Weekly Comments

2024 Season

Sunday Jan 5 2025  13:07 EST

Week 18 Final

Pool record for week 18

This week: 104 - 146         Best Bets: 18 - 32

Percentage: .416              Best Bet Percentage: .360

Season:  2932 - 2608           Best Bets: 595 - 493

Percentage: .529             Best Bet Percentage: .547

Final Recap: A very weak close to the season for the pool. We got .416 on overall picks and a very lame .360 on best bets. Overall for the season, the pool ended in + .500 territory in both best bets and overall picks. Final Standings: ZBigApple got only 2 points on this final weekend but it was enough to hold off the two that were right behind and had been tied for 2nd place. ZBigApple won the pool finishing with 75 points. In second place was Wolfmen who finished with 73 points. In third place was BigD who got 72 points. There was an interesting twist in the battle for second place. BigD had 1 point and Wolfmen had 2 going into the Monday night game. BigD had Vikings as his best bet and Wolfmen had their opponents, the Lions as an ordinary bet. If Vikings had covered, BigD would have picked up 2 more points on Monday night and would have ended with 73 points,  while Wolfmen would have ended with 72: BigD would have finished 2nd and Wolfmen 3rd. But Lions won big, so Wolfmen ended in 2nd place with 73 and BigD had 71. In the secondary last-seven-weeks pool, BellAndRosey and FischerAvery tied with 32 points. According to our tiebreaker rules, listed on the website, the first tiebreaker is total number of correct picks. BellAndRosey had 57 correct picks on the season, while FischerAvery had only 53. Consequently, BellAndRosey win the secondary pool. Congratulations to Doral who ended the season with a bang, getting a perfect week on the last weekend of the season.

Interesting Games of the weekend.

Bengals  -2 1/2 v Steelers. Steelers score a late grabage time TD to give them the dreaded back door cover. We had 11 guys take the Bengals and 0 taking the homedog Steelers in our pool.

Latest Update:  Picks have been loaded for week 18. Great season everyone!

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:06 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  50    This represents 78.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 18 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks. This is the last week of the season. There are no Thursday night games. There are two Saturday games and all the rest of the games are on Sunday. No Monday Night Football this week. Good luck.

Week 17 Final

Pool record for week 17

This week: 167 - 108         Best Bets: 41 - 14

Percentage: .628              Best Bet Percentage: .891

Season:  2828 - 2462           Best Bets: 577 - 461

Percentage: .535             Best Bet Percentage: .556

Recap: A sizzling week of picking from the pool as you can see from the stats above.The hot picking was highlighted by the fact that we had 4 perfect weeks. The pool members who got the perfect weeks were: BellAndRosey, SteveFeldman, ShapiroNate and  BergerStu. BellAndRosey used their perfect week to jump into serious contention. BellAndRosey now have 66 points, a mere 4 points behind the two that are tied for second place. Also notable among these perfect weeks is that this is the second in a row for SteveFeldman. He is a little too far behind to be a realistic contender in the main pool, but is in serious contention for the secondary pool. In the main standings, ZBigApple leads with 73 points. Tied for second are BigD and Wolfmen who each have 70 points. Three are slightly behind them but still in contention with 66 points. They are: BellAndRosey, HenryA and MestelGabyDan. In the seondary pool, BigD is technically in front with 29 points. But BigD is in line for a prize in the main pool and if you win a prize there, you are excluded from the secondary pool. Right behind BigD , tied with 28 points are: BellAndRosey, FischerAvery and Tropper. Wolfmen also has 28 points. SteveFeldman and ZBigApple each have 27.

Generally when we choose a team in this pool, we are rooting for that team to cover the spread. If your team wins you get more points. Not exactly rocket science and not too controversial. However, there was a situation this weekend where the two pool participants who were tied for 2nd place, BigD and Wolfmen, were rooting for one of their teams to lose. Going into the Monday night game, BigD and Wolfmen trailed ZBigApple by 2 points. Furthermore, all 3 of them took the Lions in MNF v. 49ers. However, ZBigApple had the Lions as his best bet while Wolfmen and BigD just had the Lions as an ordinary pick. If Lions would fail to cover, BigD and Wolfmen would continue to be tied and trail ZBigApple by 2 points. However,  if Lions covered, they would each gain 1 point but ZBigApple would gain 2 and his lead would increase to 3 points. It is true that BigD would imporve his position in the secondary pool, but everyone has their eyes on the big prize. As you know, Lions covered and ZBigApple still leads by 3.

Interesting endings: Bengals  3 1/2 v. Broncos Interesting AFC game with playoff implications. Game is tied at 17 and Bengals have the ball with 2:30 left in Q4 following an INT of a pass thrown by rookie QB Bo Nix. Bengals QB Joe Burrow drives  his team down the field and scores a TD himself with 1:31 left apparently giving the Bengals the win and the cover of the 3 1/2 they were laying to the Broncos. But Bo Nix comes back from his INT and leads a game tying TD on a 25 yard pass on 4th and 1 with 14 seconds left in regulation time. The extra point sends the game into OT. Here's where it gets really interesting. After an exchange of punts, Bengals drive the ball down to Bronco 14. They are so sure that their kicker will make the chippy FG that on 2nd down they don't even  try to run a play, they just center the ball for an easier kick. And they don't run a 4th down play, they try the kick on 3rd down. But their kicker, C. York, does a Ray Finkel imitation (laces out) and misses the kick, hitting the upright. Bengals stop the Broncos on their next possession and force a punt, get the ball back. Burrow hits a couple of passes, including one 31 yard completion to get down to the Broncos 3. This time the coach does not trust the game to the foot of his kicker, Burrow throws a TD pass to ice the game. The interesting result, of course is that with a 3 1/2 point spread, if the kicker had made the earlier FG, Bengals would have won the game but not covered. With the missed FG followed by game ending TD, Bengals win and cover. In our pool, Bengals were picked 21 times, Broncos only 1.

Interesting Picks of the week Giants +8 1/2 v. Colts   Giants have lost 10 in a row, have not yet won a  game at home this season, going a perfect 0-8, had nothing to play for, except draft positioning. In fact the visiting Colts, having beaten the Jets, co-tenants of Met Life Stadium, actually had won more games than the Giants at their own home stadium. That did not dissuade 3 brave, wise souls in our pool from picking the Giants against the 17 who took the favored Colts. ClappJ, SeattleSlew64 and ZuckerEric had the wisdom and cojones to pick the homestanding G-Men. Their courage was rewarded as, not only did the Giants cover but they won SU 45-33. Eagles -9 1/2 v. Cowboys On the other side of the ledger, we had the Cowboys who have been playing better lately despite losing starter Dak Prescott and playing with a backup QB, Cooper Rush. Cowboys were underdogs, getting 9 1/2 points. However, in addition to missing their star QB, they were also missing their star WR CeeDee Lamb. It should have been an indicator that they were not really trying to win when they announced that they were "shutting down Lamb for the rest of the season". One might interpret that to mean that he was perhaps able to play, but they did not deem it important enought to risk further injury. While they weren't tanking, they were also less than completely motivated to win. Despite this pregame data, we had a surprising 18 people in our pool take the underdog Cowboys and only 2 take the Eagles. Eagles crushed the 'Boys 41-7. The two who took the Eagles were AaronA and Doral

Next week is the last week of the season and our pool.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:01 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  54    This represents 84.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 17 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks. Reminder - there are two Wednesday games and  three Saturday games in addition to regularly scheduled Thursday night, Sunday and Monday night games.

