Fooch usually promotes the predictions thread to the front page on Saturdays, and I imagine that he doesn't mind my acting on his behalf this time. I think a lot of people seem to wait for the front page thread to go up to make their predictions, and it strikes me that it might just be because it's more visible there. Remember, if you're ever waiting to make your predictions, the thread is usually active by Thursday in the FanPost section of the site, over on the right sidebar.

In any case, we're getting down to the home stretch, and things are tightening up like crazy. For a while, it seemed as though wjackalope was going to run away with the prize, but it's recently turned into a legitimate four or five person race. And any perfect predictions could make it even tighter. And with a playoff birth and prizes on the line, every week counts.

Make your predictions here. It's another tough set of games this week. Good luck to all.

I hope you'll enjoy this historical recap of the San Francisco 49ers' 1966 season. 1966 was the season of the NFL-AFL merger. More important for the 49ers, though, was the emergence of multiple stars on offense in 1965, including the long-awaited breakout of quarterback John Brodie. How would they follow-up? Read on to find out. Also included is a short profile of former 49ers running back Ken Willard, a true star on the team for 9 great seasons.

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Head Coach: Jack Christiansen

Key Losses: DT Karl Rubke, DB Jerry Mertens

Key Additions: TE Bob Windsor, DB Al Randolph, DB Mel Phillips, WR Dick Witcher

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Current results are OFFICIAL, suckas.

Let's make this quick, because none of us (read: me) have time to waste with a bunch of bad jokes and Lewis Carroll references:

Oh happy day! Callou, callay! The Packers got drilled and Brady Quinn sucks again. Life is, in fact, looking up!

About the prediction games, though, I think I'll start with this:

"I think I've managed to select a group of games that will be tough to call."

 - Fooch

Yeah, no [site decorum], genius! We were collectively awful this week. Did you guys realize that most of you predicted the Packers and the Panthers would win? Did you guys know that many of you predicted the 49ers would win? Way to play the [site decorum] odds, jerks!

Just how collectively awful were we? Look for yourself:

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Head Coach: Jack Christiansen

Key Losses: CB/KR Abe Woodson, HB J. D. Smith

Key Additions: HB John David Crow, HB Ken Willard

After the jump, a detailed rundown of the 1965 season, a make or break year for QB John Brodie.

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Brady Quinn has won a game as an NFL quarterback, which pretty much destroys my faith in the essential goodness of the universe. I did not enjoy watching that game. Buffalo had every chance to win and just threw each and every one of them away. If I wanted to watch that, I would have recorded last week's 49er game.

After struggling with about 3 different segues from that initial thought, each less entertaining and significantly less thoughtful than the last, I came to realize that I really don't have anything else to say about that. But I had to tell somebody. Brady Quinn? He even made a few awfully nice throws.

So with that in mind, screw segues. Let's talk the prediction game. I actually think that this (and a future post to make the issue clear) would be a good opportunity to explain what makes it worthwhile to continue pushing for ground. And that's the playoffs. We have, what, 6 weeks before the playoffs now? And as some of you know, the playoffs usher in a brand new competition in the games.

The first is a total free for all. It's essentially a replica system of the regular season prediction games except that predictions are made for every single playoff game, everybody starts back at zero, and perfect scores only count for 5 instead of 10. Ashamed by your regular season performance? Didn't start playing until week 13 and just couldn't catch up? This will be your chance to make up for everything.

The other is a seeded playoff system that includes the top 8 finishers from the regular season games. If there are any 8th place ties, the position gets tiebroken by a complex system of me counting up how many games you won outright over the course of the season. The player with the most outright wins, takes the tiebreak and wins the 8th seed. Couldn't be simpler. Seeds are staggered, so the 1 seed faces the 8 seed in week one, and so on. Scoring is also modified to accommodate head to head matchups as opposed to the free-for-all system currently employed.

The entire system will be explained in detail as we get closer, but I'd like you to be aware that even if you don't win in the regular season, you could conceivably have two extra chances to win during the post-season. One for the free-for all, and another one for any member of the top-8.

