-Justin Herbert was the only quarterback completely picked out in the regular season due to a flurry of Sunday Night Football selections in Week 18. That shouldn't dampen the fact that he was also the only quarterback to earn the week's top score three times over the course of the season.
-Although he couldn't get his team over the hump in the Super Bowl, Joe Burrow's final selection in the AFC Championship game saw him the second quarterback to fill the pick grid entirely. He also has the distinction of the highest scoring single week this season with 525 yards through the air in Week 16.
-The only quarterback to be picked in Week 1 and the Super Bowl was Matthew Stafford. He was the top scorer in the final two weeks of the season and surpassed 300 yards for seven out of his ten selections.
-Big Ben's ride into the sunset came on Wild Card weekend when oddly enough the other man to be picked nine times sent his side home in convincing fashion. Seven of his nine selections came in the regular season with his best being a 266 yard outing against the Browns in Week 8. Only Scott did not take the future Hall of Famer this season.
-Mahomes made it two rounds past his counterpart in this section but was eventually done in by the Bengals in the AFC Championship Game. Our participants were very wary of saving Mahomes until the postseason as 6 of his 9 selections came from the divisional round and beyond. Unfortunately for myself, I was the only person who didn't get to benefit from Mahomes' prolific passing performances.
-The most selected rookie in the 2021 Pick One Challenge was the only rookie to make the postseason in his first year. Mac Jones had most of his work in the Challenge done in the early stages of the year with five of his eight selections coming in Week 1 and 2.
-It was another season of letdown in Dallas and it was pretty much the same in the Pick One Challenge. Dak had as many top scores as his backup Cooper Rush did (one) and despite having one top score found his backers pulling their hair against poor opposition more than once.
-Kirk Cousins was a two-time top scorer this season yet outside of those two weeks for the most part he left those who selected regretting their decision including an 87 yard Week 15 that sent Colin spiraling out of contention.
-Arizona's #1 saved his worst for last this season. Murray had the best performance in the game for 14 weeks after his 400 yard game in Week 2. However, those who saved his dynamism for Arizona's first playoff game in six years were "rewarded" with just 137 yards against Los Angeles.
-The rookie bonus lured a lot of folks into taking Zach Wilson this season. Even with that 50 point boost the #2 overall pick in the NFL Draft only broke the 300 yard barrier once in Week 4 against Tennessee.
-Derek Carr was a late bloomer in the Pick One with all of his selections coming in Week 7 or later. He was the leading scorer of the Wild Card round, one of two times in seven selections he broke 300 yards.
-It looked promising for Russell Wilson early on after 298 yards in Week 3 but unfortunately he would never even sniff the neighborhood of that total again in 2021. He may be looking for greener pastures in 2022 but those who backed him on most weeks in this game felt they probably should have done the same.
-Five of Jimmy G's seven selections came in the postseason with his 232 yards in the NFC Championship Game against the eventual Super Bowl champion Rams being his best outing of the bunch.
-The top pick in the 2021 Draft didn't have the banner season that many thought he would have coming out of Clemson but with the Jags being even worse than the low expectations most had for them you can't blame Trevor Lawrence entirely. At the very least he earned the top rookie score of the season with a rookie-boosted 369 yards in Week 6.
-When you have four quarterbacks on the Pick Grid it is pretty much a lost season from the start, but Taylor Heinicke made the best of it in Washington. Nevertheless, the grind definitely wore on him as his first selection's total was more than double his final selection's.
-Matty Ice was the top scorer in Week Five which seems wild given how little he had to work with as Atlanta was riddled with injuries. He also never found himself in the basement in any of his selection weeks despite having a couple of stinkers sprinkled in there.
-Tua was a one-time weekly winner and it wasn't even with his best selected performance. That came in a demoralizing defeat in Week 7 to the Falcons that was their sixth of seven losses in a row before they would flip the script and then win seven on the trot.
-Buffalo's big-armed gunslinger was one a lot of us held onto for far too long. He only threw for under 300 yards in one selection week and only saw two selections in the playoffs. With next year's modifiers (no spoilers), I'm fairly certain he won't be in this spot again barring injury.
-I'll try not to be belligerent about Carson Wentz so I'll just leave the Pick One facts that he was picked in three different weeks and his best output was 223 yards and then go back to my hole and cry.
-We came out swinging with Jalen Hurts with the Philadelphia signal caller as he joined Ryan Tannehill and Mac Jones as the only QB's to get double-selected in the first week of the Challenge. Similar to Allen, rule changes for 2022 in the works will only make Hurts a more lucrative candidate.
-It seems weird to see the NFL MVP selected by only half the field but that Divisional Round loss to San Francisco left a lot of our participants in the lurch. At least he finished above the guy who finished second in the MVP voting as well.
-Brandon Allen was a necessity pick in the Super Bowl as Bengals' starter Joe Burrow had been completely picked out. He didn't play, nothing to see here.
-After tying for the bronze medal with eventual Super Bowl winner Matthew Stafford in Week 1, it was only a pair of panic picks in Week 17 that kept the disappointing former #1 overall pick from being further down the picking pecking order.
-It could be argued that Davis Mills wasn't used enough this season in the Pick One but if he is given the reins again next year in Houston it will most certainly be a different story.
-Ryan Tannehill's usage was done by Week 7 this season despite playing in all seventeen of his side's games, making the playoffs as the AFC's top seed, and throwing 21 touchdowns. That is either foresight or disrespect. I'll let you decide which.
