the results of the inaugural Matt Shaub Pick-6 Prediction contest The 5 o’clock club is published Wednesday to Saturday during the season Tress Way Jersey , and aims to provide a forum for reader-driven discussion at a time of day when there isn’t much NFL news being published. Feel free to introduce topics that interest you in the comments below.The contestPrior to the opening game of the season, the 5 o’clock club sponsored a prediction contest.Entrants had to correctly predict the records for six teams through the first three weeks of the season.As a tie-breaker, entrants had to predict the Redskins point differential (+/-) through the first three weeks.Here are the actual results:Eagles 2-1Cowboys 1 - 2Giants 1 - 2Browns 1 - 1 - 1Vikings1 - 1 - 1Patriots 1 - 2Redskins point differential: +20That’s right... 5 of our 6 teams have mustered only a single win so far in the 2018 season, and the Eagles are the only team in the contest to record two victories.No one who entered the contest saw that coming.In my personal predictions from the contest article, I correctly predicted the records for the Eagles and Patriots, and I got the win-total correct for the Vikings.So, counting win-totals, I would have scored 3 points; based on exact record predictions, I would have scored 2 points.Neither would have been good enough to win, and several people outscored me.Now it’s time to unveil and celebrate the winner(s).The conundrumBefore I do, though, I’d like to point out that two of the six teams that were part of the contest (the Browns and Vikings) each had a tie in the first 3 weeks, which had an effect on the contest, since no one predicted ties, and in my article setting up the contest I implied that ties wouldn’t be part of it.I saw two possibilities to resolving this conundrum: 1. I could give a point to anyone who correctly predicted the total wins for the Vikings & Browns (which several people did) instead of correctly predicting their actual records (whichno one did).2. I could simply give no points to anyone for the Browns or Vikings, since no one predicted the ties.Good newsAs it turned out, I didn’t really have any difficult decision to make, because either method gave me the same results.Multiple people tied for the same score, which moved us to the tie-breaker.Only one entrant, McLovinLife, correctly picked the Redskins to have a +20 point differential, but he was one point behind the leaders, so he was not involved in the tie breaking portion.Depending on the scoring method used, I had either an 8-way tie or a 10-way tie for first place.And the winner is...Going to the tie breaker, two entrants who tied for first place in the contest had projected +18 point differential, making them the closest of the first-place finishers to the actual number of +20.Also, both entrants tied for first in both methods because — not only had they both predicted a +18 point differential — the two entrants had made identical picks for all 6 teams as well.Given the fact that the NFL had a tie in each of the first two weeks of the season, and that our contest involved a team from each of those two draws, it seems fitting to simply declare the Pick-6 contest a tie as well.I give you, then, our co-champions:tao9087 and sunshine_skins Results for all entrantsHere is a summary of the outcomes.The top chart rewards entrants for getting the correct number of wins (max possible score of 6), while the bottom chart rewards only getting the team’s record exactly correct (a max score of 4).Getting the number of wins rightGetting the records exactly rightI’d like to congratulate our co-champions, sunshine_skins and tao9087 who managed to play to a draw.Browns and Vikings fans appreciate your efforts as well.You may brag about your achievement in the comments section of the 5 o’clock club posts until kickoff of the Saints game on MNF next week, at which point you will no longer be able to brag about your cousin-kissing level of achievement.Additionally, you may, if you wish, add the following to your signature line in perpetuity:“I tied for first place in the 2018 inaugural Matt ShaubPick-6 prediction contest”I’d also like to thank all 25 readers who took the time to participate in this contest. It’s nice to have something to celebrate this week while the Redskins are enjoying a week off from football. She took little bites and she chewed very slow, just like a good girl should..."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Looks Like Someone Has A Sixpack Of The MondaysDaily SlopRedskins RecapsEDTShareTweetShareShareSalary Cap Nuggets - No.5: How do NFL players get paid for the post season and the pro bowl?This series is called Salary Cap Nuggets because ‘nuggets’ is such an interesting word in English.It calls to mind chicken nuggets - tasty, bite sized and easy to eat.But it also calls to mind gold nuggets - small Fabian Moreau Jersey , but valuable.The salary cap is a product of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which is a 301-page contract between the NFL Owners and the NFL Players Association.In these articles, I try to explore just one or two small parts of the NFL salary cap defined in the massive CBA.Hence, Salary Cap Nuggets - small, bite-sized, easy to digest, yet valuable information for NFL fans.The goal is to, one bite at a time, get a clear understanding of the salary cap.Click this link to for handy access to all the Salary Cap NuggetsNugget #3 looked at the difference between Salary Cap and Player Benefits, focusing on the fact that the money paid to players in the post-season is not part of Salary Cap, but is in the second bucket (Benefits), and paid from a league pool; playoff money is not paid by the playoff teams themselves.Today’s Nugget focuses on the same general idea — postseason play, including the Pro Bowl — and how the amount of pay for those players is determined.The authors of the book Crunching Numbers deal with this question on pages 219 and 220: How (and how much) do players get paid then for participating in the Preseason, Postseason and for playing in the Pro Bowl? PLAYOFFSThe authors of the book go on to give specific amounts, but they are all listed as of 2016, when the book I own was published.Below, I have kept the format presented in the book, but updated numbers of the most recent post-season.Postseason amounts increase each year, and in 2019 (following