Day 646

• Former Jeopardy! champion Tom Nichols has gone on record, asking the show to reinstate the 5-win limit -- stating that, after two or three wins, many contestants cannot overcome the advantage a champion has on the buzzer.  Tom, is this that we have had three 10+-win champs this year, or just WHO is the champion?  I smell a rat.   
• And a small degree of research appears to bear it out.  Non-Trump Republican/Libertarian, a specialist in conservative international affairs, and a professor at the US Naval War College.  Yep, hard right.
• Once again, since this is coming out and it's clear that no one has spoken up that Schneider has lost, it does make one wonder if she hasn't...  And, give or take for any February events or a holiday taping-break, that would be about Ken's 75 or in the ballpark if she's still champion for what's being taped now.
• Yes, I do believe, after seeing a number of long runaways by Schneider in the last few shows, we are now officially at "Holy Shit" in this run, that people are seeing that Schneider is still champion and basically already losing before they hit the stage.   
• Mitakeumi's promotion to Ozeki was approved, and his ceremony will be on Wednesday for promotion to sumo's second-highest rank.
• New allegations exposing that the nature of a sports factory high-school is exactly what people should think it is:  Built on rape and sexual assault of all lessers.  Mater Dei now dealing with another lawsuit, alleging assistant football coach Patrick Callahan raped, repeatedly and countless times, one of the female statisticians at the school from 1984-1988, the worst being a "Hell Week" in 1987.  He was transferred to another high school in the diocese and eventually coached 16 years of football at Cerritos College.  The lawsuit was allowed under a three-year grandfather clause passed by the California Legislature to go after such attacks with the Roman Catholic Church.
• Sean Payton has resigned as the coach of the New Orleans Saints.
• Ron Tolbert, the referee of San Francisco-Green Bay over the weekend, will be the Super Bowl referee.  He has not refereed beyond the divisional round.
• Tennis Australia has reversed the stands on the Peng Shuai T-shirts.
• Novak Djokovic is now reported that he will sue Tennis Australia for having him thrown out of the country.
• Elton John, fully vaccinated, has COVID.
• Aaron Rodgers has hinted his decision on at least the Packers will come within about a couple weeks after the Super Bowl.  He has no interest in a full rebuild of the team (and any such rebuild probably moves on without him anyway), and he will see the team granting the franchise tag to Davante Adams as a signal of a rebuild, and that deadline is about March 8th and can start February 22nd.
• And make that a clean FORTY for Amy Schneider, and a big Final Jeopardy get bumps her total to $1,382,800 with $63,000 today.  Average win:  $34,570.

From Andy Saunders:

• $32,000 Coryat is tied for 53rd all time with three Holzhauer wins.
• $63,000 win is 33rd all-time, remembering that any totals before the money was doubled are considered doubled for inclusion on the list.  (There are two, headed by Jerome Vared's $34,000 pre-doubling win, ahead of this total.)
• Current streak projection:  49 1/2.  Taking it at 49, that would be somewhere in the $1.7 million area -- though that only accounts for the possibility given past contestants and gameplay as a forming theory.  There has been very little competition of any kind of Schneider the last week and a half.
• $136,801 separates Schneider from Matt Amodio's #3 regular season winnings total on the show, and #10 all-time all-shows.  So, current average would make that Monday of next week, win #44.
• Curtis Warren is #9, and would be passed on the Tuesday, win #45.
• After that is about another $220,000 to David Legler and another group of three for #s 6, 7, and 8.
• For the record, and since we do not know whether there will be a potential syndicated-show run like the ABC Olympic counterprogramming of the College Championship tournament:  If there is no further interruption of any kind in regular play for the relevant period of time, Amy Schneider, if she keeps winning, would break Ken Jennings' 74-win record seven weeks from tonight, March 15th.