Personally, I'm a BIG fan of the head to head playoffs. I rather enjoyed beating the snot out of everybody last year.

In any case, onto the results:

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I didn't really want to think about football this week, for reasons that had to do with good and bad circumstances.

The Bad: The 49ers. It's hard when you lose a game by playing worse than a team that was playing worse than you. Wrap your head around that one, because I'm not changing it to make it make sense.

The Good: My god-daughter had her first birthday yesterday. And let me tell you that it was her party and she cried whenever anybody got within a foot of her, occasionally after she fell, a few times when she was hungry, and a couple of times when she wanted to. All in all, the whole night probably scarred her for life. But on the bright side, her family got to gorge on pizza and cake!

The Bad: I'm actually pretty lazy. That didn't quite make me want to not think about football, But it did make me want to not write about it.

The Good: I'm actually pretty lazy and I had better things to not do than think about football.

But then wjackalope found me at home and pistol-whipped me for making him wait. Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty lazy, but it's amazing what a concussion and an 8mm barrel in your face can do to motivate you.

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Head Coach: Jack Christiansen

Key Losses: SE Clyde Conner, OT Bob St. Clair, DT Leo Nomellini

Key Additions: WR Dave Parks, LB Dave Wilcox, OG Howard Mudd, LB Ed Beard

Discussion Starter: Discussion starter here this week only because I really didn't have to stretch for this one. It's more of a convenient coincidence than anything anybody can really talk about, anyway, but... In 1963, the 49ers won two games, struggled with injuries and an ongoing thinning of the offensive talent, and went through a midseason coaching change. In 1964 they retained their interim coach full-time and went on to win 4 games. The 49ers now have won two games and are struggling with injuries and a lack of talent. Mike Singletary has the chance to be retained next season. The logical conclusion to this is that Singletary coaches the team for 3 more years with limited success and is then replaced by Mike Nolan. Just think about that for a while.

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In the midst of political turmoil and a presidential election the importance of which we haven't seen since as early as 2004, in the midst of mudslinging, war, economic downturn, and some other stuff I won't mention because they involve cheesecake - and not all of it good cheesecake. And I hate bad cheesecake sooo much...

In these troubled time people need a place to escape. For example: Written largely in the midst of World War II, The Lord of the Rings eventually exploded into popularity amidst the deep rooted social, national, and global tensions of the 1960s. Furthermore, the same national climate that bred the escapism of the 60s bled into the 70s, as the Vietnam war continued, while social equality movements continued to burn, particularly as immigration increased and the diversity, as well as the strength of minority groups increased with it. The escape from the tensions of the decade came to a head in 1977 with the release of Star Wars and the unprecedented public reception of the film. In the 80s, there was apparently something very severe that needed escaping from because, I mean, really? Ah-ha? Masters of the Universe? Personally, I'm still trying to escape The Smiths.

So you see my point. When important things happen, people want a place to enjoy unimportant things, even while those same people simultaneously move the world around them.

So here I give you a bit of escapism. I assure you, there are dragons. I assure you James Earl Jones has at least a bit role. I assure you, somebody here will sing in pitches which, simply put, neither man nor woman was designed to sing. And Kurt Russel will blow something up. Never before have the prediction game results been so exciting!

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Head Coach: Red Hickey (0-3) / Jack Christiansen (2-9)

Key Losses: G Ted Connolly

Key Additions: QB Lamar McHan, DB Kermit Alexander, DT Walt Rock

Discussion Starter:

As of this week, I'm tentatively getting rid of the discussion starter. The main reason is that it doesn't really start a lot of debate. Another part of it is just that it is very difficult not to repeat myself and remain interesting at the same time: I mean, really, I was talking about kickers last time! Before that, my question on commissioners was a huge hit!

The reality is simply that until we get to right around 1979, there won't be much discussion no matter what I do. And with any luck, this will also open a little more time for me to go over a little more comprehensive research material going forward.

If you want to discuss anything, though, feel free to talk about how much you're going to miss seeing where I go next trying to stretch the 196X season into something universal.

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