The Playoff Pool

E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!

The obnoxious notification alert awoke Sylvie with a start, but she grabbed it from the spot beside her on the bed in a hurry. Lighting the phone screen up in the dark, she had to squint into the brightness to see who the incoming text message was from. But it was just her brother and she groaned as she threw her arm down with the phone back onto the bed and rolled her eyes in frustration. Didn’t her brother know that nobody in Las Vegas got up before eleven o’clock in the morning? But she was up now, despite the time on her phone telling her it was 6:58am, so she climbed out of the queen-sized bed and flicked on the light switch beside the door before snatching up her cellphone out of the sea of purple sheets and scurrying out to her dining room table.

It was January, but it was also Nevada, so Sylvie wore a grey tank top and green striped pajama shorts. She tied her long, coppery red hair back in a ponytail as she curled up on the dining room chair in front of her laptop and opened her email. Waiting to hear about an important job, she was hoping that maybe the Casino Manager at the MGM Grand had chosen to email her instead of reaching out through her phone. But there was nothing from the intimidating Mr. Swanson on her computer either. He had said he would be in touch by the end of the week, so Sylvie still had hope that she would hear from him before the day was through.

Wondering what her brother Tyler had wanted so early in the morning, she checked her phone for his message. It was the Tom Brady meme from the beginning of the season when he thought it was third down on fourth down against the Chicago Bears and ended up losing for the second time to Nick Foles. It was an old one and Sylvie couldn’t believe Tyler woke her up for that, but that was still one of her favorite games of the season. Nick Foles was her hero after all, and it was always great to see Tom Brady embarrass himself.

Sylvie loved football, and maybe was a little obsessed. She was a diehard Eagles fan, being from the Philadelphia area before moving to Las Vegas almost nine years ago, but she loved everything about the sport. Just from the current season she loved the story of how Alex Smith had returned after a life-threatening injury and she loved that the Buffalo Bills were defying all odds and made it to the playoffs when everyone said they wouldn’t. Any Philadelphia fan could appreciate an underdog story like theirs. And it was always fun to cheer against Tom Brady, especially when he was looking for a high-five.

As Sylvie sat there reveling in her love of football, the Nevada sun had risen, bringing the dry dessert heat with it. Unlike most of the other people in her apartment building, Sylvie didn’t have a job to get to so she changed into a camouflage green bikini and headed down to the apartment complex pool that she would have all to herself for the entirety of the morning. It turned out to be a beautiful day and Sylvie tried to relax while floating in the cool, still water of the pool with football on her mind instead worrying about the casino job.

Around noon, Sylvie finally headed back up to her apartment to find herself something to eat for lunch. Sitting down in front of her laptop once again with a bowl of Paw Patrol mac ‘n’ cheese (because the characters taste way better than any regular boring shapes), Sylvie opened her email one more time. Finally! At the top of her unread emails was a new message from MGM Grand:

Congratulations Brad, Brian, Tony, and Syl! The four of you are all finalists in our year-long search for a new Pit Boss. All of you are outstandingly qualified and could each bring a unique aspect to our glamorous little abode. As it stands right now, we would like the four of you to compete in a little Playoff Pool, with the winner taking the job. The challenge is nothing fancy, just choose which team you think will win each of the playoff games, including the Super Bowl, and whoever selects the most winners will be the new Pit Boss of the MGM Grand. No pressure, but I do need your picks for this weekend by midnight tonight. Wishing you all the best of luck, Mr. Swanson.

Sylvie squealed with glee as she pushed her chair back from the table, losing her appetite from excitement. As she stood up to take her untouched dish to the sink, her phone shouted its Eagles notification cheer across the apartment and Sylvie assumed it was Tyler again, so she finished what she was doing before checking it. It ended up being a text message from Mr. Swanson.

Hi, it’s Dan Swanson from MGM. I just wanted to let you know I’m rooting for you. You were the only woman to apply for the position and the only applicant to show interest in our sportsbook. If you can pull off our challenge (see email), I would like to offer you an additional $20,000 sign-on bonus. Best of luck!

Twenty-thousand dollars? Did Sylvie read that right? She actually reread that text and the email three times each before everything sank in completely. All she had to do to get her dream job and an additional $20,000 was pick the winner of the next thirteen football games. And she could easily do that because she knew the Eagles were going to win Super Bowl LII the morning before the game even started. But she had to make her first picks by midnight, so she picked up her Playoff Journal, which was a little black notebook in which she had written out the season’s playoff schedule in colored ink, from the table and took it over to the couch to get to work.

