Lansing’s Pro Football Pick ‘Em Champion
Thank you to everyone who participated in this year's Pro Football Pick Em! We gave you all the opportunity to prove that you're the top football expert in Lansing, and the competition was fierce. After 17 weeks, our grand prize winner pulled ahead and picked more correct winners than anyone else. His name? Mike Coll. We had the opportunity to chat with Mike about the contest and what he'll do if he takes home that $10,000 prize.
Living in Michigan, a lot of us around here are Lions fans even if we know they're inevitably going to let us down. Mike doesn't have to worry about those pesky Lions, though, because he's a Steelers fan for life. He told us that being born and raised in Pittsburgh, it was basically a law that you had to be a Steelers fan.
When asked what his reaction was to winning, Mike said, "I was kind of surprised. There was some guy named Eric...I thought for sure we were going to end up tied, but I had him beat on the point differential anyway, so if we'd ended up tying I still felt pretty good about it."
Mike was neck and neck with other participants throughout the competition, and it wasn't until the last couple of weeks that he pulled ahead. When asked about his strategy, he got straight to the point saying he, "picked the team [he] thought was going to win." Mike went on to elaborate that it was important to pick a few upsets. In his words:
You have to find those upsets because there's always a couple of 'em. Especially in the last week because you get the teams that are sitting players and they're not going to try as hard. And you've gotta say well that team should kill them but half their team is sittin' on the bench. So the Steelers helped me out in that respect going into the last couple of weeks because there were some games they should have lost that I think if everybody had played that was supposed to, they would have.
Now for the big question: what would Mike do with the $10,000? He told us that he'd "like to blow it on a trip to the Super Bowl next year." He went on to say, "That'd be pretty cool. I was born in '55, and it'll be Super Bowl LV so maybe it'll all come together."
Mike has put in his predictions for the halftime and final scores of the Big Game on Feb. 2, and he has the opportunity to win some serious cash. If he predicts either score correctly, he'll get $1,000, and if he predicts both correctly, he’ll be $10,000 richer.
Thank you for playing Mike and congratulations on your win! We're all rooting for you and hope that you take home that $10K.