Week 16 Final

Pool record for week 16

This week: 140 - 140         Best Bets: 30 - 26

Percentage: .515              Best Bet Percentage: .625

Season:  2661 - 2363           Best Bets: 536 - 456

Percentage: .530             Best Bet Percentage: .540

Recap: Decent scores for the week as you can see from the sumary statistics above. You may notice that the winning percentage doesn't seem to agree with the record of correct/incorrect picks. Specifically, overall bets were 140-140 but the percentage is .515 not .500. This is because for the percentage I exclude missing submissions in the calculation, but I still show the overall correct/incorrect picks in the raw count. At the top of the pool, ZBigApple maintains his first place lead, but it is a little tighter than it was last week. ZBigApple had a perfect week last week (in week 15) and was leading by 5 points coming into this weekend. However, ZBigApple had an off day  picking and this week (in week 16) got only 2 points. The two that were tied for second place behind him, BigD and Wolfmen got 4 points each this week. ZBigApple leads the pool with 68, BigD and Wolfmen are 3 points behind, tied for second with 65 points each. The 3 point lead is substantial with only 2 weeks left in the season, let's see how it goes in the stretch run. HenryA and JerseyBoys are close behind with 63 and 62 points respectively. In the secondary last-seven-weeks pool, FischerAvery continues his strong late season run and leads with 25 points. FischerAvery scored two perfect weeks in these last five weeks to take the lead. Note that if he had been picking at this rate for the entire season, averaging 5 points per week, he would have 80 points now and would be a runaway leader of the pool. Congratulations to SteveFeldman who got a perfect week this week.

Interesting picks/games of the week Panthers + 4 1/2 v. cardinals   Panthers were home dogs against the on-the-edge-of-the-playoffs cardinals. In our pool, 20 of our pool participants took the cardinals and only 2 took the panthers. Not only did the Panthers cover, but they won the game outright, scoring a TD in OT and winning the game 36-30. The two wise men who took the Panthers: Apple and AronoffI. Vikings  -3 1/2 v. seahawks   Another game with playoff implications for both teams. Vikings won but only by 3, so the hook got them and the Seahawks covered. We had 22 taking the Vikings and only 7 taking the Seahawks, so this was a big swing game also Cowboys+ 4 1/2 v. Buccaneers. Bucs were down 9 in 4th quarter to the home dog Cowboys. They had an apparent TD wiped off the board when a Dallas DB literally stole the ball out of the hands of the Bucs WR who appeared initially to have caught the ball 2 yards in the endzone. But the Bucs got the ball back after a Dallas punt and  they scored a TD with 2:40 left in the game to make the score 26-24. Bucs spent all their timeouts, but forced another Dallas punt and had possession with 1:40 left on their own 26. They fumbled on the first play and Dallas recovered to end the game.  That "stolen" TD could have made a difference in the winning team, both on the scoreboard and in the sportsbooks.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:26 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  56    This represents 88% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:24 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  56    This represents 88.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 16 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 15 Final

Pool record for week 15

This week: 187 - 113         Best Bets: 43 - 17

Percentage: .632              Best Bet Percentage: .768

Season:  2521 - 2231           Best Bets: 506 - 438

Percentage: .531             Best Bet Percentage: .536

Recap: Wow, what an interesting week of results for the pool, showing incredibly strong overall scores as well individual scores that influenced the standings. As you can see from the statistics above, the pool hit a very strong winning percentage of .632 and even more impressive results on best bets, scoring a .768 success rate. These results were fueled in part by 6 participants who had perfect weeks. They were: ZBigApple, BigD, FischerAvery, Zisholtz, Tropper and SmithAriel. Our pool tends to lean towards picking favorites and this week the favorites dominated. The favorites went 11-5 and our pool picked 186 favorites compared to only 114 underdogs, which no doubt contributed to the very strong scores. The most frequently selected teams were Bengals (20 picks), Dolphins (19) , Chiefs (18), Jets (17). Of those 4 most frequently picked teams, three covered the spread, all as favorites. The one loser was the Dolphins which was an underdog to the Texans, getting 3 1/2 and losing by 8. Standings: The perfect weeks listed above had a big affect on the standings. ZBigApple who had been in the lead by a slim 1 point coming into week 15, used his perfect week to take a 5 point lead. ZBigApple now has 66 points. BigD also got a perfect week and surged into a second place tie. BigD has 61 points and is tied for second with Wolfmen who got 5 points, missing only one pick - the previously mentioned Dolphins.HenryA and JerseyBoys are right behind with 60 points. In the secondary pool, FischerAvery and Zishotlz used their perfect weeks to claim a first place tie with 21 points. Right behind with 20 points are BigD and ZBigApple. Reminder: If you win a prize in the main pool, you are not eligible for the prize of the secondary pool.

Interesting Games of week 15

Jets  -3 1/2 v. Jaguars Back and forth game with both teams alternately grabbing and ceding control of the game. Jets score a TD and 2 point conversion with 3:34 left to take a 3 point lead. Jaguars respond with a drive that ended with a FG to tie the game with 1:56 left in Q4. Jets use the next possession to drive all the way down to the Jags 1 with 1:08 left in the game. Jaguars have only two TO's left, so the Jets can run the clock down, call a TO with maybe 20 seconds left in the game, and kick a chip shot FG turning the ball over to the Jags with maybe 15 seconds at most left on the clock, virtually assuring a win. Interim Coach Ulbrich deigns this strategy and runs it in for  TD on first down (looked to me like Jags D let him score, though I'm not sure). This gives the Jets a 7 point lead but turns the ball back over to the Jags who had more than a minute and 2 TOs left to try and tie the game. The announcers doing the game raked Ulbrich over the coals for this dubious decision, saying that the right strategy  would have been to run the clock and kick the FG. What idiots these announcers are! if Ulbrich kicks the FG, the Jets win the game on the scoreboard but not in Vegas. Ulbrich obviously had money riding on the Jets to cover and needed all 7 points to cover the 3 1/2 that the Jets were giving to the Jags. .

