I play in a little free NFL pick’em league with my family each year — hosted online by the Las Vegas Review Journal with 7-Eleven gift certificates and Fatheads for prizes — and this year, seven weeks into the season, I’m kinda kicking butt.

Having correctly picked 71 of 102 winners, I’m in the top 1 percent: 21st out of 9,379 in Las Vegas, and 155th out of 131,525 nationwide.

Among the 13 people in the Michalski group, I am in first place. While I’m proud of that, you should realize that competition includes my 1-year-old nephew who always picks teams named after animals, Uncle Ray who writes in “Ditka” for every pick, and my cousin-in-law Phil the Filmmaker:

There’s also a cool little “Survivor” sidegame, where you have to pick one team that will be a certain winner each week — you get to use each team once. I’m still alive in that, too … 400 of us are in LV, and about 3,400 nationwide. I think winning that comes with some real prizes actually … man, if/when I go out in that, I know I’ll be feeling some serious withdrawal.

OK, sorry, back to poker …