation to our football knowledge and how we forecast the entire NFL.

Again, to be clear: We like to think that’s true.

With the NFL Scouting Combine starting this week, I thought it was appropriate to put the 2021 campaign to bed finally. Of the folks who participated, here’s how each of us stacked up when it came to moneyline picks (straight up), Over/Under, the spread, and overall standings.

Please note that not everyone participated in each category, and there were some up and down weeks included. In light of that, each of these tables is by top-five (if there were five people) and winning percentage. This was an inexact science like the NFL draft but reflected our data as best as possible.

Over/Under winner: Bill Zimmerman

Spread winner: Jacob Infante

Moneyline winner: Sam Householder

Overall 2021-2022 season winner: Robert Zeglinski

Congratulations to everyone on staff for predicting (guessing) how the NFL would shake out last season. Yes, last season. Who knows, perhaps next year we’ll introduce a trophy into the proceedings? I, for one, would love to add a tiny bronze bear to my mantel.