-Justin Fields is the first of three Bears QB's you'll see on this rundown, one of two teams to get three passers picked. His chaotic rookie campaign was marred by injuries and deficiencies around him but if he can retain the starting role next year (yup, you've probably figured out the modifier by now) he'll surely be picked out by season's end. He was the top scorer in Week 15.
-Your eyes aren't deceiving you. In the year 2021, Geno Smith was picked four times in a game where participants were trying to get the most passing yards from an NFL quarterback. I even picked him and I still can't figure out why.
-Similar to Allen, John Wolford was only taken in the Super Bowl because only Al and Brittany, our gold and silver medalists overall, had Matthew Stafford at their disposal.
-During the MVP's brief "COVID sabbatical" in Week 9, Jordan Love got a chance to showcase against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs why he was a first round pick and the potential heir apparent in Green Bay. He only threw for 190 yards and Rodgers' rumored month off turned into one week.
-Outside of the paycheck, it had to be a stinging year professionally for Jared Goff. Seeing the guy who were traded for take the team you couldn't get over the top to Super Bowl glory and have one of your selections in the Pick One only break 100 yards because of the full length of overtime isn't a great feeling. OK, so one is a bit bigger of a deal than the other.
-Large Penis Nicholas made his only appearance in the Pick One in Week 16 with both Andy Dalton and Justin Fields unavailable for Chicago. Foles threw for 250 yards but didn't catch a TD on a gimmick play so nobody remembers it.
-File Tom Brady as another one under the "Held On For Too Long" tab. The MVP runner-up and recently retired legend was only taken three times with two of those coming in Tampa Bay's Divisional Round ouster to the eventual Super Bowl champion Rams. Whether he actually stays retired remains to be seen but if so we know he drinks enough water so he'll never get sunburned all of those days on tropical beaches.
-Speaking of less successful former Patriots quarterbacks, Cam Newton made a triumphant return to Carolina this season and I may not exactly know the definition of triumphant anymore. Newton's three selections came in Weeks 11 and 12 and he maxed out at 189 passing yards.
-Although he has some of the strangest Stan accounts on Twitter, all Drew Lock accomplished in the Pick One this season was average 157.5 yards in his two selections.
-Gardner Minshew will probably have an NFL job as a quarterback deputy for as long as he wants one. In Week 13 he was double-selected for 242 yards as the Eagles coasted past the Jets.
-Staying in the NFC East, Daniel Jones may have to also soon resort to being a backup in the league after another season to forget at MetLife. Only the Sieczkiewicz household went with Danny Dimes this year with Brittany's Week 3 tally more than doubling Matt's from Week 5.
-The third and final Bear on our recap is Andy Dalton. The Red Rifle started the season as the Bears starter before being displaced by Justin Fields only to get some late season run including 317 yards on Thanksgiving Day against the Lions.
-A dastardly bait and switch occurred with the Vikings in Week 17 when Kirk Cousins' absence was filled by journeyman Sean Mannion at the eleventh hour rather than rookie Kellen Mond. Matt and Trevor both fell for the deception from the now-jobless Mike Zimmer and only got a garbage time roll-out for 5 yards which with the rookie boost produced the lowest rookie total of the season with 55.
-There may not have been a more uncomfortable game to watch all season than Ian Book's Week 16 Monday Night NFL debut for the Saints. The Dolphins pulverized and confused the rookie all evening and with the rookie boost finished with just 185 yards as a score.
-Only one more Panther to go after Sam Darnold comes through. He was double-selected by the Morris clan in Week 7 and he finished with only 111 yards in a really sloppy loss to the New York Football Giants.
-Trey Lance was nearly one of the true one-hit wonders of the Pick One Challenge with the top score in Week 17 before Ryan's running out of options for the NFC Championship forced his hand into giving the lottery pick a DNP second selection.
-There is a lot of Matt Falcone's handiwork in this section with half of the ten players pictured being selected by him. Two of them were DNPs in Pittsburgh's Mason Rudolph (Week 9) and Cleveland's Case Keenum (Week 17). The final Carolina quarterback PJ Walker was also in his ranks.
-One of them was Cooper Rush who has the distinction of being the only player picked just once to earn the week's top score when he did so in relief of Dak Prescott on Sunday Night Football in Week 8. He threw for 325 yards in Dallas' win over the Vikings.
-It is wild to see the pair of Ravens quarterbacks both falling to One-Hit Wonder status: former MVP Lamar Jackson and a guy who was signed to a Futures Contract in January 2021, Tyler Huntley.
-Two of the quarterbacks shown had their seasons cut short during selections weeks. Teddy Bridgewater had his season come to a close in Week 4 after a brutal helmet-to-helmet shot while Jameis Winston's Week 8 outing ended abruptly due to an ACL injury.
-This section also has the dubious distinction of being the home of the season's low scorer Marcus Mariota. Kait had to throw a Hail Mary without the option of Justin Herbert or Derek Carr in Week 18 and Mariota's mop-up 4 yards were all she was able to muster in the end.
-And last, but certainly not least, we have Mike White who made his way into everybody's hearts with 405 yards and 3 touchdowns against the eventual AFC Champion Bengals. He wasn't taken that week though but rather when he threw for 251 and four brutal interceptions in a loss to the Bills.
THANK YOU TO ALL THAT PLAYED THIS YEAR! I HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD TIME AND HOPE TO SEE YOU IN FUTURE GAMES ACROSS THIS NETWORK AND BACK FOR THE 2022 EDITION WITH HOPEFULLY MORE THAN JUST THE QB CHALLENGE!
IF YOU HAVE STILL YET TO SETTLE UP WITH ME IN TERMS OF THE FEE, I AIN'T HARD TO FIND.
Image Credits: Player Photos (Pro Football Reference)