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 3 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 | 2-0 | PHI | AZ | MIA | ||||||||||||||
Maurile Tremblay | 2-0 | DEN | AZ | NE | ||||||||||||||
Clayton Gray | 2-0 | PHI | DEN | NE | ||||||||||||||
Dan Hindery | 2-0 | PHI | DEN | INDY | ||||||||||||||
Dave Larkin | 2-0 | PHI | DEN | NE | ||||||||||||||
James Brimacombe | 2-0 | PHI | DEN | NE | ||||||||||||||
Steve Buzzard | 2-0 | PHI | DEN | NO | ||||||||||||||
William Grant | 2-0 | NYJ | GB | NO | ||||||||||||||
Jeff Pasquino | 2-0 | PHI | GB | NE | ||||||||||||||
Aaron Rudnicki | 2-0 | PIT | GB | NE | ||||||||||||||
Justin Bonnema | 2-0 | NYJ | WASH | NE | ||||||||||||||
Jeff Haseley | 2-0 | NYJ | DEN | NE | ||||||||||||||
Jason Wood | 2-0 | PIT | HOU | NE | ||||||||||||||
Bear Heiser | 1-1 | PHI | NO | NE | ||||||||||||||
Matt Bitonti | 1-1 | NYJ | SEA | NE | ||||||||||||||
Alessandro Miglio | 1-1 | NYJ | TB | NE | ||||||||||||||
Mark Wimer | 1-1 | NYJ | TB | CIN | ||||||||||||||
Phil Alexander | 1-1 | PHI | TB | NE | ||||||||||||||
John Lee | 1-1 | PIT | TB | NE | ||||||||||||||
Andy Hicks | 1-1 | CHI | DEN | NO | ||||||||||||||
Steve Holloway | 1-1 | CHI | DEN | CIN | ||||||||||||||
Ari Engel | 0-2 | NE | NO | CIN |
DISCUSSION
This year we have 22 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, and Week 2 was even more difficult. Tampa Bay's loss to the Rams cost four staffers their selection, while the Saints losing in Clevleland added two more blemishs to the group. Had this been a single elimination contest, we would be down to only 13 of our original 22. Just when you thought this would be easy, right? Now we have another interesting distribution this week with only five unique picks. The top choice for the group is the heavily favored New England Patriots, who are expected to beat the Raiders by two touchdowns. Three staffers are going with New Orleans at home against Minnesota (absent Adrian Peterson, of course), while three other selections went to Cincinnati at home against Tennessee. Two other staffers went out on their own with selections of Miami at home against the Chiefs (and no Jamaal Charles) and Indianapolis on the road at 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 Patriots, because Oakland is really that bad. The Raiders have only scored seven points in the first 45 minutes of their first two contests, posting 21 of their 28 points in garbage time.
Steve Buzzard: Over half of the teams should be out of your league by now. This is a slightly higher than historical averages so you may have a better chance of not finishing the season than normal at this point. Keep that in mind as you start to make risky choices. This week seems to be a two horse race between the Patriots and the Saints. You might be tempted to use the Falcons since their schedule is so tough but I don't like that play.
The Patriots are the largest favorite of the week by a whopping 14 points over the Raiders and should have no problem advancing. But the problem is everyone in your pool is thinking the same way as they will be by far the heaviest pick this week. While I don't think they will lose when someone is picked this heavily (60%!) I will take my chances on fading them.
The Saints have started out 0-2 and are going to be playing desperately. This is also the Saints first home game all season and we know how much better the Saints play at home. Plus if you haven't heard the Vikings have some distractions right now and are coming off a humbling loss to the Patriots. On top of that the Saints don't really have many cake games left so unless you want to use them week 5 against the Bucs this is the week to ride the Saints.
Clayton Gray: I figured everyone would take the Patriots, but that doesn't scare me away from picking them too. Just advanced, baby!
Good luck this weekend!
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.