Over the past few years we have given the subscribers of Footballguys.com some help in playing in office pools and other games when it comes to following the NFL. 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 we added 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 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 | Rec | Wk 1 | Wk 2 | Wk 3 | Wk 4 | Wk 5 | Wk 6 | Wk 7 | Wk 8 | Wk 9 | Wk 10 | Wk 11 | Wk 12 | Wk 13 | Wk 14 | Wk 15 | Wk 16 | Wk 17 |
Alex Miglio | 9-1 | GB | NO | SEA | INDY | ATL | NYJ | AZ | STL | NE | CAR | PHI | ||||||
Dave Larkin | 9-1 | DAL | NO | NE | ATL | GB | MIN | AZ | STL | CIN | PIT | SEA | ||||||
Jeff Haseley | 8-2 | GB | NO | SEA | SD | ATL | NYJ | AZ | STL | CIN | DEN | PHI | ||||||
James Brimacombe | 8-2 | GB | INDY | NE | INDY | DEN | SEA | AZ | STL | CIN | CAR | PHI | ||||||
Aaron Rudnicki | 7-3 | GB | NO | SEA | SD | NYG | DEN | AZ | STL | NO | CIN | CAR | ||||||
Jason Wood | 7-3 | GB | NO | INDY | SD | NYG | NYJ | ATL | AZ | NO | NO | DAL | ||||||
Chris Feery | 7-3 | DEN | NO | INDY | SEA | NYG | NE | AZ | ATL | CIN | GB | CAR | ||||||
Andy Hicks | 7-3 | DEN | INDY | NE | SEA | KC | GB | AZ | STL | CIN | BAL | PHI | ||||||
Justin Bonnema | 7-3 | NYJ | MIA | NYG | INDY | BAL | PHI | STL | NO | CIN | BAL | SEA | ||||||
Maurile Tremblay | 7-3 | SEA | NE | CAR | CIN | AZ | TEN | MIN | STL | ATL | PIT | NYJ | ||||||
Bear Heiser | 7-3 | MIN | BAL | SEA | SD | GB | CIN | MIA | STL | NO | BUF | ATL | ||||||
Clayton Gray | 7-3 | GB | NO | NE | AZ | ATL | DET | SD | STL | CIN | CAR | SEA | ||||||
Justin Howe | 7-3 | CIN | BAL | CAR | SD | KC | TEN | WASH | STL | MIN | PIT | SEA | ||||||
Steve Buzzard | 6-4 | DAL | MIA | NE | SEA | GB | NYJ | AZ | ATL | NO | CIN | CAR | ||||||
Jeff Pasquino | 6-4 | DAL | INDY | NE | GB | ATL | SEA | AZ | STL | NO | CIN | CAR | ||||||
Steve Holloway | 6-4 | MIA | INDY | SEA | BUF | ATL | NE | STL | AZ | SD | CIN | CAR | ||||||
Dan Hindery | 6-4 | NE | BAL | HOU | SEA | KC | NYJ | AZ | STL | NO | GB | ATL | ||||||
Andrew Garda | 6-4 | MIA | AZ | CIN | BUF | BAL | HOU | ATL | CAR | NO | GB | JAX | ||||||
Mark Wimer | 6-4 | GB | TEN | NE | OAK | NYG | NYJ | ATL | AZ | DEN | OAK | CAR | ||||||
John Lee | 6-4 | NYJ | NO | CAR | INDY | BAL | GB | STL | HOU | NO | DEN | SEA | ||||||
William Grant | 6-4 | DAL | MIA | SEA | DEN | BAL | NYJ | STL | ATL | CIN | GB | CAR | ||||||
Ari Ingel | 5-5 | JAX | BAL | SEA | INDY | KC | DEN | SD | DET | NE | CIN | CAR | ||||||
Matt Bitonti | 5-5 | NYJ | MIA | SEA | OAK | GB | CIN | BUF | AZ | NO | PHI | ATL |
DISCUSSION
To put it mildly, Week 10 was a bloodbath. Only 7 of 23 picks were correct, and if you did not take Carolina or Pittsburgh you were likely sweating out your game. The upsets of the Bengals (five picks), Packers (four), Broncos (two), Ravens (two), Eagles, Raiders and Saints - it was a total washout for most of the staff. That just goes to show both how hard this is and how difficult a wild weekend like last week was. What lies ahead for the next several weeks? That's the question, isn't it.