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:16 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  60    This represents 94% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:16 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  60    This represents 94.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 15 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 14 Final

Pool record for week 14

This week: 139 - 176         Best Bets: 27 - 36

Percentage: .443              Best Bet Percentage: .435

Season:  2334 - 2122           Best Bets: 463 - 425

Percentage: .524             Best Bet Percentage: .521

Recap: Very interesting results from this past weekend. We had very poor numbers as you can see above: below 50% on both overall picks and bets bets. Looking at the particular games that contributed to these results, we see the following. We had 29 who successfully picked the Buccaneers and 0 took the opposing Raiders. We also had  18 take the Vikings versus only 8 who took their opponents, the Falcons. Both of these two favorites covered. On the other side, we had 30 who took the favored Bills and 20 who took the favored Cardinals, both of whom failed to cover. Standings: Interesting Monday night: ZbigApple and JerseyBoys were tied at 56 going into the Monday night Bengals-Cowboys game. Both had the Bengals, but ZBigApple had them as his best bet; Bengals won and covered. So the current standings have ZBigApple  first with 58, JerseyBoys is second with 57 and HenryA and Wolfmen are tied for third with 56. The other interesting side of the Monday night game is that if the Cowboys had won, JerseyBoys and ZBigApple would have been stuck on 56 and Wolfmen, who took the Cowboys, would have been first with 57. In the secondary pool, we have 4 who are tied for first with 14 points. They are: Apple, JerseyBoys, Wolfmen and ZuckerEric. Tiebreaker rules apply to the last-seven-weeks pool as well as the main pool.

Interesting games this week:

Giants + 4 1/2 vs. Saints   A miserable game between two of the bottom dwellers of the NFL. Predictably the game was filled with several ugly plays. Giants had a TD punt return called back because of a somewhat soft holding penalty…. the kinds of calls that seem to always go against lousy teams. Giants also had a FG made that got called back because of a penalty for a personal foul in blocking by the OL. But the real interesting twists came at the end of the game. Giants were down 14-3 and scored a TD with around 4 minutes left in the 4th qtr to make the score 14-9. Kicking a PAT would make the score 14-10 and give the Giants the cover. But the coach decided to go for 2, which would make it a 3 point game and give the Giants a chance to tie the game. The play seemed to fall apart, QB Drew Lock threw the ball targeting rookie Nabers, but the ball was batted by a DT and floated up in the air apparently causing a failed 2 point attempt. But Nabers kept his eye on the ball and pulled in the deflected ball, then turned and pushed into the endzone. That made the score 14-11 and gave the Giants the cover instead of the Saints. To put an exclamation point on the miserable game (and season) Giants were in position to kick a tying FG with 6 seconds left in the game, but the kick was blocked. The OL-man that got beat and  allowed the blocked kick was the same one that got called for the earlier penalty on the FG that was called back.  This last blocked FG was actually good for the Giants, because if it had gone into OT, the Saints would have had a chance to score a TD an get the cover. This way, Giants cover was assured.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon   at 13:35 EST,  all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  63    This represents 98% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday morning  at 13:35 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  63    This represents 98.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 14 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 13 Final

Pool record for week 13

This week: 167 - 148         Best Bets: 32 - 31

Percentage: .532              Best Bet Percentage: .516

Season:  2195 - 1947           Best Bets: 436 - 390

Percentage: .530             Best Bet Percentage: .528

Recap: Mediocre scores in week 13, hovering right around .500 for both overall picks and best bets. At the top of the pool, JerseyBoys and ZBigApple got 3 points each and remain in a tie for first, now with 54 points each. HenryA who lost his hold on first place last week bounced back and got 5 points, as did Wolfmen. HenryA and Wolfmen are tied for third with 52 points each, trailing first by only 2 points. MestelGabyDan is 1 point behind with 51. Congratulations to FischerAvery who got a perfect week this week. In the secondary pool, ZuckerEric leads with 12 points. Tied for second are FischerAvery and JerseyBoys with 11. Each of these 3 at the top of the secondary pool got a perfect week in week 12 or 13, the two weeks that so far comprise the secondary pool.

Interesting Results: We spend lots of our pregame analysis deciding if the point spread is appropriate for each particular game. We may have a good inclination that one team, say the favorite, will win;  but will it win by enough points to cover the spread. As you know, I keep a database of all games played, including the point spreads and results.In the 195 games that have been played so far this NFL season, according to my data, the point spreads determined the winner in 34 games, or 17.4% of the time. By this I mean: if the favorite won by more than the spread or if the underdog won outright, then the spread had no influence on determining the winner. The only time the point spread makes a difference is when the underdog loses the game on the scoreboard but wins with the points given. To be clear, my point spreads are not exactly the same as Vegas for two reasons. First, I add 1/2 point when the spreads are a whole number to avoid a push in our pool. Secondly, I post the spreads on Wednesday or Thursday morning and the spreads sometimes change between that time and the start of the game. For example, this week the Jets  were 2 1/2 point underdogs when I posted the spreads on Wednesday. By Sunday the spread had changed to 5 1/2, and in some sports books, as much as 6 1/2. The Jets lost by 5, so this change would have made a difference in determining the winning team in our pool. However, despite those minor differences, the 17.4% of the time that the spreads determine the winner is a good estimate. The reason I am bringing this up this week is that we had an unusual number of games influenced by the point spread this week. In week 13, 6 of the 16 games had the favorite win, but the underdog covered with the points they were geting. Specifically the following underdogs lost the game on the scoreboard and won with the points: Bears + 9 1/2, Raiders + 13 1/2, Cardinals + 3 1/2, Jaguars + 4 1/2, Patriots + 2 1/2, Panthers + 6 1/2. You can imagine that when the point spread is wide, for example  7 points or more, there is a better chance for the underdog to cover with that generous gift from Vegas. But this week, as you can see, there was a  2 1/2 and  3 1/2 point underdog that lost the game but covered with those meager number of points. Notwithstanding the 6 underdogs that covered this week with the points, knowing that overall it is only 17.4% of the games in which this happens,  will this influence the way you pick games in the future? Does it make sense to pick a game when you expect a team to lose the game but cover with the points given? According to my statistics, 82.6% of the time, the answer is no.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:51 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  63    This represents 98% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:51 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  63    This represents 98.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 13 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Thanksgiving Week Note: There are three Thanksgiving Day games and one Black Friday game. If you want to pick a team in one of those games, make sure you submit your picks before the appropriate start time for  each  game.

Week 12 Final

Pool record for week 12

This week: 180 - 135         Best Bets: 48 - 15

Percentage: .573              Best Bet Percentage: .774

Season:  2028 - 1800           Best Bets: 404 - 360

Percentage: .530             Best Bet Percentage: .529

Recap: This was a really interesting week for the pool both in the overall picking record as well as a change in the standings at the top of the pool. As you can see above, with a .573 winning rate on overall picks and an outstanding rate of .774 on best bets, the pool had a really great week. The record on best bets shows how alert and connected to NFL news our pool is. Specifically, on Thursday, when I posted the point spreads for our pool, the homestanding  Packers were listed as favored by 2 1/2 over the 49ers . But after posting that spread, the 49ers announced that starting QB Brock Purdy was injured and would not play in the game. Vegas adjusted the spread and it rose to 6 1/2 on most sports books. However, in our pool, since some people may have already picked one of the teams at the original spread, my rule is not to change the spreads once they are published. My logic is that as long as it's a level playing field for all the participants, we're good. So sharp pool members could take the Packers -2 1/2 where the whole world would need to lay 6 1/2 if they wanted Green Bay. We had 36 pool members pick the Packers, 23 of them as best bets, which of course contributed to the high scores this weekend.

