Against The Spread Pool: 2014 Final Results

Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran, USA Today Sports

Over the past few years, we have given the subscribers of Footballguys.com the Staff Confidence Pool Challenge, where numerous staffers try and pick the winners each week with a confidence ranking, and Jeff Pasquino’s “For The Win” column where Jeff attempts to pick each and every NFL game against the Las Vegas spread.  Both of these have been very popular features, so this year Footballguys is proud to bring you the combination of the two. The Footballguys.com Staff Against the Spread Pool Challenge. Multiple staff members (19) will pick the winner of each NFL game against the Las Vegas line.  As a tie-breaker, the person who is closest to the total points scored on the last Monday Night game will be the winner. Winners will be announced from week to week and the best overall record will be crowned Against the Spread Champion. Picks and ranks are due on Wednesday, so any late-breaking news may not be reflected in the choices.  

Note that the links above are for 2013 articles.  Please see the Week 17 2014 Page at Footballguys.com for the 2014 Week 17 updates.

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS

Here are the results from last week:

Jeff Haseley finished atop the standings in Week 17, logging a solid 12 correct picks.  Dave Larkin was one pick behind with 11 correct, followed by three staffers with 10 accurate choices. Over half of the remaining staf members followed closely were in the 7-9 correct pick range, a solid performance with several Week 16 upsets.  Overall it was a solid week with the staff near 50% (166-170),  (Note that James Brimacombe's picks were not included in Week 17, so I gave him an 8-8 record just to do the overall math.)

FINAL STANDINGS

Here are the final standings for the staff for the regular season:

FINAL WINNERS

Overall the group finished right near 50% (2668-2708, 49.6%).  with Phil Alexander holding on for the first place finish for they year with 142 correct picks.  Second place went to Jeff Haseley with 137 correct calls, barely beating Aaron Rudnicki (135) by two picks.  Nine staff members had 129 or more correct picks, giving them a winning record, while two more finished right at .500 with a record of 128-128.   Twelve of the staff won at least one week, with five staffers winning more than once.   

A reminder that these picks are against the Las Vegas lines – so getting above 50% is respectable, above 53% gets you into the “profitable zone” (accounting for the Las Vegas house odds of taking 10% of every losing wager) – and anything above 60% is outstanding.  That may sound easy enough, but it is much, much harder that it might seem.

Good luck to those of you who are playing contests in the postseason!

Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.

Follow @JeffPasquino