schlaufuchs
Break My Heart
Greetings! It's almost a week into September, the NFL season officially starts tomorrow and I still haven't put this thread up yet, guess now's as good a time as any! Welcome to the 5th annual iteration of CFC Pick'em Funtimes, the forum's favorite (and only) pick'em league! If you're a returning veteran, welcome back, and if you're new to this whole shebang, stay right where you are, it's neither anywhere near as nerdy nor as complicated as it seems!
I'll explain how this whole thing works in just a bit, but first let's take a moment to review the results from last year, and once again congratulate Light Cleric for taking home his second title last year:
Yeah yeah that's enough of that. So on to how this all works!
How This All Works
So at the start of the week (typically not Wednesday lol), I will post spreads for each NFL game being played for that week. The spread will look something like this:
This spread reports, obviously, that the Minnesota Vikings, playing at home, are favored to win by six and a half points. Your job is to make a prediction against this posted spread. Now CFC Pick'em Funtimes work slightly differently than your standard Against-the-Spread format. In this Pick'em League you are picking both against the spread and a winner. Simply put, for any given game, you can make one of three predictions:
1) Minnesota will win AND will win by 6.5 or more points
2) Minnesota will win BUT will do so by fewer than 6.5 points
3) San Francisco will win the game outright
You make these predictions for all the posted spreads, I will keep track of your predictions, and then at the end of the week I'll tabulate the scores and post an update announcing the current standings. A player receives one point for guessing the correct winner, and one extra point for guessing the spread correctly. So in the above example, if Minnesota wins 27-20, a picker who says Minnesota wins and covers receives 2 points, a picker who says Minnesota wins but does not cover receives 1 point, and a picker who says San Francisco wins outright receives 0 points. The picker at the end of the season who has collected the most points will be declared the winner. That's about it for the basics.
Assorted Housekeeping Stuff
1) In the event of a push (e.g. x team is favored by 3 points and wins by exactly 3 points), the outcome is counted as a cover. That is to say, "San Francisco by 3" is to be read as "San Francisco wins by at least 3 points".
2) Standings are displayed to show first points, then a statistic called PPW, which shows average points received per 16 picks (i.e. 1 week of play), then finally picking record, organized as: (Picks which received 2 points - Picks which received 1 point - Picks which received 0 points). Rankings are determined first by who has more points, then by who has made more successful 2-point picks, then finally by who has a higher PPW.
3) You can frame your picks however you want. Use abbreviations, use joke names, use +/- notation, include your thoughts on why you made the picks you make, whatever. Just keep in mind all I'm looking for when recording the picks is Team and cover/not cover/outright, so please try to make those immediately apparent, preferably putting your actual pick in boldface lettering so I can pick it out of your wall of text easily and accurately.
4) You are free to make your picks any time during the week, and change them as many times as you want. There are many participants who choose to post their pick for the Thursday Night Football game on Tuesday or Wednesday, and then withhold their Sunday and Monday picks for the weekend. That is perfectly fine. The only rule regarding pick timing is that your pick is placed before kickoff of the game in question. Once kickoff occurs all picks are final as written. No changes. No late picks. No exceptions.
5) If, for whatever reason (banned, on vacation, etc) you are unable to submit your picks in time, you are free to PM me, or hit me up on #fiftychat with your picks. I'll post them in-thread, and as long as they're delivered to me before kick-off of the game in question I will consider them valid.
6) If you are unable to do #4 for whatever reason, or if I'm being flakey on posting spreads, you can also post your picks as conditionals. "I'll take Baltimore to cover unless they're favored by 5 or more points" is fine. If you post that I'll consider it valid and sort out the mechanics of it. Try not to do this unless you absolutely have to though.
7) If you wish to change your picks, as noted above, that is fine, however, when you do change them, please indicate, either in-thread or via PM that you have done so. Sometime I write your picks down as they come up, and if you make minor changes to individual games I may not notice them.
8) Sometimes the spread will change over the course of the week. The spread that's listed in-thread is the spread that matters, and generally that one will go up on Tuesday. Sometimes a spread is not available on Tuesday, or more specifically, covers.com, the site I use, hasn't come to a consensus cover yet. If this is the case, I will note it in-thread and update the post as the spread becomes available. Usually this happens on Wednesday or Thursday, but regardless I will always try to give you guys at least 2 days to make your picks. It doesn't always happen in practice, but that's what I'm aiming for.