The picks this week are interesting in that most of the staff who could take Seattle or Carolina did so, as these were the two most common picks. The Panthers received eight selections for Week 11 as they host Washington, and that seems like a reasonable call. Seattle hosts San Francisco, and that feels like it should be a blowout, and Las Vegas tends to agree. We shall see if the five picks from the staff are green or not come next week. The Eagles are the next most common selection with four picks, which is interesting considering that they lost at home last week to Miami. Can Tampa Bay upset them? Atlanta (3) is the only other team to get multiple picks, and the Falcons are coming off of a bye to host Indianapolis, who was also off in Week 10 but will be without Andrew Luck. Rounding out the selections were single choices of Dallas, Jacksonville and the Jets. After last week's collapse, it is certain to be another interesting result after Week 11 is complete.
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: It has been a rough season for this pool, and I have just about given up on my preseason picks at this point. Right now I am much more likely to follow Las Vegas and take the biggest favorite I have left to try and salvage a respectable season-long result. Carolina is a solid choice I believe this week and a great spot to take them before they face Atlanta twice later this season.
Jeff Haseley: I'm picking PHI over CAR simply because as a Panthers fan, I don't want to jinx them. Nothing more, nothing less. Superstitious? Yes, but it has worked so far.
Jason Wood: I like that Dallas is coming off this massive losing streak, is getting Romo back and goes up against a Dolphins team I have ZERO faith in being a legitimate turnaround. Trying to be a bit contrarian as we get toward year end to save a few big dogs.
Andrew Garda: Seattle makes me itchy. I'm glad I avoided the pitfalls earlier with them and they do beat up bad teams—Lord knows San Francisco is bad—but I don't trust them. San Francisco (and other NFC West teams) continually get up for games against Seattle. So I'm a little concerned about this game and this team which has looked very inconsistent this season. I'd rather wait a week or two, see if they are really 'back' and use them for an easy layup against Ravens/Browns later on.
Carolina is mostly just avoiding the train on them and wanting to save them - along with a few other strong teams - for later. I'll admit to thinking Washington is playing sporadically better football and Kirk Cousins playing not vomit inducing football as well, so they could surprise us. Mostly though, I wanted to save them.
Especially when, to me, the Jacksonville game feels like a huge freebie. While I love Mariota, I've seen a lot more to like about the Jaguars and they've got plenty enough talent to beat the Titans. How often do you get to use the Jags in a Survivor pool and save better teams? Not often. So using them in a game I am really confident about allows me to save some better teams and survive another week.
Mark Wimer: I went with Carolina defeating Washington (instead of selecting Seattle over San Francisco) because of two reasons:
Carolina's defense (unlike New Orleans') is quite good, and Kirk Cousins struggles against good defenses. Additionally, Carolina has home field advantage and Cam Newton usually plays especially well in front of the home crowd.
San Francisco at Seattle - divisional rivalry, and San Francisco's players may be feeling 'dissed' since everyone and their dog expects Seattle to blow out San Francisco/Santa Clara. Divisional games are inherently more unpredictable than cross-divisional or cross-conference, in my opinion, as the emotions generated can elevate a team's performance on any given Sunday. There are a few intense cross-conference rivalries (see New England/New York Giants for more on this) but they are much more rare than in-division rivalries.
I'm more convinced that Carolina defeats Washington than I am that Seattle defeats San Francisco. And that is the name of the Survivor game.
Good luck this weekend!
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.