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CBS Knockout Pool Winner Used Big Lions Victory On Way To Prize

By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby

Putting faith in the Detroit Lions isn't often a surefire way to win money.

But for Michael Romanowski, his hometown team came through in the week he needed them to. That week – Thanksgiving, against the Eagles – was just one part of Romanowski's CBS knockout pool-winning season.

A knockout pool requires participants to choose one team as a winner each week, but with a catch. Once a team is chosen, that team can't be picked again for the rest of the season. As soon as you miss a game, you're out of the pool.

"Basically when the year started out, I would just pick games that I had confidence in based upon the history and the matchup," Romanowski said. "As the season went on I tried relying more on records and what I'd heard on pregame shows and stuff like that."

Romanowski, a finance administrator from Sterling Heights, Mich., has been participating in similar knockout pools for several years, but had never won one until this season.

One of the more nerve-wracking weeks of the season was Week 12, when the Lions played the Eagles on Thanksgiving Day. Romanowski had picked Detroit. But as someone who had been a Lions fan for almost his entire life, he knew it could often be a 50-50 shot of the day actually ending in triumph.

"I picked the Lions over the Eagles Thanksgiving Day, right after they (the Lions) won in Green Bay for the first time since like 1991," he said. "And being the Lions, if they start off the season really bad, they tend to win just enough games to mess up their draft pick and give us false hope."

It turns out that's exactly what happened in Detroit. The Lions started the season 1-7 before finishing 6-2 during the second half and earning a mid-level draft pick instead of a top one.

Their 45-14 win over Philadelphia helped keep Romanowski in the knockout pool mix.

As the season rolled on, he started running out of teams he was confident in, which is the distinct challenge of a knockout pool. But eventually he was the last person standing in the CBS contest, winning $5,000 in AMEX gift cards. That chunk of change, he said, will most likely be used for home improvement projects.

And although Romanowski put research into his picks each week, he didn't deny that luck was often more important than intelligence.

"Basically go with your gut," he said. "Because a lot of the teams are so close skill-wise and any team can beat any team. It all depends on what Sunday it is, and there's nothing really solid to it."

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