First up, it was the Indianapolis Colts or the Buffalo Bills. That one was easy. The Bills had been tearing up the NFL and making a statement that they weren’t to be underestimated.

The second choice was a little trickier between the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks. Seattle was projected to win, but Sylvie remembered a time when Head Coach Sean McVay and quarterback Jared Goff were unstoppable. Sylvie believed that power was still there, so she decided to stick with the Rams.

Then there was Tom Brady and the Buccaneers, or the Washington Football Team and Sylvie didn’t hesitate to pick Washington. There were a lot of jokes that year about a team not worthy of a name or other teams getting their butts kicked by a team without a name, but it was almost poetic. And Alex Smith hadn’t come back from seventeen surgeries, a life-threatening infection, and near-amputation just to be a joke. He came back with purpose.

Fourth up were the Baltimore Ravens and the Tennessee Titans. Sylvie didn’t remember hearing much from the Titans that season and the Ravens had been pretty beastly when she’d seen them play against the Steelers, so she took Baltimore as the safe bet.

The second to last pick was a bitter one for Sylvie. The New Orleans Saints were the better team, but Nick Foles (the underappreciated hero from the only Philadelphia Eagle Super Bowl win) was on the Chicago Bears. But Nick Foles wasn’t starting, which angered Sylvie, so she went with the Saints, even though she secretly hoped the Bears would put Foles in and pull an upset over the Saints.

And, finally, it was the Cleveland Browns or the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Browns were definitely the underdog going in, but the Steelers had been falling apart for the past six games or so. Sylvie wasn’t afraid to have faith in the underdog, so she stood by the Browns.

Sylvie felt confident with her choices and excited energy ran through her body as she emailed them to Swanson. Now all there was left to do was wait…and watch some football.

That weekend was a long, full weekend of football and Sylvie didn’t leave her apartment for anything. She planted herself on her couch in front of the television with a big comfy Eagles blanket to snuggle with and only got up for snacks and to answer the door when she ordered takeout. The only thing that could’ve made that weekend any better would have been having somebody to watch with. And if Washington could’ve pulled off a win against Tampa Bay.

Washington’s loss ended up being the only game prediction that Sylvie got wrong, and she actually knew they were going to lose as soon as she got the notification on her phone that Alex Smith wasn’t playing. All-in-all, she did great with her playoff picks and found out early Monday morning that she was tied for first place with Brian.

Unfortunately, that was about as good as it got for Sylvie and her playoff picks.

The following weekend, Sylvie went two and two with her picks. And then she lost all momentum and got every single one of her last three picks wrong.

Dan Swanson sent out an email early the Monday morning following the Super Bowl with the results of the playoff pool. Brian, who Sylvie had so recently been neck-and-neck with, had won by a landslide and was being hired as MGM Grand’s new pit boss. Sylvie, or ‘Syl’ as the email referred to her to mask her gender, had fallen all the way back to third place. She was mortified, but she wasn’t surprised.

Disheartened, Sylvie closed her laptop and slinked over to her couch where she threw herself face down onto the cushions. Before she could get too wrapped up in worry, her phone shouted the Philadelphia Eagles chant from across the apartment and she had to drag herself back over to the dining room table.

Hi, Dan Swanson again. Stop by the front office if you have time today. I’d like to discuss a few things.

Sylvie’s eyes narrowed skeptically at her screen. She already knew she didn’t get the job and she didn’t even come in at a close second place where it would make sense to offer her another position. But it wasn’t like she had anything better to do with her day, so she decided to get a shower and doll herself before heading over.

Dressed in a little black dress and strappy heels with her long red hair straightened to the center of her back, Sylvie turned heads as she arrived at the MGM Grand hotel and casino. She walked right through the lobby and into the casino, looking for the first manager she could spot on the floor. But Mr. Swanson had seen her enter from the security cameras in the office and quickly intercepted her, leading her to a vacant private table where they could talk.

“I’m sorry if this is weird,” Mr. Swanson began, “but I understood your playoff picks and I saw your passion for football in them. Your bets were placed with your heart instead of your head and I don’t want you completely punished for them. Just please, I beg you, do not ever bet on sports ever again.”

Then Mr. Swanson took a thick white envelope out of the inside of the jacket of his expensive silver suit and placed it in front of Sylvie. Before Sylvie could ask what it was, Mr. Swanson slid out of the booth and walked back to his office without another word. Sylvie cautiously opened the envelope to find a stack of cash that she could only imagine was the $20,000 bonus that had been offered to her.