PRESS PIGSKIN PROGNOSTICATORS

A winner and a whiner

By MIKE PATRICK

PPP Commissioner

The Super Bowl hasn’t even kicked off yet, but — drum roll, please — here’s your winner:

Mike Randles!

And here’s your sore loser:

Steve Cameron.

In between are nine other all-pro Press Pigskin Prognosticators, poised as they dash toward the season’s endzone.

At the top of the list is Randles, Coeur d’Alene High’s athletic director, whose two-game lead over Cd’A Police Chief Lee White’s boxer, Buster, is insurmountable with just one game to play.

Randles engaged in very little smacktalk during the season, focusing instead on the actual NFL games. For his world-class effort, Randles has won four half-page ads in The Press for Children’s Village.

Buster/White, meantime, holds a one-game lead over Cameron, who pens a sports column for this humble sheet when he’s not whining. To its chagrin, The League received this pathetic appeal from the shameless ink-stained wretch earlier this week:

Sir:

I wish to protest the result of the Pigskin Prognosticator event.

I don’t believe contestants were told that we would be picking postseason games. I know I wasn’t. I was leading when we got near the end of the regular season and began making picks accordingly. In other words, carefully.

Meanwhile, Randles goes wild with upsets, grabs the lead and then lets Mariano Rivera close it out. And I’m standing there, finished off by another cutter on the corner.

I’m a little miffed by all this, and I can tell you for certain that ...

I AM NOT IN A GOOD [expletive deleted] MOOD AND BEST NOT BE [really nasty expletive deleted] AROUND!

Respectfully ...

Your Humble Columnist

•••

The League quickly responded.

Prognosticator Cameron:

Herein lies your admission that you have not been reading the articles in YOUR newspaper, which is in direct violation of PPP Rules & Regs section 493A, subsection 14B, paragraph 67, which says, and I quote:

Read the [horrific expletive deleted] paper.

Here, Prognosticator Cameron, is the first sentence from Sept. 5, 2019, just before the first NFL game of the season, between the Packers and Bears:

When the dust finally settles and Super Bowl LIV is history, the prognosticator with the best record will have won four half-page ads in The Press for her or his nonprofit.

That sentence also was included in a front-page article Aug. 10, when the participating prognosticators were first announced.

The League does appreciate your voluntary acknowledgment of violating PPP rules and regs, and will report the same to readers this week.

Respectfully,

Commissioner Patrick

•••

Between Randles’ classy success story and Cameron’s crass confession, Prognosticator Mike Kennedy and neighbor Jim Winger traded insults while young Jared Staples conceded a couple of defeats to pizza king Jim Hightower. Further, Post Falls Citizen of the Year Pat Knight — citizen of the year, by the way, is almost as prestigious a title as Press Pigskin Prognosticator — got in the best pre-Super Bowl parting shot.

“Maybe Steve Cameron picked the Pro Bowl game correctly?,” Knight posed. “He does work for the Press, you know ...”

The Press may or may not have gotten the standings right this week, along with the prognosticators’ Super Bowl picks. Check out today’s sports section and find out.