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.
Note that the links above are for 2012 articles. Please see the Week 1 2013 Page at Footballguys.com for the 2013 Week 1 updates.
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 Picks
Here are the picks for this week.
| Staffer | Wk01 | Wk02 | Wk03 | Wk04 | Wk05 | Wk06 | Wk07 | Wk08 | Wk09 | Wk10 | Wk11 | Wk12 | Wk13 | Wk14 | Wk15 | Wk16 | Wk17 |
| Matt Bitonti | INDY | ||||||||||||||||
| James Brimacombe | NE | ||||||||||||||||
| Heath Cummings | NE | ||||||||||||||||
| Will Grant | INDY | ||||||||||||||||
| Adam Herstad | TB | ||||||||||||||||
| Jeff Haseley | INDY | ||||||||||||||||
| Andy Hicks | TB | ||||||||||||||||
| Steve Holloway | INDY | ||||||||||||||||
| Jeff Pasquino | INDY | ||||||||||||||||
| Aaron Rudnicki | INDY | ||||||||||||||||
| Greg Russell | INDY | ||||||||||||||||
| Maurile Tremblay | TB | ||||||||||||||||
| Mark Wimer | NE | ||||||||||||||||
| Jason Wood | TB | ||||||||||||||||
| Ryan Hester | PIT |
Consensus Winners
Fifteen staffers are in the pool, and it should be interesting right out of the gate. I had originally thought that most everyone would go with the Colts, as they are a home team favored by the biggest margin in Las Vegas (about 10 points over the Raiders), but that is not the case overall. Most of the staff did go with Indianapolis as their first choice, but four teams did get selected for Week 1. Taking New England feels like the second-best choice despite a road game against a divisional foe (normally two strikes against that contest). Tampa Bay is also on the road, but the Jets do look terrible. Ryan Hester provides his own reasoning for taking the Steelers below.
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.
Ryan Hester - I picked Pittsburgh because I think they're the best combination of a safe bet to win their game and a team that I wouldn't be sure I'd use again this season. While playing conservative in Week 1 might feel like the right thing to do, it's important to treat each week the same. This will be my methodology throughout the season -- along with often leaning towards picking again the Jets, Jags, or Raiders when they're on the road.
Jeff Pasquino – Simply sticking with my pre-season plan. I considered New England, but two strikes against them (road team, divisional foe) and I want to save the Patriots if I can. Tampa Bay or Pittsburgh were options, but the Colts are the best choice by far.
James Brimacombe – The Patriots lost a lot of talent over the offseason but are still one of the heavy favorites in the AFC. I think they control this game early relying on their running game and their surprisingly strong defense.
Heath Cummings – The Raiders are terrible, no doubt. But the Patriots have the ability to run the ball down Buffalo's throat and control this game from start to finish. While its unlikely, I could at least see a possibility that Indianapolis' porous defense keeps the Raiders in the game and their questionable running game fails to shut the door.
Mark Wimer – NE because the Bills are starting a rookie QB in week one - the inevitable rookie-quarterback -first-game-interceptions should throw the game to New England.
Good luck this weekend!