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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.
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 preseason 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 last week's results:
Staff Member | Record | Wk01 | Wk02 | Wk03 | Wk04 | Wk05 | Wk06 | Wk07 | Wk08 | Wk09 | Wk10 | Wk11 | Wk12 | Wk13 | Wk14 | Wk15 | Wk16 | Wk17 |
Alessandro Miglio | 3-0 | ATL | SEA | GB | NE | |||||||||||||
William Grant | 3-0 | ATL | OAK | GB | NE | |||||||||||||
Aaron Rudnicki | 3-0 | BUF | OAK | GB | NE | |||||||||||||
Dave Larkin | 3-0 | BUF | BAL | GB | SEA | |||||||||||||
Devin Knotts | 3-0 | BUF | SEA | LAR | GB | |||||||||||||
James Brimacombe | 3-0 | BUF | OAK | NE | SEA | |||||||||||||
Andy Hicks | 3-0 | DEN | SEA | NE | GB | |||||||||||||
Ari Ingel | 3-0 | LAR | OAK | PHI | GB | |||||||||||||
Jeff Pasquino | 3-0 | PIT | OAK | GB | ATL | |||||||||||||
John Mamula | 3-0 | PIT | OAK | NE | SEA | |||||||||||||
Andrew Garda | 2-1 | BUF | AZ | MIA | DAL | |||||||||||||
Bear Heiser | 2-1 | BUF | AZ | MIA | SEA | |||||||||||||
Jason Wood | 2-1 | BUF | BAL | PIT | SEA | |||||||||||||
Mark Wimer | 2-1 | BUF | OAK | MIA | JAC | |||||||||||||
Steven Holloway | 2-1 | BUF | OAK | PIT | SEA | |||||||||||||
Justin Bonnema | 2-1 | BUF | SEA | MIA | AZ | |||||||||||||
Justin Howe | 2-1 | LAR | OAK | MIA | SEA | |||||||||||||
Chris Feery | 2-1 | HOU | OAK | NE | SEA | |||||||||||||
Jeff Haseley | 2-1 | HOU | SEA | GB | AZ | |||||||||||||
Matt Bitonti | 2-1 | HOU | OAK | NE | KC |
DISCUSSION
Twenty staffers are in the pool and unlike Week 2, Week 3 was pretty ugly, as you might expect with all the upsets in the NFL last weekend. The staff suffered seven losses, or 35% of the picks - which is a very big number with nearly all the choices still available after just two picks on the young season. Upsets by the Jets and Bears gave the staff their losses for the week, bringing the group total losses up to 10 in all. That puts half of the staff at a perfect 3-0 while the rest are one step behind with one loss.
Now me look ahead to Week 4, and there is one clear top choice in the Seattle Seahawks, who host the Indianapolis Colts after their first win at home over Cleveland. With the Seahawks at nearly a two touchdown favorite and around -700 on the money line this week, the expectations are very high for Seattle to get the home win on Sunday Night Football. Green Bay (3) and New England (3) came in next, with two teams at bigger favorites on the week as both the Packers and Patriots are giving over a touchdown as home favorites. With Green Bay used six times in Week 3, they could have been used more this week if not for the fact that only 14 of the 20 staffers still had them left at their disposal. Arizona (2) is the only other pick with more than one selection for Week 4, as they host San Francisco on Sunday. Four other teams (Atlanta, Dallas, Jacksonville and Kansas City) were unique picks on the week, making for the most diversity in selections so far this year with eight different teams amongst the 20 staff picks for Week 4. Things will definitely be interesting after Monday Night Football.
Please note a few things: We will be doing these picks every week, win or lose, to keep it entertaining all season long. Normally a Survivor / Eliminator pool would end once all but one player lost once, but to provide our subscribers with more perspectives, everyone will pick every week even if they lose. That said, we will still try and honor the spirit of an Eliminator / Survivor Pool, trying to win every week and not re-use any teams during the year.
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 am not tearing up and throwing away my preseason plan, I swear! But, I was very close to changing my Week 4 pick to Seattle (and to be fair, that was my "coma pick" until I went and made my real selection today) - but I went back to talk to myself in history thanks to that preseason plan, and my August self made a really good point that Week 9 is a train wreck waiting to happen. Atlanta is getting overlooked this week (as you see by the staff all going to Seattle, Green Bay and New England for the most part) and I expect most Survivor pool players to do the same. In big pools, Week 9 is definitely going to come into play, and what will you do then? Six teams take Week 9 off, including Cleveland and Chicago, while the Jets host the Bills on Thursday Night Football (which favors the home team usually - but I am not touching that game) and the 49ers host Arizona (who I plan to use in Week 12 for now). All in all, Seattle is a good pick this week, but a better long term plan for a long season is to go with the Falcons, who are favored by over a touchdown against a Bills team that is 2-1 which has one good win at home over Denver but a victory over the Jets and a 9-3 loss at Carolina make me believe that Buffalo is not going to show well against a good team like the Falcons. The other hidden bonus here is that planning on using Seattle in Week 9 means that most other teams will not have the Seahawks available to use then because they are burning that pick this week, which I really like. So, I will stick with my August self and go with Atlanta, but Seattle would be my second choice.
The Pick: Atlanta
Good luck this weekend!
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com