the 2018 season), players received postseason pay of: $27,000 for a wild card game ($29,000 if they were division winner entering this round), plus $29,000 for the divisional round, plus $54,000 for the conference championship, and $118,000 for winning the Super Bowl or $59,000 for losing. The CBA defines postseason pay for ten yearsThe amounts for these payments are written into the CBA and defined for each year.I copied that table from pg 168 of the CBA and paste it here for reference:Qualifying for full pay, half pay, or quarter payPlayers don’t have to play in the game, or even still be on the team to get at least a partial payment for post-season play.There appear to be only two possibilities listed in the book, but looking at the CBA, I found that there is actually a third possible payment defined in the agreement.Players who are on the team during their playoff games receive full pay from the league pool, which is part of the Player Benfits bucket in the league-wide Player Cost.Players who had a significant role with the team during the regular season, but who are no longer with the team during post-season play (as in the Percy Harvin example) may qualify for half-pay.Certain First-Year players may qualify for 1⁄4 pay.I went to the CBA itself to find out how these three categories are defined.The information is on pages 168 and 169.I learned quite a lot, and I created a little ‘Decision Tree’ for determining how much playoff money a player qualifies for.I thought I would present it first, then provide the details copied and pasted from the CBA below it (worried that the legalese of the CBA provisions might scare too many people away from scrolling down to my decision tree).The Decision TreeThe decision tree is based on details copied directly from the CBA (emphasis is mine) and pasted below.To qualify for FULL PAY for playoff gamesA player who, at the time of the game in question Dustin Hopkins Jersey , is and has been on the Active List or Inactive List of a Club participating in the game for AT LEAST THREE PREVIOUS GAMES (i.e., regular or postseason) will receive the full amount designated in Section 2 for such game.A player who, at the time of the game in question, is not on the Active List or Inactive List of a Club participating in the game but was on the Active or Inactive List for EIGHT OR MORE GAMES (i.e., regular or postseason) will receive the full amount designated in Section 2 for such game provided he is not under contract to another Club in the same Conference at the time of the game in question.A veteran player injured during the regular season and removed from the Active List or Inactive List of a Club participating in the game in question for reason of injury will receive the full amount designated in Section 2 for such game provided he is still under contract to the Club at the time of the game.If a veteran player who completed the season in which his fourth year or more of Credited Service ... was earned is injured during the preseason and, as a result, is removed from the Active List or Inactive List of a Club participating in the game in question, he will receive the full amount designated in Section 2 for such game provided that he is still under contract to the Club at the time of the game.To qualify for HALF PAY for playoff gamesA player who, at the time of the game in question, is and has been on the Active List or Inactive List of a Club participating in the game for LESS THAN THREE PREVIOUS GAMES (i.e., regular or postseason) will receive one-half the amount designated in Section 2 for such game.A player who, at the time of the game in question, is not on the Active List or Inactive List of a Club participating in the game, but who was on the Club’s Active List or Inactive List for AT LEAST THREE AND NOT MORE THAN SEVEN games (i.e., regular and postseason) will receive one-half the amount designated in Section 2 for such game, provided he is not under contract to another Club in the same Conference at the time of the game in questionIf a first-year player is injured during the regular season and, as a result, is removed from the Active List or Inactive List of a Club participating in the game in question, he will receive one-half (½) the amount designated in Section 2 above for such game, provided that he is still under contract to the Club at the time of the game and had signed an NFL Player Contract or Practice Squad Contract during a prior League Year.If a veteran player who has NOT completed the season in which his fourth year of Credited Service ... has been earned is injured during the preseason and, as a result, is removed from the Active List or Inactive List of a Club participating in the game in question, he will receive one-half (½) the amount designated in Section 2 for such game provided that he is still under contract to the Club at the time of the game.To qualify for ONE QUARTER PAY for playoff gamesIf a first-year player is injured during the preseason and, as a result, is removed from the Active List or Inactive List of a Club participating in the game in question, he will receive one-quarter (¼) of the amount designated in Section 2 above for such game provided that he is still under contract to the Club at the time of the game and; (A) he was on that Club’s Practice Squad for eight or more games in a prior League Year; or (B) he received at least one, but fewer than three, regular season game checks while on that Club’s Active or Inactive or Reserve Injured list during a prior League Year.Note 1: “First year players” are not rookies.A “rookie” has never before signed an NFL contract.“First year players” have previously signed a contract, but did not qualify for an accrued season.An example of a first year player from the current Redskins roster is long-snapper Andrew East, who is 27 years old and has signed eight NFL contracts, but was on the roster for only 3 games in 2018.Note 2: For the clauses cited above that apply to “First Year Players”, the CBA says, “A player who has not signed an NFL Player Contract or NFL Practice Squad Contract during a previous NFL season is not entitled to postseason pay under [the relevant] Subsections.”PRO BOWLLike the playoff amounts, payment to players for being named to the Pro Bowl are listed in the CBA on page 170.I have copied the table, and paste it here to show the amount paid, increasing each season: