Two men from Nebraska may be Miami Dolphins fans for life, after the team's stunning upset over the New England Patriots on Sunday allowed Eric Jensen (38) and Matt Kucera (36) to clinch the $1.469 million first prize in the Westgate Las Vegas SuperContest.
The SuperContest, one of the nation's most prestigious and longest-running handicapping contests, requires contestants to pick five NFL games against the spread every week during the 17-week regular season. Each entry costs $1,500. A win is worth one point, with a push worth half a point.
Playing under the alias "It Ain't Breezy," they went 3-2 against the spread in the final week of the season to push their record to 58-25-2 (69.9%) for the season and defeat a record field of 3,328 contestants. Their picks for Week 17 were Tennessee -3.5, Indianapolis -3.5, New Orleans -13, New York Giants +4.5 and Los Angeles Rams -3. The second-place contestant playing under "Crispr" took home over $505,000.
"I knew we were in good shape when 'Crispr' had four plays in common and couldn't catch us," Jensen told Dave Tuley of the Vegas Stats & Information Network. "[Longtime leader] 'Tuco' was on Carolina, so [Drew Brees] took care of him for us, but we didn't know we clinched with New England losing until we saw your Tweet [@ViewFromVegas]."
The SuperContest pays out the top 100 entries.