Barking News

PFCC Week 3 Wrap: Twelve One-Score Games and One Very Happy Dawg

By: Sugar (2026-09-30)

Twelve one-score games. Twelve. That's an all-time NFL record for a single week, and if your Sunday felt like somebody was holding a pillow over your face for seven straight hours, congratulations, you were paying attention.

Week 3 didn't just beat the dirty-dawg field. It went through pockets afterward. Average score = 21. Yikes!!!

The Carnage, Game by Game

Start with Seattle. Ninety-eight percent of this field put the Seahawks on the board, a lot of you with big fat confidence numbers stapled to them (average 11.8), and Washington went out and won the game. Two percent of the field saw it. Two percent.

Arizona and San Francisco was even better, or worse, depending on which side of the ledger you sit on. One hundred percent of the field took the 49ers. San Francisco won. That is not a scoring play, that is a group participation trophy. Nobody gained an inch and nobody lost one either.

Then the real damage. Cincinnati sat at 86 percent and Pittsburgh won the game. Carolina sat at 80 percent and Cleveland won the game. Philadelphia sat at 90 percent and Chicago won the game. Three chalk plays, three craters, and if you had all three riding high you already know exactly what your Sunday night looked like.

Add New Orleans at 83 percent losing to Las Vegas. Add the LA Rams at 68 percent losing to Denver. Add Houston at 63 percent losing to Indianapolis. That is six popular sides on the floor, and the field average tells the story better than I can.

The bailouts, such as they were: Kansas City at 99 percent over Miami, Buffalo at 99 percent over the Chargers, Detroit at 97 percent over the Jets. Nobody wins a week on those. You just don't lose one.

Daniel Luyk Doesn't Just Win It, He Takes It

Daniel Luyk, from Grand Rapids, MI put up 116 points and it was never close. Five Top Dawg Picks on the week — Washington, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas and Chicago. Read that list again. Those are the five games that ate the rest of this contest alive, and Dan had all five.

His only real blemish? A 2 on the LA Rams. Two points. That is the entire receipt. He sits at 34-10 and he is your new overall leader, with a lead that is frankly obnoxious for three weeks into the  season. And Dan graciously shared his secret to success with us, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while".

Five Top Dawgs in a week where 90 percent of the field was on Philadelphia. That's not a hot streak, that's a man reading a different newspaper than the rest of us.

Behind him, Desiree Meadows (2022 Bronze Bone) posted 165 at 31-13, Brian Burleson 163 at 30-14, and Ashley Warthen 161 at 29-15. Deb Bulloch and Brandon Bigelbach tied at 157, both 30-14. Solid weeks all around, and all of them looking up at Dan.

On the group side, Astrophage Audibles is your new PFCC group leader. Everybody else has some ladder to climb, although it's just a few rungs for Tony's Barefoot OWIes and Nittany Squalls.

Elevator Going Up

John Crafter moved 149 spots, from 189 all the way to 40. That is the kind of week you frame. Robert Banks went from 133 to 7, a 126-spot jump that puts him in the neighborhood. Joe Kunches picked up 114 to land at 14, and Homer Bartson climbed 112 from 181 to 69.

When the chalk burns, the contrarians eat. Simple as that.

Elevator Going Down

Mike McClure was sitting pretty at 19. Mike McClure is now 200. That's a 181-spot fall and I genuinely hope somebody checked on him Sunday night. Nathan Rick dropped 107 to 209. Keith Ventimiglia slid 102 from 69 to 171.

And Jonathan Guseman gave back exactly 100 spots, 11 down to 111, which at least has a certain tidiness to it. Doesn't make it hurt less.

Three weeks in. Nobody's season is over and nobody's season is won — except possibly Dan's, and even he shouldn't say that out loud.

Week 4 and the London Problem

Here's your public service announcement, and I only get to make it once. The across-the-pond games start in Week 4. That means the PFCC Week 4 deadline is 8:30 AM CDT Sunday.

Eight-thirty. In the morning. Not after your coffee, not after you flip on the pregame show, not "I'll do it when I get up." Every year somebody rolls out of bed at ten, sees a lineup full of zeroes, and comes crying to the dirty-dawg directors.

Don't be that dawg. Get your picks in Saturday night. Don't snooze and lose!

Rusty Painter Doubles the Field While Everyone Else Bleeds

By: Sugar (2026-09-29)

Ninety-nine percent of the CFCC field had Penn State, and 4,655 points went up in smoke in one afternoon. Rusty Painter posted 88 in a week that averaged 42.7 — and four dawgs who woke up in the top 30 needed a ride home by dinner.