I think that covers basically everything, so without further ado, let's get to the 1st week spreads.
Good luck, and have fun guys!
I'll explain how this whole thing works in just a bit, but first let's take a moment to review the results from last year, and once again congratulate Light Cleric for taking home his second title last year:
Yeah yeah that's enough of that. So on to how this all works!
How This All Works
So at the start of the week (typically not Wednesday lol), I will post spreads for each NFL game being played for that week. The spread will look something like this:
This spread reports, obviously, that the Minnesota Vikings, playing at home, are favored to win by six and a half points. Your job is to make a prediction against this posted spread. Now CFC Pick'em Funtimes work slightly differently than your standard Against-the-Spread format. In this Pick'em League you are picking both against the spread and a winner. Simply put, for any given game, you can make one of three predictions:
1) Minnesota will win AND will win by 6.5 or more points
2) Minnesota will win BUT will do so by fewer than 6.5 points
3) San Francisco will win the game outright
You make these predictions for all the posted spreads, I will keep track of your predictions, and then at the end of the week I'll tabulate the scores and post an update announcing the current standings. A player receives one point for guessing the correct winner, and one extra point for guessing the spread correctly. So in the above example, if Minnesota wins 27-20, a picker who says Minnesota wins and covers receives 2 points, a picker who says Minnesota wins but does not cover receives 1 point, and a picker who says San Francisco wins outright receives 0 points. The picker at the end of the season who has collected the most points will be declared the winner. That's about it for the basics.
Assorted Housekeeping Stuff
1) In the event of a push (e.g. x team is favored by 3 points and wins by exactly 3 points), the outcome is counted as a cover. That is to say, "San Francisco by 3" is to be read as "San Francisco wins by at least 3 points".
2) Standings are displayed to show first points, then a statistic called PPW, which shows average points received per 16 picks (i.e. 1 week of play), then finally picking record, organized as: (Picks which received 2 points - Picks which received 1 point - Picks which received 0 points). Rankings are determined first by who has more points, then by who has made more successful 2-point picks, then finally by who has a higher PPW.
3) You can frame your picks however you want. Use abbreviations, use joke names, use +/- notation, include your thoughts on why you made the picks you make, whatever. Just keep in mind all I'm looking for when recording the picks is Team and cover/not cover/outright, so please try to make those immediately apparent, preferably putting your actual pick in boldface lettering so I can pick it out of your wall of text easily and accurately.
4) You are free to make your picks any time during the week, and change them as many times as you want. There are many participants who choose to post their pick for the Thursday Night Football game on Tuesday or Wednesday, and then withhold their Sunday and Monday picks for the weekend. That is perfectly fine. The only rule regarding pick timing is that your pick is placed before kickoff of the game in question. Once kickoff occurs all picks are final as written. No changes. No late picks. No exceptions.
5) If, for whatever reason (banned, on vacation, etc) you are unable to submit your picks in time, you are free to PM me, or hit me up on #fiftychat with your picks. I'll post them in-thread, and as long as they're delivered to me before kick-off of the game in question I will consider them valid.
6) If you are unable to do #4 for whatever reason, or if I'm being flakey on posting spreads, you can also post your picks as conditionals. "I'll take Baltimore to cover unless they're favored by 5 or more points" is fine. If you post that I'll consider it valid and sort out the mechanics of it. Try not to do this unless you absolutely have to though.
7) If you wish to change your picks, as noted above, that is fine, however, when you do change them, please indicate, either in-thread or via PM that you have done so. Sometime I write your picks down as they come up, and if you make minor changes to individual games I may not notice them.
8) Sometimes the spread will change over the course of the week. The spread that's listed in-thread is the spread that matters, and generally that one will go up on Tuesday. Sometimes a spread is not available on Tuesday, or more specifically, covers.com, the site I use, hasn't come to a consensus cover yet. If this is the case, I will note it in-thread and update the post as the spread becomes available. Usually this happens on Wednesday or Thursday, but regardless I will always try to give you guys at least 2 days to make your picks. It doesn't always happen in practice, but that's what I'm aiming for.
I think that covers basically everything, so without further ado, let's get to the 1st week spreads.
Good luck, and have fun guys!