Standings: Coming into week 12, HenryA led the pool with 47 points ZBigApple was second with 46 and JerseyBoys was third with 43. Unfortunately HenryA had a rough week picking, and got 0 points. ZBigApple had a big week with 5 points and JerseyBoys hit one out of the park and got a perfect week. This completely changed the standings at the top of the pool. JerseyBoys and ZBigApple are now tied for first with 51 points and HenryA dropped down to a tie for third place with MestelGabyDan and Wolfmen who all have 47 points. In addition to JerseyBoys perfect week, ZuckerEric also had a perfect week and of course they are leading the secondary last-seven-weeks pool with 8 points.

Interesting Games of week 12:

Vikings -3 1/2 v. Bears Exciting game with Vikings giving away several opportiunities to close it out and get the cover. Vikings are winning 24-10 going into the 4th quarter and on the first possession of Q4 drive down to the Bears 36 with a 4th and 1. They could have kicked a FG there to extend their lead but the coach wants to show how macho he and his team are. They go for it on 4th and 1 and turn the ball over on downs. Maybe this stop inspired the Bears who took over the ball after the turnover on downs with 12 minutes left in the game and outscore the Vikings 17-3 in those last 12 minutes, with the last 3 of those 17 coming on a FG with no time remaining on the clock after recovering an onside kick with less than 30 seconds left following the second Bears TD of the quarter. Of course this was good news for the Vikings because if the game had ended 27-24 they would not have covered the 3 1/2. With the score tied at 27, the game went into OT and Vikings had a chance to get the cover with a TD. Bears punted on their first possession and Vikings moved smartly down the field, overcoming a sack and 15 yards of penatlies on the drive, using a 29 yard pass from Darnold to Hockenson which positioned the ball on the Chicago 9 yard line. They killed the clock, centered the ball with a run and kicked a FG on 2nd down. WHAT ??!! They were on the 9 yard line and had 1st down. It's not like they had it on the 35 and had a 4th and 10. Go for the TD and get the cover! Disgraceful game management by the coach. Seriously - even ignoring the point spread, kicking a FG is not a sure thing (see Washington-Dallas game). The coach could have taken 3 (or at least 2) shots at the endzone before trying the FG. I think analytics will say that he did not maximize his chance of winning the game. BTW - if Vikings had covered, I would have  had a perfect week.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:02 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  63    This represents 98% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:01 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  63    This represents 98.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 12 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 11 Final

Pool record for week 11

This week: 168 - 152         Best Bets: 31 - 33

Percentage: .525              Best Bet Percentage: .484

Season:  1848 - 1666           Best Bets: 356 - 346

Percentage: .526             Best Bet Percentage: .507

Recap: Mediocre results for the pool this week. In the standings, we had no perfect weeks and the leaders at the top of the pool are starting to fit into their slots more cleanly. HenryA had been leading by 2 over ZBigApple and now leads by only 1. HenryA has 47, ZBigApple has 46. Last week JerseyBoys and MestelGabyDan had been tied with 40 points, trailing second place by only 1. Now JerseyBoys has taken sole possession of 3rd place with 43 points, but he nows trail  2nd place by 3 points.

Games of the week Lions won big. Was the point spreads 46 1/2? Detroit won 52-6.

Apple and HouseSchreibatheon made some very sharp, against the grain picks. Packers were favored by 5 1/2 against the Bears. We had 15 pick the Packers and only 2, Apple and HouseScheibatheon pick the underdog Bears. Packers won the game 20-19 closing it out on a blocked FG as time ran out. But Bears lost by only one point and covnered the spread.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:28 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  64    This represents 100% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:28 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  64    This represents 100.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 11 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 10 Final

Pool record for week 10

This week: 173 - 147         Best Bets: 45 - 19

Percentage: .541              Best Bet Percentage: .703

Season:  1680 - 1514           Best Bets: 325 - 313

Percentage: .526             Best Bet Percentage: .509

Recap: Wow! Check out the best bet winning percentage from this week, an amazing .703 win rate, the highest I can recall. Looking at the tendencies page, you can see why the best bets were so successful this week. We had 21 in our pool take the Vikings and 12 who took the Bills. Do the math: that's more than half the pool selecting these two teams as their best bets. Vikings were favored by 4 1/2 and squeaked by with a 12-7 win over the Jaguars.  Bills were favored by 4 1/2 and won comfortably by 10 points over the Colts. The Vikings buoyed the overall winning percentage as well, because we had 42 members of our pool take the Vikings. Bills were selected 31 times overall and the  Eagles were also a very popular pick, with 22 selecting them, interestingly only 1 as best bet. We had 237 favorites picked by the pool and only 83 underdogs. Only 4 favorites covered and 10 underdogs won ATS. Because we were tilted so heavily to Vikings, Bills  and Eagles we still had a winning percentage on overall picks. Standings: HenryA continued his hot picking, getting 5 points this week, missing only on the Falcons. HenryA was tied with ZBigApple coming into week 10 with 38 points  HenryA now is all alone in first place with 43 leading ZBigApple who has 41. Right behind the two leaders are 3 who are tied with 40 points. They are: JerseyBoys, MestelGabyDan and Wolfmen. Close calls for MestelGabyDan who missed a perfect week with one incorrect pick, the Commanders. TeamZwick and Wolfmen missed their perfect week by taking the Lions who failed to cover by 1/2 point. Tough beat. Congratulations to SydSar and Tropper who got perfect weeks this week. SydSar used this perfect week to surge into contention with 39 points, only 1 behind the three that are tied for third place.

Interesting Games of week 10

Lions  3 1/2 v. Texans   Their MVP candidate, Lions QB Goff, threw an uncharacteristic 5 INTs, keeping the Lions down and giving lots of points and opportunities to the homestanding Texans. Lions kicked a FG with 5:06 left in the game to tie the score at 23. Texans responded with a drive down the field but missed a 58 yard FG with 1:56 left that would have given them a 3-point lead. Lions took over at their own 48 because of the miss and were able to move the ball down to the Houston 35 and kicked a winning FG with time running out. Here's what doesn't make sense about Dan Campbell's game management. For that final possession, Lions started in good field position, at their own 48 with 1:51 left after the Texans missed FG. They were very conservative, running the ball 4 times and passing only once. Perhaps because Goff had an off day, having thrown 5 picks, they were reluctant to put the ball in his hands. But they moved the ball down to the Houston 35 with 49 seconds left, had a 2nd and 8 and did not run another play, letting the clock run all the way down and kicking the winning FG with 4 seconds left.  I know the FG kickers are good nowadays, but resting on a 52 yard FG seems a little risky. Especially when Lions nation (and me) had the Lions  -3 1/2. The FG there does us no good  - go for the TD there, Dan. C'mon man !

49ers -6 1/2 v. Buccaneers. Buccaneers were home dogs getting 6 1/2 seemed like a juicy bet. Nevertheless, in our pool, 16 took the favored 49ers and 8 took the Bucs. The score was tied late in Q4 and 49ers drove all the way down field down to the TB 26 where they could have tried for a TD that would have given them the cover. Instead, as with the Lions, they let the clock run down and settled for a FG that won it on the scoreboard but not in Vegas. This was perhaps more excusable because their last drive was only 35 seconds. But still !!!

