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Ranger Picks Week 7
Welcome one and all to Ranger Picks week 7! The pickers are still at it, will we get a record breaking bonus point round? (No idea - that’s not a record I’m tracking!)
The Hounds are strong favorites to win in NOLA, but the first surprise this week is that Houston is slightly favored to break the Legion’s win streak!
Anthem has recovered some of the support it lost last week - perhaps supported by MLR Stats pointing out the momentum they have with just an average of -2 over the last 3 matches. Seattle are still favored, but Anthem has more support than NOLA for as much as that’s worth.
NEFJ have lost some of their support from the heavily New England based rangers - Utah is a slight favorite here, with the same support as RFC LA has over OGDC
How did our OG squad, reigning champ Beaver Paw and co-leader Pingree Penguins pick? A clean sweep for Chicago; almost exactly split between San Diego and Houston; just me hoping for Anthem to pull out their first win (even at Starfire); almost exactly split between RFC LA and OGDC… but shockingly a heavy expectation for Utah to triumph over the back to back champions, with only Beaver Paw and myself holding strong.
Good luck as always!
Ranger Picks Week 6 Results
Week 6 results are in, with 5 bonus point picks and 11 missing out by just one match! Huge week for many, but I continue to miss out on the correct picks :/
Some shake up at the top with Pingree Panthers and Rugby Morning taking over the top spot… and to the chagrin of many, Bozo6 entering the top 10:
Week 7 form is open. Good luck!
Ranger Picks Week 6
Ranger Picks Week 6 is upon us.
With about 3/4s picking NE Free Jacks over OGDC, the Leader/OG/Beaver Paw picks table might have some surprises. More split decision with RFC LA @ NOLA Gold with LA picking up a slight edge.
Anthem seems to have lost the support it had from our pickers… with Houston expecting to pick up a win despite some close matches recently. Something I wouldn’t have expected to see this time last year… almost 3/4s of our picks are for Utah picking up a win at Starfire over Seattle!
I think it’s fair to say that it’s no surprise that SD Legion is a big favorite especially at home over Miami.
Once more I’ve combined the picks from the leader table, reigning champ Beaver Paw and the OG team into one table:
Ranger Picks Week 5 Results
Week 5 results are in, and did you all see or hear the crowd at Fort Quincy? A mid-March match in New England brought out one of the biggest regular season crowds! No doubt helped by the unseasonal weather, but still.
We have 7 perfect picks this week
Overall Free Jack Fitzy is leading the way with 2 bonus points pulling him ahead of Pingree Panthers and Rugby Morning with the same number of correct picks just not in the right weeks :)
TJRS Ranger Picks Week 6 form is open. Good luck!
Ranger Picks Week 5
The picks are in, and I’m super excited for the NEFJ home opener, especially after attending the Championship Banner unveiling at Boston Logan Airport’s Hall of Champions!
Interesting pattern this week: The first 2 matches are heavily favored for the home teams this week with over 90% of pickers selecting them.
The final 2 matches this week are almost flipped - a little more uncertainty but the away teams are clear favorites.
I combined the OG team, Beaver Paw and the leaders into one table this week. They fairly closely resemble the votes of everyone else - favoring Chicago, NEFJ, Utah and Seattle
Ranger Picks Week 4 results
Week 4 results are in, and after a late night and losing an hour the keyboard monkeys employed here at Ranger Picks HQ have crunched the numbers and have the results!
Only 1 person achieved the always important bonus point this week, and I expect we’ll hear about it in a certain news letter in the morning… Congrats Rugby Morning!
8 other pickers managed to get 4 out of 5:
which keeps the top of the table ever moving:
Onwards to Week 5 - the form is open: https://rangerpicks.rugby/week5
Ranger Picks Week 4
Here comes week 4. Late with this update again… yikes, once more and it’ll be a habit!
Apparently, Anthem impressed pickers with their near miss last week - they’re still underdogs, but they have the same number of picks as Houston and Seattle, and more than Miami and LA!
The OG Squad and reigning champ Beaver Paw’s picks (missing Ranger Bunny!!) are reasonably consistent. A couple of looks at Houston and Seattle but otherwise unanimously for Chicago, DC and San Diego:
Some more chaos in the picks from the current leaders though!
