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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 2012 articles. Please see the Week 16 2013 Page at Footballguys.com for the 2013 Week 16 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:
Staffer | Record | Wk01 | Wk02 | Wk03 | Wk04 | Wk05 | Wk06 | Wk07 | Wk08 | Wk09 | Wk10 | Wk11 | Wk12 | Wk13 | Wk14 | Wk15 | Wk16 | Wk17 |
Matt Bitonti | 12-3 | INDY | OAK | SEA | NO | ATL | DEN | GB | SF | DAL | TEN | NYG | CAR | NE | BAL | ATL | CIN | |
James Brimacombe | 12-3 | NE | GB | SEA | IND | ATL | SF | SD | KC | DAL | TEN | PHI | NO | CAR | BAL | DET | STL | |
Steve Holloway | 12-3 | INDY | NE | MIN | TEN | ATL | SEA | GB | KC | DAL | NYG | CHI | CAR | SF | DEN | PHI | CIN | |
Maurile Tremblay | 12-3 | TB | PHI | SEA | IND | DEN | SF | GB | NO | DAL | TEN | AZ | CAR | NE | BAL | KC | DET | |
Andy Hicks | 11-4 | TB | GB | SEA | IND | ATL | DEN | KC | SF | DAL | TEN | AZ | NO | NE | BAL | ATL | CIN | |
Will Grant | 11-4 | INDY | NE | MIN | NO | STL | SF | KC | GB | DAL | TEN | SEA | CAR | BUF | BAL | PHI | DEN | |
Heath Cummings | 11-4 | NE | CIN | SEA | IND | STL | SF | NYG | NO | DAL | TEN | HOU | DET | CAR | DEN | PHI | SD | |
Jeff Haseley | 11-4 | INDY | PHI | NO | TEN | STL | CIN | MIA | CAR | DAL | NYG | HOU | BAL | NE | AZ | DEN | SEA | |
Adam Harstad | 11-4 | TB | CIN | SEA | IND | STL | DEN | SD | SF | DAL | TEN | AZ | HOU | CLE | BAL | CAR | DET | |
Aaron Rudnicki | 11-4 | INDY | ATL | SEA | NO | STL | DEN | GB | SF | DAL | TEN | HOU | DET | CLE | NE | KC | SD | |
Mark Wimer | 11-4 | NE | PHI | SEA | AZ | STL | DAL | KC | SF | GB | TEN | NYJ | DET | CAR | DEN | IND | MIA | |
Greg Russell | 10-5 | INDY | NE | SEA | DEN | STL | SF | GB | KC | NO | TEN | DET | HOU | CAR | BAL | PHI | CIN | |
Jeff Pasquino | 10-5 | INDY | PHI | SEA | DEN | ATL | CHI | GB | SF | DAL | TEN | HOU | DET | NE | KC | CAR | CIN | |
Ryan Hester | 9-6 | PIT | PHI | DEN | NO | STL | SEA | MIA | SF | DAL | TEN | NYG | HOU | CLE | NE | CAR | DET | |
Jason Wood | 8-7 | TB | NO | MIN | CIN | ATL | SF | MIA | SEA | TEN | IND | AZ | PIT | NE | DAL | KC | SD |
DISCUSSION
What a crazy week it was in Week 15. Eight incorrect picks, with a heavy asterisk on two of them. First, Denver dropped the Thursday night game, accounting for Jeff Haseley’s fourth incorrect pick on the year and probably making him second guess holding back using the Broncos until this late in the season. The fireworks continued with the Eagles losing in Minnesota, giving four staff members a red box for the week due to the upset. Baltimore’s surprising comeback over Detroit accounted for James Brimacombe’s third loss of the season. So what about the other two? Well, that was a series of unfortunate events as both Matt Bitonti and Andy Hicks chose Atlanta to beat Washington – which they did, and in dramatic fashion – but the drama was not over. You see, both Matt and James used Atlanta already in Week 5, and I did not see the error until after Sunday, so there was no opportunity to ask them for a second choice. I had no choice but to mark both games as a loss for both of them, which is unfortunate. Who knew I would have to be a commissioner for this article? Hopefully we have a better way to record picks (and used picks) next year that can lock properly (if you have a suggestion for a good site to host this type of contest, please email me – pasquino@footballguys.com ).
So with all of those results in for Week 15, we have quite the race at the top with four staff members sitting at 12-3 on the season (Matt Bitonti, James Brimacombe, Steve Holloway and Maurile Tremblay) and seven others just one game back. That’s going to make for a fantastic finish over the next two weeks, especially with 15 teams already chosen. The group has just three picks left for Denver and Carolina, and only one staffer can use New England (Adam Harstad) or Seattle (Jeff Haseley). Selections only get tougher as the season progresses, so this could play out in many different ways. There are six teams favored by a touchdown or more this week across the league (San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, Detroit, Denver and Cincinnati), so I expect most of the picks to come from these teams if they are available. Given we have 15 teams used to date, I expect this week’s set of picks to have lots of variety once again.
With entries in, I was correct that the picks are all over the place this week once again. The group hammered the set of six teams I mentioned, with 12 picks going to Cincinnati (4), Detroit (3), San Diego (3), Denver and Seattle (one each). I was surprised that no one chose the 49ers, but then I looked harder at the table and saw that only Jeff Haseley has them left to use, and he used his Seattle pick this week. Great job there for Jeff to hold those two teams to the end, but we’ll have to see if he takes San Francisco next week. Two other staffers chose the Rams (James Brimacombe) and Miami (Mark Wimer), so we have seven different teams chosen this week with 14 of 15 staff members reporting. As expected, there is no doubt that the standings could change quite a bit by Monday.
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 – This week I chose Cincinnati, and I certainly was not alone in that selection. I will borrow from my other article, “For the Win”, to add some details as to why I chose the Bengals this week:
CINCINNATI (-7) vs. MINNESOTA
Time to not overthink this one. The Bengals are such a better team at home this year, it is not even funny. Their loss to Pittsburgh was a mess, but much of that was special teams errors early (a bad snap on a punt attempt set up Pittsburgh at the one, and then a punt return by Antonio Brown blew the game open to 21-0). Minnesota is coming off of a solid win at home over the mercurial Philadelphia Eagles, but the Vikings on the road in Cincinnati will have their hands full. This is all about home cooking and motivation. Cincinnati needs to win to stay ahead of Baltimore and set up a Week 17 game with the Ravens that could decide the AFC North title. Most of all, the Bengals need a “W” to get some confidence back and feel once again like a playoff caliber team. Seven points is a lot, but in today’s NFL, points are not exactly hard to come by. I will take Cincinnati to win and cover. PICK: Bengals
Good luck this weekend!