Good day all. We’re back for another pool season. Last year @Hometown_Fan won both the regular season and NFL playoff pool so we know who has to be taken down this year. He is the proud owner of The Amazing Kreskin hardware that will be awarded, at least for now. Final standings are below:
https://forums.cfl.ca/t/nfl-pool-final-standings/83370?u=jon
To keep matters as simple as possible the basic rules for this pool are the same as the rules for the CFL GCC pool, with a few differences I will outline. Those rules are linked below:
https://forums.cfl.ca/t/2023-cfl-gcc-pool-week-1/86024?u=jon
Scoring will be the same and so will the first tiebreaker being perfect weeks and the second tiebreaker being aggregate.
The major difference, and it is a good one, is that we will pick six NFL games per week from which you must choose the winner. We started with four games a week but after some feedback and trial and error settled on six. Having two more games than the CFL to pick from has several benefits that actually make this a much more competitive pool and picking all of the games is too onerous a task for some and I certainly get that.
The pool is much more volatile as there are two more opportunities to win or lose each week. There is less safety in being ahead and it is easier to make up ground. Perfect weeks are also gold as the most picked last year was only two. The major benefit of having many more teams to choose from is that on balance games are harder to pick and generally you won’t see weeks like you do in the CFL Pool with 30 or so people making the same picks and over 90% of the people picking the same team to win. No slight on the CFL, it’s just a positive function of the numbers.
What we do is look at the slate of games for each week and try to select six games for the pool that are predicted to be relatively close. This makes picking winners harder for everyone and if all goes according to plan there shouldn’t be much in the way of blowout games to choose from. Much more competitive. We also try and include every team at least once or twice, no matter how bad they are, so if you have a favourite team you will be able to select it at some point. I will publish a list of teams selected for the pool 2 or 3 times at intervals. Naturally some teams will be chosen a lot if they have a competitive schedule or are of more interest and generally the better teams will be chosen more, although there should be stinkeroo matchups of two lousy teams to choose from every week as well if the game is expected to be close.
I would also like to clarify the rules surrounding picking. Like the CFL Pool all picks must be made before the start of that game. Most of the time the games will be on Sunday but there will be the odd Thursday or Monday night game if we feel it is a competitive game and some Saturday games late in the season. I won’t be picking this Thursday’s game so everyone will have an entire week to pick the first week but watch out for the odd Thursday game, especially Thanksgiving and be sure to get your picks in on time.
It will remain customary to make all your picks at once prior to the first game but late picks from less than the full slate of six games will be accepted. As to changing picks once made (not including an obvious picking error such as picking a team not on the slate or on a bye week which believe it or not does happen-those can be corrected), that causes problems for tallying the weekly stats I am told. Nevertheless I am sympathetic in certain cases such as when it is not known if a star QB will play or an important player is injured in practice after you pick or Covid returns or several other valid reasons. I am of the view that never allowing changed picks can discourage participation and cause some to wait too long to make their picks and miss the week entirely when something comes up and even worse leave the pool as a result. Therefore the modified rule will be that everyone will be allowed to change one pick in any given week up to two given weeks during the year. Hopefully that will balance the odd valid need to change a pick with the difficulty it causes in calculating the stats. Better to not do so at all but you have your outlet. Please don’t change picks just because and it is still better to wait to post your picks if you are unsure. If you do make a change please reply to your original post and set out all six of your picks including the changed one.
@mahalcflers will be returning and will be selecting the games to choose from in even weeks. I will be selecting the games in odd weeks. So you know who to blame. @GridironGirl will continue with her impressive stats and standings calculations which will be posted weekly, usually within a day or two of the last game. @Maaax remains as the official Kreskin trophy producer and trophy engraver.
The big prize will go to the winner of the pool with smaller prizes going to the person with the most perfect weeks and the best aggregate. If any of you wish to donate money (see Maaax for details) there will be a monetary component to the prizes. Unlike the CFL Pool there are no playoffs or significance to being in the top eight as we run a separate NFL Playoff Pool where everyone gets a reset.
Oh yeah, almost forgot, if you correctly pick a tie and the game ends in a tie, which happens more frequently now under the new OT rules, you are credited with 3 wins in the unlikely event you are correct.
I think I have covered it all. If there are any questions please ask.
I will be pinging various persons following this post to bring the pool to their attention and encourage participation. If you are not pinged it is probably because you are newer to the forum and haven’t participated in a forum pool before but please be clear that everyone is welcome and encouraged to participate.
The games ripe for the picking in Week 1 are:
Sunday, September 10th
Noon
Carolina at Atlanta
San Francisco at Pittsburgh
3:25 pm
Philadelphia at New England
Miami at LA Chargers
7:20 pm
Dallas at NY Giants
Monday, September 11th 7:15 pm
Buffalo at NY Jets
All times are central.
I also threw in a couple of easy ones so we can all get off to a good start but don’t expect that going forward, unless of course you arrange it with Maaax ahead of time.
Good luck to all and post away!
