Pool Rules
Pick a winner in every game, rank how confident you are in each pick from most to least, and score points based on those rankings. There's a weekly pool (best score each week) and a season pool (best score over the whole year) — play one, the other, or both.
Entry fees
- Weekly: $5 per week
- Season pool: $20
- Full season: $125 (18 regular season weeks, 3 playoff weeks, and the season pool)
Weekly play doesn't require the season pool. Playoff weeks and the season pool are both optional add-ons.
Preseason weeks, when we run them, are practice only — no fee, no payout.
Deadlines
Picks lock at the first kickoff of the week, which lands anywhere from Wednesday to Sunday depending on the schedule. The exact time is always shown on the Picks page.
- You can submit future weeks early.
- You can change your picks anytime before that week locks.
Season pool sign-up closes at the start of Week 3. After that you can still play weekly, just not for the season.
Confidence points
Pick a winner in every game, then rank them: your most confident pick gets the highest number, your least confident gets 1. If there are 15 games, you're assigning 1 through 15, no repeats.
Example — 15 games this week, you put a confidence of 15 on Dallas over Pittsburgh. Dallas wins, you get 15 points. Pittsburgh wins, you get zero.
What doesn't count
No points either way if:
- The game ends in a tie.
- It's cancelled or postponed after the deadline.
- It's a forfeit and never actually played.
Only games played on the field count.
Scoring
Weekly winner is whoever scores the most points that week. Season winner is whoever has the most points across the whole season.
Missed picks
Miss a week's deadline and you get zero for it — and it still counts against your season total, so it's worth getting ahead of. You can lock in future weeks early for exactly this reason.
Can't get to the site?
Text, email, or call the commissioner (Southpaw) before kickoff and I'll enter your picks if there's reasonable evidence they were submitted on time. My call is final.
Miss deadlines too often and I'll pull you from the pool and refund whatever's left of your entry fee.
Weekly tiebreakers
- Closest guess on the combined final score of the week's last game.
- Most games picked correctly.
- Still tied? Split the money.
Season payouts
- 1st place: 50%
- 2nd place: 33%
- 3rd place: 17%
Season tiebreakers
- Best overall win/loss record for the season.
- Most head-to-head weekly wins against whoever you're tied with.
- Still tied? Compare weekly confidence totals starting at Week 1 until someone's ahead.