Staff Confidence Pool (No Spread) Week 4

Photo: Tim Fuller , USA Today Sports

Looking to dominate your office pool this season? Eighteen Footballguys.com staff members are here to help you out. Each week they will pick the winners of every NFL game, and rank their selections based on how confident they are that the team will win. The most-confident pick gets 16 points, and the least-confident gets just 1. We'll even total up everyone's picks so you can get an overall consensus on who our staff think will be the most likely winners. Each week we'll announce the weekly winners, and track the overall record for the entire season. A couple of things to note before we get to the picks:

• Picks for this pool are straight up (no point spread considered).
• Picks are due on Wednesday nights, and will not reflect any late-breaking news. If your league allows for last-minute changes, please make adjustments to your office pool accordingly.
• Our staffers also play in weekly picks Against The Spread, and Survivor Style 'Pick one Winner each week' formats as well. Check out the other weekly articles for more help with those type of games.

RESULTS FROM LAST WEEK

Dave Larkin had an excellent week, only missing three games and finishing with 112 confidence points. Despite losing 14 points on the Eagles' surprising loss to Detroit, Larkin still finished at least a couple of points ahead of every other staffer in the contest. Having 13 correct picks was also at least two more correct picks than anyone else in the contest. Excellent week for Larkin.

While teams with the highest confidence points allocated all brought home wins, there were a couple of upsets that hurt most of the board. Keith Roberts was the only person who picked Detroit to beat the Eagles, and that decision cost everyone else 181 confidence points. The losses by Seattle and Tampa Bay took down another 250 confidence points from the board.

OVERALL RANKINGS

Larkin's big win this week moved him to the top of the leaderboard. James Brimacombe hasn't finished 1st in any of the first three weeks, but his strong, consistent performance is also starting to pay off. He is in second place, less than 1 confidence point per week off of Larkin's pace.

THIS WEEK'S PICKS

Here are the picks for this week. The MNF column is each person's predicted total points scored for this week's Monday night game.

HEAVY FAVORITES

Despite a relatively low line of favorites from Las Vegas this week, the staffers have some very strong takes on this week's games. New England, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Kansas City, The Chargers and The Rams were all unanimous selections by everyone on the staff. Green Bay, Baltimore, Houston, Seattle, and Pittsburgh are also heavy favorites by a majority of the board.

DUAL SUPPORT

Two games stand out as the toughest to call for this week - Minnesota at Chicago and Jacksonville at Denver. The Vikings and Bears are bitter rivals, and both teams have some glaring weaknesses that could easily tip the scales either way this weekend. Jacksonville and Denver are both teams that have a lot of question marks, and while the trip to Denver usually favors the Broncos, Jacksonville has their share of backers as well. Both of these games have less than 60 total confidence points and the Minnesota - Chicago game is almost dead even. If your pool allows for ranking your picks, it's probably a good idea to move these games to the bottom.

ODDS AND ENDS

This week is the first where NFL teams will be on a bye. With only two teams off, we lose the top confidence slot, making 120 the total possible confidence points for the week. Some pools will drop the lowest score, but ours will track the opposite since it makes every miss even more critical with the smaller point pool.

Good luck this weekend!

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