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 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:
Staff Member | Record | Wk01 | Wk02 | Wk03 | Wk04 | Wk05 | Wk06 | Wk07 | Wk08 | Wk09 | Wk10 | Wk11 | Wk12 | Wk13 | Wk14 | Wk15 | Wk16 | Wk17 |
Aaron Rudnicki | 6-1 | GB | NO | SEA | SD | NYG | DEN | AZ | STL | |||||||||
Alex Miglio | 6-1 | GB | NO | SEA | INDY | ATL | NYJ | AZ | STL | |||||||||
Jason Wood | 6-1 | GB | NO | INDY | SD | NYG | NYJ | ATL | AZ | |||||||||
Chris Feery | 6-1 | DEN | NO | INDY | SEA | NYG | NE | AZ | ATL | |||||||||
Dave Larkin | 6-1 | DAL | NO | NE | ATL | GB | MIN | AZ | STL | |||||||||
Steve Buzzard | 6-1 | DAL | MIA | NE | SEA | GB | NYJ | AZ | ATL | |||||||||
Jeff Haseley | 6-1 | GB | NO | SEA | SD | ATL | NYJ | AZ | STL | |||||||||
James Brimacombe | 5-2 | GB | INDY | NE | INDY | DEN | SEA | AZ | STL | |||||||||
Jeff Pasquino | 5-2 | DAL | INDY | NE | GB | ATL | SEA | AZ | STL | |||||||||
Maurile Tremblay | 5-2 | SEA | NE | CAR | CIN | AZ | TEN | MIN | STL | |||||||||
Andrew Garda | 5-2 | MIA | AZ | CIN | BUF | BAL | HOU | ATL | CAR | |||||||||
Dan Hindery | 5-2 | NE | BAL | HOU | SEA | KC | NYJ | AZ | STL | |||||||||
Andy Hicks | 5-2 | DEN | INDY | NE | SEA | KC | GB | AZ | STL | |||||||||
William Grant | 5-2 | DAL | MIA | SEA | DEN | BAL | NYJ | STL | ATL | |||||||||
Justin Bonnema | 5-2 | NYJ | MIA | NYG | INDY | BAL | PHI | STL | NO | |||||||||
Mark Wimer | 5-2 | GB | TEN | NE | OAK | NYG | NYJ | ATL | AZ | |||||||||
Steve Holloway | 5-2 | MIA | INDY | SEA | BUF | ATL | NE | STL | AZ | |||||||||
Bear Heiser | 5-2 | MIN | BAL | SEA | SD | GB | CIN | MIA | STL | |||||||||
John Lee | 5-2 | NYJ | NO | CAR | INDY | BAL | GB | STL | HOU | |||||||||
Clayton Gray | 4-3 | GB | NO | NE | AZ | ATL | DET | SD | STL | |||||||||
Ari Ingel | 4-3 | JAX | BAL | SEA | INDY | KC | DEN | SD | DET | |||||||||
Matt Bitonti | 4-3 | NYJ | MIA | SEA | OAK | GB | CIN | BUF | AZ | |||||||||
Justin Howe | 4-3 | CIN | BAL | CAR | SD | KC | TEN | WASH | STL |
DISCUSSION
Only two missteps in Week 7 for the staff, as they went a collective 21 for 23 in their picks. That resulted in minimal movement on the stnadings, but it does eliminate several more options as we head towards the back half of the season. The choices will start to become much harder after Halloween, so this will be a fun standings table to watch.
The picks this week fall into three distinct groups - the consensus, the smaller packs, and the unique picks. Most of the staff (12 of 23) went with the touchdown favorite Rams at home against the seemingly hapless San Francisco 49ers, including myself. That goes against one of my general rules of do not pick a divisional game, but the matchup looks too good to pass up St. Louis in Week 8. The next batch of picks went with either Arizona (4) or Atlanta (3) as the next-most popular selections. Several of these staff members have already picked St. Louis, so going in another direction was mandatory. Both the Cardinals (at Cleveland) and Falcons (hosting Tampa Bay) represent solid options of big favorites. The outlier picks this week are three different teams - Carolina (home against the Colts), New Orleans (hosting the Giants), Detroit (vs. Kansas City in London) and the Houston Texans (home against Tennessee). Some rather interesting outliers this week, and I'm hoping to get comments from everyone who chose these fliers. Stay tuned for that. Seven different teams are in the mix so this could be an interesting week after the results are in this Tuesday.
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 totally bailed on my preseason picks again this week as I do not trust Baltimore or Denver. Those look like crazy picks now. So, with that in mind, I go to Las Vegas to help me out and I am looking for a home team favored by about a touchdown or more. I have used New England and Atlanta already, so the choice is simple - St. Louis. Sure it is a divisional game, but San Francisco looks terrible and this pick feels about as safe as I can get this week.
Will Grant: Atlanta isn't a sexy pick, but it is a reasonably easy pick. They are coming off a tough win against the Titans, but should have an easier time with the Buccaneers at home this week. Still trying to save the Patriots and other big winners for later in the year.
Andrew Garda: I normally like to save the 'strong' teams for later, but a few things drew me to Carolina this week. First and foremost I'm really confident that they will beat Indy. That said, there will be some who lay off on them because it's Indy, it's Andrew Luck and you never know. On top of that, people save the top teams for later in the season, so Carolina should be under-owned. So I'm working from two assumptions this week: 1) Carolina will win 2) Carolina will be more unique than not. That helps me avoid the herd a bit and if we have a repeat of a few weeks back when tons of people were wiped out due to upsets, I'm less likely to get caught in the wash (which is actually what happened to me then - I survived). On top of all that, I dislike a lot of the medium-level match-ups this week. Too many games like MIN-CHI, NYG-NO, SD-BAL and the like seem like they can go either way.With as many 'top' teams as we seem to have this year, I am willing to sacrifice one earlier in the season to get myself a week where I don't have to stress about those mid-tier games going the wrong way.
Justin Bonnema: So why did I take New Orleans? It's really a pick against the Giants, who have been scoring a lot of points but barely beat the Cowboys at home last week. The Saints offense seems to have turned the corner the last couple of games and their defense, despite bleeding yards late in games, is 11th in turnovers. They're favored at home and even if it's a close game (with lots of points), I'm confident they'll do enough to hold down Eli and Co. (should be a good matchup between Delvin Breaux and Odell Beckham Jr. too)
John Lee:
Ari Engel: The Lions are somewhat controversial pick this week, but favored teams have lost a ton this year. For starters, without Jamaal Charles the Chief’s are not the same team and continue to underutilize Travis Kielce. They are also giving up a ton of sacks and despite being the “home” team, this is an away game in London, UK. The Lions have only really been destroyed by the Cardinal’s and besides that they have lost some very close games, including a 10-13 loss to the Seahawks in Seattle. This team is not as bad as some are making them out to be and with the firing of OC Joe Lombardi, the Lions are motivated to right the ship. I think that starts this week.
Good luck this weekend!
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.