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 14:32 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  64    This represents 100% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Saturday night  at 20:33 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  24    This represents 38.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 10 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 9 Final

Pool record for week 9

This week: 165 - 155         Best Bets: 29 - 35

Percentage: .516              Best Bet Percentage: .453

Season:  1507 - 1367           Best Bets: 280 - 294

Percentage: .524             Best Bet Percentage: .488

Recap: Good scores by the pool on overall selections, not as good on best bets. We did have two perfect weeks this week: AlexanderNeuhaus and HalperS. In the standings, ZBigApple had been in second place coming in to week 9, trailing HenryA by 1 point. But ZBigApple got 4 points this week and HenryA got 3, so they are tied for first place with 38 points. In third place are JerseyBoys with 36 points. Right behind tied for fourth place are AlexanderNeuhaus (who got the perfect week this week), BigD, MestelGabyDan and Wolfmen.

Interesting Picks of the week: We had 20 pool members pick the Eagles who were favored by 7 1/2 over the Jaguars and 0 picked the underdog Jags. Eagles won the game but only by 5 points, failing to cover. Interestingly, they missed a FG with less than 3 minutes left in the game, which would have given them an 8 point win and the cover. To be honest, Jags had a chance to win the game outrightat the end, but Jags QB Lawrence threw a pick in the Eagle endzone to close out  the game.

Giants + 4 1/2 v. Commanders   Here's what I want to do with all the analytics rules: Burn 'em!!! You might think that goes against my character and  my inclination, since I am definitely a math oriented person (teaching, tutoring, college major). Statistcs and mathematics are at the core of all the analytics that are dominating sports nowadays. The deep analytics thinkers take data across the entire NFL and come up with statistical facts to guide coaches in their decision making. It will guide coaches on when to go for it on 4th down, when to pass/run, when to punt or attempt FG, etc. Here's the rule that NYG coach Daboll relied on Sunday that cost the Giants the cover: When you're behind by 2 TDs in the 4th quarter and you score a TD, you should go for the 2 point conversion. The logic is that if you go for 1 and get only 7 points, then score again and go for 1, you will have tied the score and sent the game to overtime, where you have a 50-50 chance of winning. However, if you go for 2 and make it, then when you score again, you kick the PAT for 1 and you win the game outright, avoiding OT. If you miss that first 2 point conversion, you still have another chance to go for 2, tie the score and you're no worse off than going for the one point kick on each TD. Since leaguwide, the chances of getting a 2 point conversion is around 50%, that chance of making at least one of the 2 point attempts is 75% Going for 2 gives you a slight edge, because you can win the game in regulation and you have a 75% chance of NOT losing in regulation and sending it to overtime.The simple probability part of the analysis looks good.

Here's the major flaw in the analytics from a simple mathematical point of view: it's all about the data. The analytic recommendations are based on NFL league-wide statistics, not on the performance and skill level of your particular team. Giants are now 0 for 6 on the season on two point attempts after trying this strategy yesterday and failing both times. If your chances for success on 2 point attempts is lower than the league-wide rate, say 30%, instead of 50%, then your chance of getting at least one of the two point attempts drops from 75% to 51% and the proper decision in that case would be different - kick it twice.

The reason this is relevant in the Giants v. Commanders game is that Daboll fell into this analytics trap. Giants were down 24-10 when they scored a TD with 9:31 left in the game. They went for 2 and failed to make it and therefore were trailing 24-16. Washington kicked a FG to make it 27-16 and Giants scored again with 2:54 left. Following the analytics plan, Daboll went for 2 again , and the team failed to convert. This left the score 27-22. Commanders got a few first downs and killed the clock. The point spread was 4 1/2 so if Daboll goes for the 1 point kick following either of those TDs, Giants would get the win ATS. Instead Commanders got the win and the cover.

Analytics are a guide and should not be used as iron-clad yes-or-no binary rules. They are a guide not a law.

Titans - 3 1/2 v. Patriots Neither team is among the NFL elite, Titans coming in to the game with a  2-5 record and the Pats were at 2-6. Patriots score a TD with 4 seconds left in the 4th qtr and kick the PAT to tie up the game and send it into OT. Titans take the opening kickoff of OT and move it downfield on a 14 play drive that consumes around 7 1/2 minutes. They get down to the NE 6... and kick a FG. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COACH ?? The FG does them no good since they are favored by 3 1/2. They were on the 6 yard line - it's not like it was a desperation 50 yard kick. And they had 4th and 1, there are all kinds of possibilities that could have given them chances for a TD! They win the game on the socreboard by 3 but fail to cover the 3 1/2 and lose the game where it really counts - in Vegas. Terrible game management by the Titans coach, he should be fired.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday night  at 22:16 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  64    This represents 100% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday night  at 22:15 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  64    This represents 100.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 9 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 8 Final

Pool record for week 8

This week: 161 - 159         Best Bets: 31 - 33

Percentage: .503              Best Bet Percentage: .484

Season:  1342 - 1212           Best Bets: 251 - 259

Percentage: .525             Best Bet Percentage: .492

Recap: Our pool's scores dropped compared to the last two weeks, when the scores were very strong. This week, the success rate on overall picks was a shade over .500 and on best bets it was a tick below. Not terrible results, but not great. Of course, if you accept the premise that the point spreads are there just to influence an equal amount of money to be bet on both sides, so that Vegas doesn't take a position on who actually wins the game, just profits on the vig, then our results were exactly in line with what Vegas intends.

Standings: Of the people that got perfect weeks last week, HenryA continued his good picking by getting 4 points this week. On the other side of the coin, Wolfmen also had a perfect week last week, but got only 1 point this week. HenryA and ZBigApple were tied coming into week 8 with 31 points, now HenryA has sole possession of first place with 35 points. ZBigApple is second with 34. JerseyBoys is third with 32 and three others are right behind, tied with 31 points. Those tied for fourth place with 31 are: BigD, MesteGabyDan and Wolfmen. Congratulations to AlexJosh who got a perfect week this week. AlexJosh now has 26 points and is in contention.

Interesting games of the week: We had some interesting distributions of picks in our pool. Our pool loved the Commanders, jumping on the bandwagon of the rising team with their impressive rookie QB. We had 26 guys take the underdog Commanders, who were getting 2 1/2 against the favored Bears. It was very attractive to take a 5-2 first place team who were getting points at home. Opposing the 26 that took the Commanders, there were 8 that took the Bears. The Bears pick was looking pretty good, they led 15-12 after scoring a TD with 27 seconds left and converting a 2 point conversion to get the  cover of those 2 1/2 points. (Good awareness by the Bears coach to go for 2 so he would cover the point spread.) But Commanders QB J Daniels completed a 52 yard hail-mary TD as time ran out to give his team the win on the scoreboard and against the spread.

