Eliminator Pool: Week 9

Photo: Joe Nicholson, USA Today Sports

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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 9 2014 Page at Footballguys.com for the 2014 Week 9 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:

Survivor Pool Strategy

The second article is rather interesting, which describes Jeff’s preseason plan to get all the way through 17 weeks.  Will it work?  We are about to find out.

I Will Survive

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:

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 warned readers to avoid Dallas in rivalry game, but five staff members failed to heed that warning.  Only one other staff member was tripped up in Week 8 with Tampa Bay also losing in overtime to Minnesota.  Tough week for sure, but I was very adamant about Kansas City at home and they did trounce the Rams as I predicted.  Will my Week 9 pick do the same?   

Looking ahead now, there are some big point spreads in a week with just 13 contests, so there are several options out there to choose from.  I count at least five teams that are favored by six or more points, with four of them favored by more than a touchdown.  That makes for good selection options, so it will be interesting to see how the staff picks (and some of it will be based on saving teams or teams that have already been used).

With 18 picks in so far, we have quite the spread of picks as I expected, with six different teams chosen at least once.  The most popular selections were Seattle (huge favorite at home, 14-15 points over Oakland) and Cincinnati (another big favorite, expected to beat Jacksonville at home by 11 points).  Kansas City is another favorite pick as they host the reeling New York Jets at home, while a few more chose the 49ers hosting the Rams.  San Francisco is expected to win by a big margin as well, but there is a little concern with picking a divisional matchup (just ask people who chose Dallas last week).  Some staff members went off of the big spread games, going with New Orleans at Carolina or Cleveland hosting the Buccaneers. If these big point spreads do not hold up, it could 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:  I went along with my preseason script, taking the Chiefs last week in the game I had as close to a Lock of the Week as I have had all year long (and probably should have called it a lock), but regardless I was soundly rewarded by Kansas City.  Now for this week, there are five teams with big point spreads, one with just about a touchdown (Cleveland), two more right around 9-10 points (San Francisco, Kansas City), and two large favorites (Cincinnati -11.5, Seattle -14.5).  That really narrows the target field for me, and considering that I have used the Chiefs last week, I focused on either the Bengals or Seahawks, both of which I still had available.  Both of these (plus KC) were in my preseason plan, so it comes down to a matter of preference.  Seattle is the hotter team and the Raiders are 0-7, so why not take Seattle?  I could save them for the Giants next week, but why?  Taking Cincinnati now is risky, even against Jacksonville, so take the sure thing this week and consider using the Bengals later in the year (if at all).

Steve Buzzard:  Last week was a tough week for the Cowboys owners but a huge week for all other users.  Hopefully you used the Browns or Patriots and didn’t diversify too much towards the Cowboys like I did in this space.  The trend this year seems to be to read my commentary, which should be keeping most teams alive, but fade the specific pick as these picks aren’t going so well.

This week is a little easier.  The primary pick is to go with the Seahawks as they are huge 15 point favorites over the lowly Raiders.  The Seahawks haven’t been playing like super bowl contenders right now but this is by far the best chance for a win this week, it is the Seahawks best remaining game and they are only being picked 35% of the time! Unfortunately I used them earlier in the season.  When they got me a loss! So I will have to go another route.

However, the Bengals are the most popular pick this week against the Jaguars.  They are being selected a Cowboys-like 42% of the time! When you don’t even have the largest spread for the week and are being picked at a rate like that it means you pretty much have to fade the pick.  As such I can’t suggest the Bengals as they are negative EV and I especially can’t pick them in this pool since I need to gain some ground and picking the same team as everyone else isn’t going to cut it. I had saved back the Bengals for this game but I was afraid this might happen which is partially why I had the Chiefs saved back too. 

Speaking of the Chiefs I saved them back as a back up plan for this week but I am going to call a last minute audible here as the Jets are changing quarterbacks to Michael Vick.  As I have mentioned a couple of times a change of the quarterback is one of the most important things to avoid in eliminator leagues, even Cousins got so many of us again last night! So that said I am changing my pick this week to the 49ers.  They have favorable games in weeks 12 and 14 but so do a bunch of other teams.

My order of preference is the same in both large and small pools this week.  Seattle, San Francisco, Kanas City, and then Bengals.  As always if you have a few players left feel free to email or reach me on twitter for league specific picks.

Good luck this weekend!

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

Follow @JeffPasquino