The first quarter of the 2019 Monday Night Ticket Score (MNTS) is in the books, and one fan made pool history. This season we're shifting from weekly to quarterly pool updates, and here is the first installment (excluding week 1, which we covered here):
Week 2: Cleveland 23, New York Jets 3
SecondTicket fan Topher, who is also 3rd all-time in MNTS pool points and the 2007 pool champion, became the 15th fan with at least four career weekly wins. On this occasion, he won thanks to the earliest submission tiebreaker, as four other fans also submitted a score that would have been good enough to win but did so after him. Those five fans equally split the weekly $50 award.
74% of fans picked the favored Browns, but they weren't sold on them, as the gap between the average score predictions (CLE 23.3, NYJ 19.1) and the 6.5 point spread was 4.2 points.
Week 2 Standings
Q1 Leader: cathil
Pool leader: cathil
Week 3: Chicago 31, Washington 15
The week's best prediction came from 1Cowboys at 31-13. That's her 3rd career weekly win, giving her a 1.9% weekly win rate which is 9th all-time among fans who've played at least as often (158+ weeks). She won $13 in free tickets. Two other fans (Countrysweet and bobby4768) matched a team score, and fostereli took the the pool lead with a top five finish.
The average prediction score gap of 4.7 points (CHI 22.5, WAS 17.8) closely mirrored the game's 4.5 point spread.
According to NFL Scorigami, this was only the 9th time in NFL history that a game ended with the score of 31-15.
Week 3 Standings
Q1 Leader: fostereli
Pool leader: fostereli
Week 4: Pittsburgh 27, Cincinnati 3
This was the most difficult game of the quarter, as measured by the median (10) and average (11) prediction differentials. Pittsburgh's score was common, and 16 fans picked it, but only one fan submitted the higher risk 3-point prediction for the Bengals - and she was rewarded for it. Congrats to first time winner bbhedrick in just her 18th week. The remainder of the top five was decided by the earliest submission tiebreaker.
Fans generally predicted Pittsburgh to cover the 3.5 point spread, having submitted average score predictions of PIT 24.9, CIN 19.9.
Week 4 Standings
Quarter 1: Fan Makes Pool History
SecondTicket fan Dirty024 became the first to win two consecutive quarters (he also won Q4 of the 2018 pool) and just the 4th with three career quarterly wins. He scores an $18.50 free ticket bonus and obviously has the pool lead heading into Q2.
Related: Season Week-By-Week All-Time How Credits Work
For these and similar statistics and analysis, follow @themegapool on Twitter.
Q2 begins next week with a suddently interesting game between Cleveland and San Francisco. All fans begin with zero Q2 points, so make your week 5 prediction now!