Giants + 61/2 v. Steelers Giants were down 8 but got a late a stop on Steelers offense and get the ball back with 1:53 left from their own 7. Jones completes a 25 yard pass to a rookie TE and a 15 yard pass to rookie WR Nabers among some other shorter gains and the Giants find themselves on the Steelers 35.A little bit of history - Steelers have never lost in a MNF/SNF national game at home, having won 22 in a row in Pittsburgh. Daniel Jones has won only once in about 15 tries when the bright lights come on in any venue, home or road. So all statistics strongly indicated that it would be impossibble for the Giants to win the game. But HC Daboll gives it a try and Jones get intercepted to end the game. What Daboll should have done was kick a FG once they got in Steeler territory and in FG range, using the kicker who made all 4 FG attempts on the evening. That would have made the final margin 5 points and Giants would cover the srpead. Who cares about winning on the socreboard??? It's all about the sporstbooks in Vegas!

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 14:02 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  64    This represents 100% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:20 EDT, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  62    This represents 97.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 8 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 7 Final

Pool record for week 7

This week: 202 - 118         Best Bets: 41 - 23

Percentage: .631              Best Bet Percentage: .641

Season:  1181 - 1053           Best Bets: 220 - 226

Percentage: .529             Best Bet Percentage: .493

Recap: Wow! Another hot week of picking for our pool as you can see from the statistics above. In addition to the high winning percentage on overall picks and best bets,  we had 8 guys getting perfect weeks. They are: HenryA, ZBigApple Wolfmen, BigD, MestelGabyDan and BellAndRosey. Not surprisingly, those people are all at the top of the pool. HenryA and ZBigApple are tied for first with 31 points. Wolfmen is next with 30 points. BigD and  MestelGabyDan are right behind with 29 points. BellAndRosey who also got a perfect week is next with 28, tied with BeretzStu and JerseyBoys who also have 28.

I have to say that we did a very good job of picking this week, because in the overall pool, the favorites only won 8 and the dogs won 7. We picked overwhelmingly favorites, 196 versus only 124 underdogs. But the fact that favorites won only 8 of 15 shows that we picked the RIGHT favorites. Good job everyone!

I often will highlight the best pick of the week, but there are none to choose from. However I can highlight the worst pick of the week, without embarrassing him and mentioning his name. The Commanders were favored by 7 1/2 over the dreadful panthers. We had 29 in our pool take the Commanders and only one take the panthers. Commanders won 40-7 easily covering the spread.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday night  at 19:54 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  64    This represents 100% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday night  at 19:54 EDT, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  64    This represents 100.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 7 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 6 Final

Pool record for week 6

This week: 188 - 132         Best Bets: 40 - 24

Percentage: .588              Best Bet Percentage: .625

Season:  979 - 935           Best Bets: 179 - 203

Percentage: .511             Best Bet Percentage: .469

Recap: To quote a line from one of my favorite movies, Pulp Fiction, the character played by Samuel L Jackson says: "Check out the big brain on Brad". (He does this shortly before killing Brad). I quote this line because of the impressive and successful results of picking by the pool this week 6. Specifically, as you can see in the statistics above, the pool scored a .588 winning percentage on overall picks and  a red hot .625 on best bets. So here goes: "Check out the big collective brain on the pool". Even more interesting, we had 5 pool participants that got perfect weeks. The perfectos were: BocciaNick, JerseyBoys, ShapiroNate, GreenbergMatt and TheBermenator. All these perfect weeks shook up and reordered the standings. Tied for first with 23 points are: BeretzStu, BocciaNick, HenryA, JerseyBoys, ShapiroNate and ZBigApple. As you can see some of those who got a perfect week, used the 8 points to surge into the lead. Right behind with 22 points are: GoldschmidtEric, GreenbergMatt and Wolfmen. Our pool leaned heavily towards picking favorites, as it usually does. This week 12 favorites covered and only 2 underdogs beat the spread.

The most frequently picked team this week was the Buccaneers who got taken 26 times. But the most frequently picked single game was Ravens-Commanders that was picked 34 times: 16 took the favored Ravens while 18 took the underdog Commanders. Both the Buccaneers and the Ravens covered

Weird games and plays of the week

Ravens - 6 1/2 v. Commanders Ravens playing a tough game against the surprising and feisty Commanders, who are led by their impressive rookie QB, Jayden Daniels. Ravens seem to take charge of the game and are leading by 10 points after kicking a FG with 6:23 left in the game. Commanders take the ensuing kickoff and move smartly down the field and have the ball on the 30 yard line facing a  4th and 5. They reason that being behind by 10 points, they will need a FG and TD to tie the game so why not take the FG now and see if they can get the ball back and score a TD. Of course, Ravens offense had been clicking all day, so it may not have been the best decision. After Washington kicks the FG to make it a 7-point game, the Ravens, predictably, get a few first downs behind Derrick Henry running and then run out the clock. Consequently, Ravens win by 7 and the Commanders fail to cover since the spread which was 6 1/2. The mistake that the coach made was kicking the FG with 2:52 left, knowing that they had a very small chance of getting the ball back. They should have gone for the TD to try and cover the spread. They wouldn't win the game on the scoreboard, but they at least had a chance to win in the Sportsbooks in Vegas (and our pool). Bengals - 3 1/2 v. Giants To be charitable, you could call this game a defensive struggle. To be honest, it was a test of inept offenses. Giants were down 10-7 in the 4th qtr. The Giants kicker missed a 47 yard FG with 10:32 left in the game. On their next possession, they had 4th and 2 on the Bengals 36 with 3:05 left in the game. They showed lack of trust in the kicker who had just missed one from 45, decided against the FG and went for it on 4th and 2. They failed to get the first down, turning the ball over on downs. Bengals converted a 3rd and 12 with a 29 yard pass play and moved the ball to the Giants 30. It was past the 2:00 minute warning and the Giants had only one TO left, so one first down gives the game to the Bengals. Their RB Brown bursts up the middle and is in the clear. Instead of giving hmself and going down after getting the first down he goes in for the TD. This was the wrong play - he should have gone down and assured a victory with a few kneel downs by the QB. By scoring a TD, he theoretically gave the Ginats a chance to score a TD and get the ball back after on-side kick and score again. Of course with Giants offense, this is the slimmest of possibilities, but it's still not 0%. Most important of course is that by scoring the TD, he gave the cover to his team, while the Giants would have covered in a 3 point game.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:05 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  64    This represents 100% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:05 EDT, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  64    This represents 100.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 6 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 5 Final

Pool record for week 5

This week: 163 - 157         Best Bets: 31 - 33

Percentage: .509              Best Bet Percentage: .484

Season:  791 - 803           Best Bets: 139 - 179

Percentage: .496             Best Bet Percentage: .437

Recap: The pool broke the .500 mark for overall picks and is inching closer to .500 on best bets, but we still have the interesting anomaly of best bets scoring lower than overall picks. We had one perfect score this week - Wolfmen. Standings: HenryA remained in first place with 19 points. There are six who are one point behind tied with 18. They are: BellAndRosey, BeretzStu, GoldschmidtEric, SeattleSlew64, Wolverines and  ZBigApple. There are five others tied with 17. In the past, the winner of the pool has averaged 4.5 points per week. So far, the leader HenryA has 19 points, which is less than 4 points per week. This is another indication that our pool has not exactly hit its stride yet.