Ranger Picks Week 3 results
Week 3 is in the bag! I think we only saw one upset, and that was the final match of the week. The upset I was hoping for did not happen, although Anthem looked really promising for most of their match up against Miami. While that robbed a some rangers from a bonus point, it did open the door to 4 bonus points:
Which has had the knock on effect of some turnover at the top of the leader table:
Week 4 form is live: https://rangerpicks.rugby/week4
This form will close on Thursday!
Ranger Picks Week 3
Sneaking in the update just before the first match of the week, here’s how Ranger Picks for Week 3 shape up!
Unsurprisingly, Miami is a huge favorite over Anthem… spoiler for later but I’m one of the few picking Anthem… this is their best shot at a first win, but I picked before their lineup was released so take that for what it’s worth!
The Legion is also favored over OGDC even with the long travel and the injuries they picked up last week.
Utah impressed Ranger Pickers with their dominance over Chicago last week and are expected to beat NOLA. I’m a little surprised that Seattle is ranked as high as they are against Houston even with Houston’s slower than expected start.
Finally the Free Jacks are expected to continue their march towards a three-peat, traveling to Chicago and picking up a win.
Taking a look at how our leader board picked, they’re all very similar. I see where all the Seattle picks came from though!
Taking a look at the OG squad with the addition of last year’s champ, you’ll see my Anthem pick… we’re split 50/50 on SD vs DC… and that’s not a typo - Rugby Morning picked NEFJ but FreeJackFitzy is taking a swing and picking Chicago!
Ranger Picks Week 2 results
Week 2 results are in!
Another week, another week with no bonus points for Ranger Picks. Despite this being an upset week for many of us, the zigs paid of for Beaver Paw and Ranger Bunny, who joined only a few others in getting 3 out of 4 correct:
This means several players join Rugby Morning and Ranger Abi at the front of the table, with no bonus points for tie breaks:
Week 3 form is open: https://rangerpicks.rugby/week3. Please try to use the same email and Ranger Name each week.
Week 3 form WILL close on Thursday.
Good luck as always!
MLR 2025 Ranger Picks Week 2
Week 2 is just hours away from starting, and of course we have a round up of picks.
Unsurprisingly, the Legion is a massive favorite over Anthem after dominating Seattle last week. 71% of pickers have NOLA triumphing over Miami, only 15% think that Utah can beat Chicago in the windy city’s home opener. The closest to a toss up is 60% favoring Houston over LA.
The OG Squad, last year’s winner Beaver Paw, and current (tied) leader Ranger Abi’s picks are below. Big swings for Bozo6 with Utah over Chicago and LA over Houston - no doubt hoping to recover from only 2 points last week. Beaver Paw and Bunny taking a smaller swerve with Miami over NOLA.
Last and final reminder to get Ranger Picks Week 2 picks in!
Ranger Picks Week 2
First results are in. This is going to be a quick one. Several surprises in the match results - no bonus points to kick off ranger picks 2025 but congratulations to Ranger Abi and Rugby Morning who stand on top with 4 correct picks! Everyone got at least 1 point - no goose eggs this week.
Full results below.
Week 2 form is open and will be closed on Thursday!
MLR 2025 is here!
Week 1 Ranger Picks are in, with a strong showing of 39 respondents.
It seems like the most difficult to pick is OGDC @ Miami - 56% choosing the visitors. Only 25% of pickers chose San Diego to get a home opener win. Is it riding the rivalry history or do we think that there’s been too much change in the Legion to come together in week 1?
Across the other matches, a solid 85% picked NOLA over Anthem, Houston over Chicago and New England over RFC LA.
Checking in with our reigning Champ Beaver Paw, he went against the crowd by picking Miami, otherwise picking the favorites.
This is how the OG squad and Beaver Paw are picking:
Ranger Picks Way Too Early
Ranger Picks way too early form has closed just in time for MLR 2025 to kick off. We asked the rangers to predict the win loss record match by match for the Free Jacks.
