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Over the past few years, we have given the subscribers of Footballguys.com some help in playing office pools, one of the most popular methods to follow the NFL aside from fantasy football leagues. For the past few seasons, the staff members have done 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 adding a combination of the two called the “Against the Spread” Challenge and also the Eliminator Challenge, where staffers have to pick a team to win each week. Just one? That sounds easy, but here is the catch – you can only pick the team you choose in a given week once all season long. Many contests and pools out there get pretty big, so an Eliminator (or Survivor) Pool can go 16 or 17 weeks.
Note that the links above are for 2013 articles. Please see the Week 8 2014 Page at Footballguys.com for the 2014 Week 8 updates.
Jeff Pasquino has provided some insight into this kind of contest with two pre-season articles, first one that describes this kind of contest along with some advice on how to pick a team each week:
The second article is rather interesting, which describes Jeff’s pre-season plan to get all the way through 17 weeks. Will it work? We are about to find out.
This pool will run all season long, but to keep participation up, the pool will crown the staffer with the best W-L record for the season (which means that everyone in the pool will continue to make picks every week).
THIS WEEK'S PICK SUMMARY
Here are the picks for this week, along with the results and standings so far:
Staffer | Record | Wk01 | Wk02 | Wk03 | Wk04 | Wk05 | Wk06 | Wk07 | Wk08 | Wk09 | Wk10 | Wk11 | Wk12 | Wk13 | Wk14 | Wk15 | Wk16 | Wk17 |
Dan Hindery | 7-0 | PHI | DEN | INDY | SD | GB | BAL | NE | KC | |||||||||
Aaron Rudnicki | 7-0 | PIT | GB | NE | SD | NO | DEN | BUF | KC | |||||||||
James Brimacombe | 6-1 | PHI | DEN | NE | SD | GB | SF | SEA | KC | |||||||||
Dave Larkin | 6-1 | PHI | DEN | NE | SD | DET | TEN | BAL | CLE | |||||||||
Jeff Haseley | 6-1 | NYJ | DEN | NE | PIT | SD | AZ | DAL | KC | |||||||||
Alessandro Miglio | 6-1 | NYJ | TB | NE | SD | NO | DEN | AZ | CLE | |||||||||
John Lee | 6-1 | PIT | TB | NE | SD | GB | TEN | WASH | CLE | |||||||||
Justin Bonnema | 5-2 | NYJ | WASH | NE | SD | DET | TEN | CHI | TB | |||||||||
Maurile Tremblay | 5-2 | DEN | AZ | NE | PIT | CIN | TEN | SEA | MIA | |||||||||
Jeff Pasquino | 5-2 | PHI | GB | NE | PIT | SD | DEN | CLE | KC | |||||||||
Jason Wood | 5-2 | PIT | HOU | NE | ATL | SD | DEN | SEA | DAL | |||||||||
Bear Heiser | 5-2 | PHI | NO | NE | SD | PIT | GB | SEA | KC | |||||||||
Clayton Gray | 5-2 | PHI | DEN | NE | SD | DET | SEA | BAL | KC | |||||||||
Steve Buzzard | 5-2 | PHI | DEN | NO | PIT | GB | SEA | NE | DAL | |||||||||
Matt Bitonti | 5-2 | NYJ | SEA | NE | PIT | PHI | DEN | BUF | KC | |||||||||
Steve Holloway | 5-2 | CHI | DEN | CIN | PIT | NO | SD | BAL | DAL | |||||||||
Ari Engel | 5-2 | NE | NO | CIN | SD | SEA | DEN | DAL | DET | |||||||||
Andrew Garda | 4-3 | PHI | AZ | MIA | PIT | NYG | TEN | CHI | CLE | |||||||||
Mark Wimer | 4-3 | NYJ | TB | CIN | WASH | GB | TEN | CLE | DAL | |||||||||
William Grant | 4-3 | NYJ | GB | NO | PIT | NO | CIN | NE | MIA | |||||||||
Andy Hicks | 4-3 | CHI | DEN | NO | SD | DET | CIN | NE | DAL | |||||||||
Phil Alexander | 4-3 | PHI | TB | NE | PIT | DET | SD | AZ | x |
DISCUSSION
This year we have 22 staffers are in the pool, and if this was really a "one and done" tournament, we would be down to just two people left. I've often played in a "buyback pool", where after one loss you can still continue (for a second entry fee) - and if that was the case here, we would still be at seven teams (7 of 22, or 32%). So there's no question that upsets rock the boat here, and you really need to just take the best team each week and hope for a quick ending in smaller leagues (about 50 teams or less). In large tournaments or those with buybacks (or even like here, where best record wins), you do need to plan.
Last week I was tripped up AGAIN by the Browns - and sometimes it is really painful when you don't listen to your own rules. I took a mediocre team on the road (don't take a team on the road, one of the rules) and I got burned. Jacksonville had to win at some point, and this was the week. For that very reason, I am avoiding Oakland right now in a troublesome week here in Week 8.
