A SuperContest entrant using an alias of ANDREWSCALZI went 18-2 to win the $100,000 2nd Quarter Bonus for the best record in NFL Weeks 5-8.
ANDREWSCALZI was 5-0 in Weeks 5, 6 & 7 and was so dominant that they clinched after going 2-1 on Sunday afternoon before winning with the Eagles -7.5 on Sunday Night Football and losing to the Buccaneers -10.5 on Monday Night Football.
So, who is ANDREWCALZI? Well, it’s 2020, and thus it’s not as simple of an answer as it usually is when tracking down contest entrants and aliases. Matty Simo of footballcontest.com, the proxy for ANDREWCALZI, put us in touch with Massachusetts resident P.J. Scalzi, a 53-year-old worker in the tech field. So, is P.J. a nickname for Andrew or vice versa?
“No, I’m not Andrew, and my 21-year-old son is making the picks, so I can’t take any credit,” said the elder Scalzi. “We’re big sports fans in our family, and if we have a little action on a game, that’s all the better, at least that’s how I’ve always felt.
“Two years ago, our son was off to college and unbeknownst to me he was betting 12-team parlays every week. My wife told me ‘He’s pretty good at it. He’s gone 11-1 twice.’ I asked him about it and he was hitting 70% for the season and then he hit a $10 bet that paid out $24,600.
“I used to travel to Vegas a lot for business, so I knew about the SuperContest. Last year we had some friends and family that decided to back him and we entered for the first time [$1,500 to enter the SuperContest and $5,000 to enter the winner-take-all SuperContest Gold.”
Scalzi said they started well last season but a family tragedy took away some of the focus and they ended around .500, but “this year he seems to have found his mojo again.”
OK, but that still doesn’t answer who is the Andrew in ANDREWSCALZI?
“Oh, that’s my nephew,” Scalzi said. “My son caught COVID-19 and we couldn’t make the trip to sign up, so my nephew went and signed up in his name and used his own name for the alias.”
So, there you have it. ANDREWSCALZI is a group entry with the name on the entry just one of the investors. That actually makes sense in 2020.
A further note: Scalzi said his son, a cyber security analytics major at a Pennsylvania university, isn’t revealing his name because, as he told his dad, “the job’s not done yet.”
ANDREWSCALZI’s 18-2 run has also improved their second-long record to 30-10 (75%) and into second place, 2.5 points behind the leader, ODBMG2, who won the 1st Quarter Bonus at 18-2 and is now 32-7-1 (82.1%). SuperContest entrants pick 5 NFL games a week against the contest spread and receive 1 point for each win and 0.5 for each push. ODBMG2’s 32.5 points is the best all-time start through Week 8, topping the 32 points by SuperContest champions Rounding Again in 2015 and Personal Gourmet in 2018 (as well as @PIgskin_Junkies, who were tied with Personal Gourmet after Week 8 in 2018).
The SuperContest drew 1,172 entries, down from prior years due to increased competition from the second-year Circa Sports Million as well as the pandemic. The SuperContest pays the Top 100 finishers with first prize of $435,623.20 plus a championship ring.
In SuperContest Gold, ANDREWSCALZI2 (the Westgate requires a different spelling if entering both contests) is actually in the lead at 30-10 and is ahead of second-place ICED TEA 2 (26-12-2) by three points. SC Gold, which drew 72 entries this year, does not have any quarterly prizes and only has a winner-take-all prize of $360,000 to the season-long champ.
So, yes, a lot of work to do, but $100,000 is a great start.