Best Bets of the Week: We had 28 people picking the Seattle Seahawks, who were generously giving 6 1/2 to the Giants. The betting public went heavy on Seattle, because the point spread on many Sportsbooks rose to 7 or 7 1/2 points. Seattle was a favorite pick on many suicide pools as well. They were a popular pick in our pool as well; 28 members in our pool took Seattle and only 4 took the Giants. In fact, Seattle was the most frequently picked team in our pool. Not only did the Giants cover, they won the game outright. Against the 28 who took the favorites, there were 4 who took the underdog G-Men. Thes wise, perspicacious people were: BeretzStu, Jmac, SeattleSlew64 and  Wolfmen.

Interesting games of the week

Giants + 6 1/2 v. Seahawks the point spread didn't really play prominently in this game, because the Giants won outright. But the over/under number in this game was interesting. The over/under was 43 1/2. Giants were winning 23-20 (do the math - that adds up to 43). Seattle was attempting a game tying FG with less than one minute to go in the game. Giants ST had a surprise set for Seattle and blocked the FG attempt. Giants recovered and should have gone down and gone into victory formation. But the Giant who recovered took the ball all the way for a TD. That pushed the game to the over from the under.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:55 , all picks received have been published to the website. Number of picks that have been published:  64    This represents 100% of the pool

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:54 EDT, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  64    This represents 100.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 5 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 4 Final

Pool record for week 4

This week: 152 - 163         Best Bets: 23 - 40

Percentage: .484              Best Bet Percentage: .371

Season:  628 - 646           Best Bets: 108 - 146

Percentage: .493             Best Bet Percentage: .425

Recap: This is becoming a pattern - the pool is consistently doing much better on overall picks than on best bets. How does that happen? How can we explain that? We look over the point spreads carefully, read experts picks, analyze statistics, look at injuries, sometimes even wait until 11AM Sunday morning to see who will be active / inactive in each game and from the 16 games on the schedule identify our very best pick, the one we are most confident in winning. Then for the other 4 games, we kind of just fill out the dance card randomly. And yet.... we consistently do better on those last 4 than on that first one that we worked so hard to select. For those of you that work in financial services, it kind of hearkens back to the genius stock pickers doing worse nearly every year than the "dart board" method of picking stocks ranomly. As you can see from the statistics above,  we were near .500 on overall picks this week and only at .371 on best bets.

Standings: Last week's leader HenryA got only 2 points this week, but remains in first place with 16. Trailing right behind are BeretzStu, DylanRoth, SeattleSlew64 and YeamansAaron who each have 15. Five others are next, tied with 14. We had no perfect weeks and three members who unfortunately got 0 points. Note: AaronA got 5 points this week and missed a perfect week by only 1/2 point. (See Falcons game below)

Interesting Games of Week 4

dallas -5 1/2 v. GIANTS   Could it be any more obvious that the Dallas FG kicker Aubrey had a bet against his own team and was shaving points? Giants can't manage any TDs, but kick 5 FGs and Dallas is leading 20-15, which would give the Giants the cover with the 5 1/2 points they are getting. Giants have the ball in Q4 and are driving to try to get the go ahead TD. On 4th and 6 near midfield with 3:30 left, the Giants go for it and the pass falls incomplete, turning the ball over on downs to the Cowboys. Cowboys kill the clock with some running plays, force the Giants to spend the rest of their timeouts and have a FG attempt from 51 that would put them up by 8. The kicker Aubrey who has made 11 in a row from more than 50, including a 60 yard kick in this game, misses the FG wide right, which for him was a virtual chip shot. Clearly he had money on the Giants to cover and missed on purpose,  because a made FG there pushes the lead to 8 and would have given the cover to his own team. Giants fail to score in the last 30 seconds and the kicker wins his bet.

ATL - 2 1/2 v. no   Terrible decision making by the Atlanta coach cost his team the cover. Falcons are losing by 1, 24-23 following a late Saints TD scored with 1:04 left in Q4. Atlanta gets the ball back at their 30 following the KO, benefits from a 30 yard penalty for DPI, which also stops the clock and they find themselves on the NO 40 with 23 ticks left on the clock. They try three long pass attempts which all fall incomplete and then settle for a 58 yard FG from the kicker (named Koo) for the win. He makes the kick,putting his team up 26-24 with 4 seconds left in the game, the final score. But this is what is called a pyrrhic victory - they win only on the scoreboard, not where it really counts - in Vegas on the Sportbooks. They won by 2 points but were giving 2 1/2. The coach should not have given up hope and should have tried another deep pass going for the TD. After all, they made the off-season acquisition of all time great QB Kirk Cousins; they should have showed confidence in him to go for it. Lesson to coach: Good coaches win, great coaches cover.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:51 EDT, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  63    This represents 98.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 4 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 3 Final

Pool record for week 3

This week: 181 - 139         Best Bets: 32 - 32

Percentage: .566              Best Bet Percentage: .500

Season:  476 - 484           Best Bets: 85 - 107

Percentage: .496             Best Bet Percentage: .443

Week 4 Recap: The pool did much better on overall picks (.566) compared to best bets (.500). For the season, we are close to .500 on overall picks at .496 but well underwater on best bets at only .443. We had one perfect week this week and one bagel.

Standings: Congratulations to HenryA who got a perfect week this week and used that perfect week to surge into the lead. HenryA is in first place with 14 points, BeretzStu is in second place with 13 and tied  for third place with 12 points are GoldschmidtEric and ZBigApple. There are five others who are right behind tied with 11 points.

Interesting Start to the NFL season. Would anyone have predicted that the Benagls would be 0-3 or that the Cowboys and 49ers would look a little wobbly at 1-2. On the positive side, the Vikings and Steelers are surprises at 3-0 and the Washington Commanders are looking very strong with their rookie QB at 2-1 tied with Eagles at top of NFCE. Of course we, (we degenerate gamblers) don't care about teams records, only how they do ATS (against the spread). There also, the Vikings and Steelers are excelling, both at 3-0. Interestingly, the Chargers have been the most frequently picked team in our pool - they have been picked 50 times and are standing at 2-1 ATS.

Interesting Games of Week 3

Giants +6 1/2 v. Browns This game was only interesting to gamblers that are into Over/Under action. The O/U number was 37 1/2. The score was 21-15, Giants ahead and they had the ball trying to kill the clock with less than 2 minutes left. If they were to get a first down they could go into victory formation and kneel down 3 times letting the clock run out for the win. Giants RB Singletary takes a little pitch, runs outside and breaks into the open. He is running to the goal line and has an easy TD in his vision. But he slides and gives himself up at the 1 yard line to assure the victory. If he had scored, the Browns would have gotten tthe ball and theoretically could score a TD and get the ball back with an onside KO, then score again and win the game. It was a selfless, team-first act by Singletary. But it kept the score under 37 1/2, whereas if he score it would have been over.

