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 2 2014 Page at Footballguys.com for the 2014 Week 2 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 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Andrew Garda | 1-0 | PHI | AZ | ||||||||||||||||
Maurile Tremblay | 1-0 | DEN | AZ | ||||||||||||||||
Clayton Gray | 1-0 | PHI | DEN | ||||||||||||||||
Dan Hindery | 1-0 | PHI | DEN | ||||||||||||||||
Dave Larkin | 1-0 | PHI | DEN | ||||||||||||||||
James Brimacombe | 1-0 | PHI | DEN | ||||||||||||||||
Steve Buzzard | 1-0 | PHI | DEN | ||||||||||||||||
William Grant | 1-0 | NYJ | GB | ||||||||||||||||
Jeff Pasquino | 1-0 | PHI | GB | ||||||||||||||||
Aaron Rudnicki | 1-0 | PIT | GB | ||||||||||||||||
Bear Heiser | 1-0 | PHI | NO | ||||||||||||||||
Matt Bitonti | 1-0 | NYJ | SEA | ||||||||||||||||
Alessandro Miglio | 1-0 | NYJ | TB | ||||||||||||||||
Mark Wimer | 1-0 | NYJ | TB | ||||||||||||||||
Phil Alexander | 1-0 | PHI | TB | ||||||||||||||||
John Lee | 1-0 | PIT | TB | ||||||||||||||||
Justin Bonnema | 1-0 | NYJ | WASH | ||||||||||||||||
Andy Hicks | 0-1 | CHI | DEN | ||||||||||||||||
Steve Holloway | 0-1 | CHI | DEN | ||||||||||||||||
Ari Engel | 0-1 | NE | NO | ||||||||||||||||
Jeff Haseley | 0-1 | DNP | DEN |
DISCUSSION
This year we have 21 staffers are in the pool, and it was quite interesting right out of the gate. Week 1 saw three losses thanks to the Bills upsetting Chicago and the Dolphins upending New England to open the season. Had this been a single elimination contest, we would be down to only 18 of our original 21. Just when you thought this would be easy, right? Now we have another interesting distribution this week with seven unique picks. The top choice for eight staffers are the Broncos, who jumped out to a big lead on the Colts last Sunday night before just hanging on for a victory by a touchdown. Can Denver keep it going at home against the Chiefs? Four staffers are going with Tampa Bay at home against Carolina, while three others are taking the Packers at home against the Jets. All three seem like safe picks – but then again, so did the Bears and Patriots last week. Two chose New Orleans on the road at Cleveland, and two more picked Arizona against the Giants in New Jersey. Single picks from a few stragglers were the Seahawks and Washington this week. Clearly Justin is trying to steal a win here as Washington hosts Jacksonville.
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 decided to stick with my preseason plan and go with the Packers, even though Denver is a huge favorite at home against the Chiefs. This allows me to hold on to the Broncos for later in the year.
Steve Buzzard: This week is like one of those pick your own adventure books. There are really three options that I think are reasonable to choose but I don’t particularly like any of them.
- Packers – The Packers will be the most heavily owned team this week and maybe rightfully so as they play the Jets at home. The Packers also have a fairly tough schedule and this is one of their easier games outside of the Vikings in week 5. But if you are playing in a large league that will likely play all the way out to the end one of the key things you want to consider each week is how heavily owned each team will be. This is because if you are right and you make it through you won’t have to share a prize with as many people. For this reason I am going to have to pass on the Packers and try to cash in during week 5.
- Redskins – The Redskins aren’t heavily owned at all after looking pretty bad against the Texans. But they get the Jaguars this week and Vegas sees them as the 5th biggest favorite of the week at -6. This is probably your only chance to use the Redskins this year and at some point in a season long game you need to take a chance so now may be as good of a chance of any to take advantage of that. That said, if your pool has under 100 people I wouldn’t consider the Redskins at all. However, I’m not going that route because I like to play it a little safer at the beginning of the year and the Redskins don’t feel safe enough to me right now.
- Broncos – Which finally brings me to the team I am going with, the Broncos. By choosing the Broncos you are getting the team with the largest spread of the week by a decent margin but are only being chosen the second most. This is great value! The Chiefs looked awful last weekend and the Broncos were on cruise control during most of their game after dominating the Colts the first half. My only worry is the Chiefs realized their mistake of relying on Alex Smith and will ride Jamaal Charles this week instead. The downside is you lose one of the teams that you can plug in a lot of weeks down the road.
Clayton Gray: My general strategy in these things is top ick the biggest home favorite. There is no point in saving great teams for later in the season if you can't get to later in the season. This format is no picnic, so don't make it even more difficult on yourself trying to be cute. It's not like we're going to run out of teams in 17 weeks. And let's be honest, unless you're in a pool with dozens of people, it's rare to get to Thanksgiving before crowning a winner. Just advance to next week.
Good luck this weekend!
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.