The only consensus loss for our New England Free Jacks is the Seattle away match in round 4. Too much travel in the first couple of weeks? I’m not sure - even Matt McCarthy says our Jacks travel well. High expectations for week 1 in LA, but not as high as Anthem and LA at home!
For our bonus pick, the clear winner for dream away trip is Chicago - memories of the 2023 Shield Final? My Anthem pick came in tied for 2nd.
We have 3 rangers picking a 16-0 season - Beaver Paw, Ranger Horkan, and Ranger Lil Payne, 1 definitely-a-secret-ranger picking 0-16 (we see you, RugbyMorning!). Otherwise 14-2 is the most popular prediction followed by 12-4 with 13-3, 11-5 and 10-6 all tied for 3rd place.
Charts below, will give a mid season update if I remember!
MLR 2025 Week 1
Welcome to Week 1 of Ranger Picks MLR 2025 Presented by TJRS!
Week 1 form is OPEN: https://rangerpicks.rugby/week1. Get your picks in… the form will be closing on THURSDAY.
Also closing on Thursday will be the Way Too Early predictions - get those in now too! https://rangerpicks.rugby/early
Good luck to all the rangers and pickers out there!
MLR 2025 Ranger Picks presented by TJRS
Ranger Picks 2025 is (almost) here.
Because no MLR season is complete without additional complexity - this year introducing mid week matches, we’re going to do something slightly different ourselves.
Regardless of what MLR is calling “rounds” or “weeks”, Ranger Picks has our own definition. A week is Friday to Thursday. So all matches Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday (there are no Thursday matches) will comprise that week as far as Ranger Picks are concerned.
This won’t really be an issue until April, so plenty of time to forget about why we’re doing this. I will open the form on MONDAYS the form for the upcoming week will close on THURSDAY before that weekend’s matches. That means there will be weeks where the following week’s form is open before the matches have finished for the current week. After week 1, I will send email reminders to everyone who has participated thus far in Ranger Picks 2025 in addition to the regular blog and social media posts.
So, mark your calendars - Ranger Picks MLR 2025 Presented by TJRS Week 1 form will open on Monday February 10th 2025 and will close Thursday February 11th 2025.
Way Too Early
A big congrats to Phil for the TJRS 24 hour marathon raising $4k (the fundraiser is still open: https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-jacks-preseason-player-fundraiser)) for the incoming Free Jacks players. One of the segments in the show was the annual “Way Too Early” predictions for a Free Jacks win/loss for every regular season match.
For #MLR2025, we’ve decided to do the same! Head over to https://rangerpicks.rugby/early and get your predictions in ahead of the start of the season!
MLR 2024 Championship
Ok, so I’m partly still in denial that the MLR 2024 season is over, partly still hungover from the celebration of the final, and partly went into vacation brain mode. All this to say, apologies for the almost 2 week delay on getting this final update out!
First things first, with 5 points up for grabs in the championship match, 61% picked NEFJ, with only 6.5% picking Seattle. The collapse of Houston in the first round continued to propagate through, diminishing the hopes of 29% of picks.
So congratulations to the Free Jacks and the 19 Rangers who correctly picked them!
Bringing this post season to a close, Sabercat Diehard managed to pull off a task almost as difficult as correctly predicting all matches - missing every single round!
Talking of perfect results… with no need for a tie breaker, picking up the maximum 19 points, Ranger Picks Rookie Ranger Frank wins the 2024 Ranger Picks Post Season presented by TJRS! Congrats Frank!
I’m now going to take a break and recharge ready for MLR 2025! Despite the many requests (all inside my head), I will not be running Ranger Picks for the draft… so see you next year! Thank you all for an amazing MLR 2024 season. I had a lot of fun, and hope we can make it better next year.
MLR 2024 Championship Week!
It’s Championship week! So it’s time to review Ranger Picks for the semi finals (aka Conference championships). With 6 points on offer (3 for each), we already knew most 2/3rds would max out at 3 points due to Houston getting knocked out early. So congratulations to Freejack fitzy, Beaver Paw, Ranger Frank, Ranger Tim, and Ranger Kathy for beating the odds!
Full results for the semi finals:
Current standings:
Rather than risk potential spoilers, I’ll share the predictions for the championship alongside the results ;)