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:26 EDT, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  64    This represents 98.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 3 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 2 Final

Pool record for week 2

This week: 135 - 185         Best Bets: 22 - 42

Percentage: .422              Best Bet Percentage: .344

Season:  295 - 345           Best Bets: 53 - 75

Percentage: .461             Best Bet Percentage: .414

Week 2 Summary: After going close to .500 in week 1, the pool took a nosedive in week 2. As you can see from the stats above, we picked at a .423 rate on overall picks and a much lower .349 on the best bets. I comment on this occasionally, but it's always interesting to see the pool do more poorly on the best bets than on the overall picks. The pool generally leans towards picking favorites; this week we picked 218 favorites compared to only 102 underdogs. This week, the underdogs carried the day - favorites went 5-11 this week. (For the new members, take a look at the Tendencies tab on Standings and Statistics page to see these stats). Also from this Statistics page, you can see that we had 32 people, half the pool, getting 2 points or fewer, with 5 of those 32 getting 0 points (including me).

Standings Despite the generally poor overall scores, we did have three who got 5 points, though nobody got a perfect score. Among those with 5 points was BeretzStu who took the lead and sits in first place with 9 points. In second place are three who are tied with 8 points: AlexJosh, Esabes and TeamGurvitch.

Interesting Games of the Week

Cowboys - 6 1/2 v. Saints Cowboys are way ahead of schedule. Usually they wait until the payoffs to flop and disappoint their fans after conducting a successful regular season. This time, they managed to flop in week 2. Of course it's early in the year and there's plenty of time for the Cowboys to recover, but it's important to call out America's Team when you get the chance. They got clobbered 44-19 by the Saints.

Other interesting upsets: Ravens - 9 1/2 v. Raiders; Raiders won outright 26-23.

Lions -7 1/2 v. Buccaneers:  Buccaneers won outright 20-16

49ers - 6 1/2 v. Vikings Vikings, after whacking the lowly Giants in the opening week in the Giants home opener, came back and beat the 49ers in the Vikes own home opener, beating the '9ers outright 23-17. Looks like the Vikings are for real.

Eagles - 61/2 v. Falcons: Eagles were ahead by 3 with less than 2 minutes left in the Monday night game; Falcons had to use all their timeouts and had none left. On a 3rd and 3 deep in Atl territory, Eagles tried a little swing pass to Barkley out of the backfield. He was wide open, could have easily gotten a first down which would have iced the game. BUT HE DROPPED THE BALL!!. (Is he a double agent who is being bribed by the Giants to have the Eagles secretly  lose?)  Well, maybe he was doing a Pete Rose imitation and betting AGAINST his team. He wanted the Eagles to win, but not cover the spread. If they won by 6, everyone is happy - Eagles would be 2-0 on the scoreboard and he would win in the Sportsbooks, because the spread is 6 1/2. But it didn't exactly work out that way. After failing to get the first down because of Barkley's drop, the Eagles kicked the FG and were now up by 6. Kirk Cousins then takes the Falcons downfield on a blurry fast TD drive and with the PAT go up by 1. The drive was so quick that the Eagles actually had  a chance to move in position for a winning FG. But after one completed pass, Falcons intercept Hurts to ice the game. How long before the Eagles faithful start booing number 26?

Latest Update:  As of  Monday morning  at 02:07 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  64    This represents 98.0% of the pool

Point Spreads Loaded: The point spreads for week 2 have been loaded onto the web site. You may begin entering  your picks

Week 1 Final

Pool record for week 1

This week: 160 - 160         Best Bets: 31 - 33

Percentage: .500              Best Bet Percentage: .484

Season:  160 - 160           Best Bets: 31 - 33

Percentage: .500             Best Bet Percentage: .484

Week 1 Final

Week 1 is in the books and as you might suspect, the pool  was right around .500 in both overall picks as well as best bets as you can see from the statistics above. The reason I say this is kind of expected is that it often takes a few weeks for things to settle in, for teams to find their groove and often there are a lot of upsets those first few weeks. While most people recognize which few teams are at the top and which few teams are at the bottom of the league, there are a lot of teams in the middle of the league that we (and Vegas) can't figure out coming out of the gate. Same with the pool and the betting public - it takes a few weeks to see which of the middle group of teams will rise and which will fall. Did anyone expect the Patriots, who were heavy 9 1/2 point dogs to rise up and win outright? (I knew that bum Bellichick should be fired as coach!) Maybe the Patriots rise up and maybe they sink back ..... takes a few weeks. In our pool: we had no perfect weeks and no bagels. Congratulations to rookie AlexanderNeuhaus who got 5 points and is tied for first. Also tied for first with 5 points are: DylanRoth, KretBros and TeamGurvitch. We have 12 people who are tied for second with 4 points BestPicks of the week: Dolphins were favored by 3 1/2 over Jaguars; Dolphins won but only by 3 so Jaguars won where it really counted: on the Sportsbooks in Vegas. We had 25 people take the Dolphins in our pool and only 2 wise folks NYG and Wolfmen (that's me) who took the Jaguars. Strangest Picks of the week:

Doesn't anybody read preseason predictions? According to many preseason analyses, the Giants were ranked as having the worst roster in the NFL, with the worst QB in the NFL. Yet in our pool we had 21 guys pick the Giants and only 6 pick the opposing visiting Vikings. Of course, it probably talks to the composition of our pool, which is heavily populated by New Yorkers.... but still, come on people, get with it ! Vikings won big 28-6. Actually their offense didn't need to score any points at all, because QB Jones threw an INT pick-six. Did I mention that one of the 21 idiots who picked the Giants was Wolfmen (that's me too)

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:19 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  64  . All picks received have been posted to the website

Latest Update:  As of  Sunday afternoon  at 13:19 EST, the number of picks that have been submitted  is:  64    This represents 77.0% of the pool

Week 1 Preparation

NOTE: The Thursday night season opener is INCLUDED in week 1 picking

Opener: The spreads have been loaded on the website, you may begin entering your picks

Opening remarks: We are still nailing down who's in and who's out for the 2024 season.  When you enter a PIN/PASSWORD for your first entry, I will save it in my system and you will use that PWD to verify each submission during the course of the season.

Remember: all submissions are time stamped, so we can verify that they have been submitted in time.

Remember also: if you made an error on a pick, or just changed your mind on one of your picks, you can submit a new set of picks again. In fact, you can submit as many entries as you'd like and the last one submitted will be used. All five teams must be filled out on each submitted entry. Of course, you have to submit picks before 1PM Sunday or before the start of the Thursday game if you are picking a team in TNF.

After you click submit, the system automatically sends a copy of your picks back to you at the email address that you provide on the form. But it takes a few minutes for that to happen, it is not instantaneous, so please be patient and don't reclick submit 10 or 15 times. (Nothing bad will happen if you do, but it is a little annoying on my end to make sure that the correct picks were used.) Also note that your picks will be sent to the email address you enter on the form. Occasionally someone makes an error typing in the email address and the return email containing the picks gets lost.

Let the Games BEGIN !!