Continuing to look back at Week 7, not only were there two incorrect selections of Cleveland, four staff members lost by taking another road team in Seattle. Not only was that a mistake in taking a road team, but taking a road team in a divisional matchup is two strikes in my book. The seventh incorrect selection for Week 7 was the Bears, who continue to confound everyone by losing at home against an underrated Miami team.
So how does Week 8 look? This looks to be another tough week to pick, but there are some consensus picks with just six selections by the staff, including three teams that had at least four selections. The most common pick of the week was Kansas City at home against the Rams, my favorite pick of the week (and also my own), while four staff each went with the Cowboys at home against Washington or Cleveland at home against Oakland. I already warned you about the Cleveland / Oakland matchup, and Dallas / Washington is a long standing divisional rivalry. Dallas is at home and who knows what Washington will do at quarterback, but that matchup has the potential for an upset. Two staff members chose Miami at Jacksonville (which will likely feel like a Miami home game), and two unique picks came in for Detroit and Tampa Bay. It should make for a lively week.
COMMENTARY
Each week, contestants are invited to submit any comments that they might have about their picks. If they submit them early enough, we post them with the article. If not, the comments will be within the section below.
Jeff Pasquino: My original script called for Kansas City at home against the Rams, and I am sticking with that plan. The Chiefs are coming off of a big win at San Diego and they get a St. Louis team that is coming off of a big, emotional divisional win at home against Seattle. I feel that the Rams will have a huge letdown after that contest and the Chiefs will roll all over St. Louis.
Other choices I considered were Dallas (at home against Washington) and Detroit ("at" Atlanta in London, England). Detroit was may second choice as Atlanta is really bad right now, losing four in a row by 10 or more points, and the road game designation doesn't matter with a neutral site contest. Dallas / Washington is a rivalry in the NFC East, so no thanks there. Other decent choices had other issues (Denver - another divisional game on a short week, and Peyton Manning lost in a similar scenario against Philip Rivers last year; Cleveland I have already used and Oakland has to win sometime), and looking backwards I should have taken Baltimore last week and saved Cleveland for this week as an option - but I still would have taken Kansas City or Detroit over the Browns after that bad of a loss.
Steve Buzzard: This was one of the weeks that I have been dreading since the start of the season but it looks like Jay Gruden is here to help us out by installing Colt McCoy as the starter this week. That plus the good play of the Cowboys of late has pushed the point spread up to 10 points this week. You could have gotten this game at around 4 earlier in the year and around 6 just last week.
However, there are a couple of things to be wary about the Cowboys on. First of all they are being picked by a lot of people. Between 40-50%. With a team being picked this much it is almost always the best strategy to fade the crowd. At 45% selection rate and a 10 point favorite the Cowboys are a slightly negative EV pick and over the long haul we certainly do not want to make negative EV picks.
The second issue is the unknown. Earlier this year we talked about how we want to play it safe in Survivor leagues whenever possible and that included new starting quarterbacks. We all think McCoy is a poor quarterback and his career 6.3 YPA would seem to back that up. However, Jay Gruden has the confidence that he can run his system and without much recent tape McCoy things could be more difficult than expected for the Cowboys. We all saw how good Cousins looked for a few games. That said, if news comes out that McCoy is not going to be the starter this week I would eliminate the Cowboys from my consideration as I think most people will keep them and they will be overpriced. Finally, this is going to be your best bet to play the Cowboys all year as their schedule toughens up a lot after this week.
The problem is who else to pick though if we don’t go with the Cowboys. I don’t want to choose Denver or Seattle as they both have more favorable games left later. The next three most popular teams are the Chiefs, Browns, and Dolphins in that order.
The Chiefs make sense but I wish they were being picked a little less and they have two more favorable matchups left against the Jets next week and the Raiders in week 15. There are a lot of good options next week and it will help determine the rest of our season. With the Rams coming off the highlight of their season the question becomes are they due for a letdown or will their aggressive play continue into this game?
The Browns are being picked the next most and as a 7 point favorite over the Raiders are the best value of this set of three. But can we really trust a team that just lost to the Jaguars and considered benching their quarterback? If you really want to use the Browns this would be the week though.
We could go with the Dolphins but they are on the road and they are surprisingly my preferred play for week 16 right now against the Vikings. Plus their value isn’t that good to begin with so I will keep them out of the picture.
The last team that makes sense is the Patriots. They gave us a scare last week as my all in team but the Bears looked just as bad or worse. As 6 point favorites and being picked at less than 2% the Patriots offer good value here and have very few favorable games left.
So what’s the verdict for the toughest week to date? In large pools (50+ left right now) that have a good shot of playing out the season I think this is a good week to diversify your picks. If you don’t have that option I think the smart answer is to go with the Patriots, once again, followed by the Browns, Cowboys, and then Chiefs. I don’t have the Patriots left in any of my leagues. I will take the Browns in a couple of pools but I am going to go ahead and diversify my action here by taking the Cowboys.
As for small pools it starts to become very dependent on what your competitors have left. Feel free to tweet or email me specific questions and I am willing to give my opinion. That said, in general, I would just go ahead and play it safe with the Cowboys and live to fight another day but watch for McCoy’s status.
Good luck this weekend!
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.