It's official: Bonzo pounds the "pundits"

Cold, Hard Football Facts for Jan 06, 2006

Well, folks, he did it!

Bonzo the Idiot Monkey, our banana-chucking, coin-flipping, coconut-humping pigskin prognosticating primate bested the top "experts" CBS Sportsline could throw his way in our season-long battle picking NFL games against the spread.

And Bonzo did it in grand style. He pulled out a 9-6-1 mark in the last week of

the season, propelling him past Sportsline's Michael Fabiano, who held a one-game advantage entering Week 17 but then slipped before the finish line with a 6-9-1 mark.

Each week of the 2005 season, Bonzo put his picks up against those of four "pundits" from CBS Sportsline: Minister of Hackery Pete Prisco, Clark Judge, Greg Bromberg and Fabiano.

How did each participant in our contest pick their games? Well, the "pundits" at CBS Sportsline have years of experience writing about football, access to the most sophisticated and expensive data out there from every major stat service, a full command of rudimentary stone-chipping tools and, as writers for the official news source of NFL.com, inside access to every NFL locker room.

Bonzo blindly flipped a coin. And he's a monkey.

Despite these disadvantages against an allegedly superior species, the sports hack, our prehensile primate dominated over the second half of the year. He took over first place in Week 10, pulled away in Weeks 11 and 12, held the top spot for six weeks before falling a game back after Week 16, but pulled it out at the end.

The bottom line: if you're turning to CBS Sportsline or its "experts" for gridiron guidance, you're climbing up the wrong tree. Even a stupid monkey can outdo these donkeys merely by flipping a coin.

Here are the final 2005 regular season results. We're also offering up playoff picks at the bottom.

	Bonzo	Prisco	Judge	Bromberg	Fabiano
Week 17	9-6-1	6-9-1	8-7-1	10-5-1	6-9-1
Overall	134-113-5	128-119-5	130-117-5	129-118-5	133-114-5

For the full story on Bonzo, click here. You can check out last week's picks here.

Wild-card round playoff picks:

Favorite	Spread	Underdog	Bonzo	Prisco	Judge	Bromberg	Fabiano
at NE	-8	Jax	NE	Jax	NE	Jax	NE
at TB	-2.5	Wash	Wash	Wash	TB	Tampa	Wash
at NYG	-2.5	Carolina	Carol	NYG	NYG	Carolina	Carol
Pitt	-3	at Cincy	Cincy	Cincy	Pitt	Pittsburgh	Cincy

By Kerry Byrne

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