Eliminator Pool: Week 1

Photo: USA Today Sports

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 Dave Larkin’s “For The Win” column where Dave 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 once again is presenting 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 preseason articles. The first one that describes this kind of contest along with some advice on how to pick a team each week:

Survivor Pool Strategy

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.

I Will Survive

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.

DISCUSSION

Seventeen staffers are in the pool, and it should be quite interesting right out of the gate. Week 1 has a larger number of games (8 of 16, or 50%) with teams favored by 5.5 points or more, making this an intriguing opening weekend. Five of those teams made our list for the staff, starting with both the Eagles (hosting Washington) and Seattle (vs. Cincinnati). Both teams are 2018 playoff teams with home openers, so these look pretty safe - but as pointed out in the Survivor guide, always be a little cautious for divisional contests. That puts Washington-Philadelphia and Giants-Cowboys (Dallas -7.5) in that "be careful" category to open the season, so there are solid reasons why the staff avoided Dallas for their first pick of the season. Of the eight teams favored by 5.5 or more points for Week 1, only one team is on the road - and that is the Baltimore Ravens. Baltimore heads to Miami to start the season, and three of our staff went with the Ravens on the road against what should be the worst team in the league this year. Two staffers went out on their own, as Mark Wimer took a different path with the Browns (-5.5) hosting Tennessee, while Justin Howe took the Chargers (-6.5) against the Luck-less Colts in Los Angeles. Clearly, most everyone in leagues like these is looking hard at Baltimore, Seattle, and the Eagles as the most popular picks for Week 1.

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: Not much surprise here, as I decided to stick with my preseason plan and go with the Seahawks hosting Cincinnati in Week 1. Baltimore and Philadelphia were strong options, but the Eagles have a soft schedule for 2019 and there will be better spots to use them. Baltimore is also in a similar boat, and a road game in hot Miami in Week 1 could pose a slight problem. The team to really go for in Week 1, in my humble opinion, is Seattle. The Seahawks have their home opener against an A.J. Green-less Cincinnati team with new head coach Zac Taylor. Seattle usually has a strong home-field advantage, and the game opened up with the Seahawks having about a 6-point head start in Las Vegas, but it is now 9 or 9.5 points according to the latest line, and a money line for Seattle at -420 (which is >80% chance of winning). No better time to take Seattle than to start the year.

The Pick: Seattle

Good luck this weekend!

Questions, suggestions, and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com

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