Above the fold

Did You Make it to Next Week in Your Survivor Pool?

By:

First things first.  Do you know what a college or NFL survivor pool is?  Of course you do.  Like the board game Chutes and Ladders, skip the next seven bullet points.  If you don’t, please read the brief explanation below.

  1. You pick one team only each week.
  2. That team must “survive” or win for you to pick a team in the coming week.
  3. The team that you pick must only win its game, not beat the points spread that Vegas assigns to the game.
  4. You can pick a team only once each season.
  5. Some pools cap the spreads on games even though spreads aren’t involved.  For example, the college pool that I am in prohibits you from choosing any team favored by 14 or more points.  In most NFL pools all games are in play.
  6. Last guy or gal standing regardless of what week it is wins the pool.
  7. Everyone else gets a Tootsie Roll (I always wondered about that name for a candy, didn’t you?).

Welp.  Guess what.  Week one of our NFL survivor pool saw 62 of 113 entrants exit.  That’s a lot of Tootsie Rolls.  Nearly sixty percent of the pool is GONE in week one.  Some years I’ve thrived in these pools and gone many weeks deep.   And, in other years I’ve vaporized awfully early.  It’s funny if it wasn’t so dang bad.  If you’re a football junkie you wait all year for this. Then.  Jeez.

So, below are ten thoughts that I have about these weekly, sudden death choices.

  1. Week one is the toughest of any unless you make it weeks down the road where few legit teams are left to choose from.  Why?  It’s because you don’t know what you don’t know.  What the hell does that mean?  It means that your brain (try as you might not allow it) thinks about the past.  You’re predisposed to looking backwards and projecting forward.  Raise your hand if you thought Tampa Bay and Carolina would be 1-0 in the NFC South and New Orleans and Atlanta would be 0-1.   I don’t see many hands.  I do see a long Tootsie Roll line forming however.  Tampa Bay crushed many pool participants in week one.  I was fortunate to take the Ravens.   I don’t like them much.  I just thought that Buffalo on the road with no QB worth mentioning was an easy win.  Buffalo is bad this year, all year, folks.
  2. Don’t pick bad teams.  Well, point one above would make you ask how would you know who they are?  You don’t.  Well, you might in college usually more so than the pros.   One year I took Purdue favored by 12 in week seven.  Poof.  Purdue is a bad team.  They always are.  They don’t deserve to be favored by 12 over, say,  William and Mary even if William is injured.  In week one this year I took the Longhorns from Texas.  I didn’t think that they were a bad team.  I guess they are.  Don’t those waxed shinny wrappers around the Tootsie Rolls feel weird?
  3. Some brainiacs save certain teams for certain weeks.  It’s a weekly path designed to carefully step around land mines and keep your powder dry.  It’s a great idea until it isn’t.  No one can see that far down into the season.  No one.  Take the best guess and hope that you get to see another week.
  4.  If you get down to two or three choices in a given week always take a home team over a road team.  Always.  If they lose at least you can say that you didn’t take a road team.
  5. New England (NFL) at home is as close to gold as Fort Knox.  Alabama (college) is Fort Knox.
  6.  Some pick the team, regardless of who they are, that is playing that week against a year long bad team.  Let’s say, for example, you chose anyone over the Cleveland Browns over the last two years.  Well you would have won 31 of 32 games.  One problem.  They play Baltimore, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh twice a year.  Nothing is perfect that’s why it’s called survivor.
  7. In the NFL it’s fine to pick a slight underdog later in the year that you like.  Really, it is.   A three-point or less NFL dog doesn’t always mess up your backyard.  If you don’t believe me, look back on any given week and see who won the game straight up.  Take week one (Henny Youngman), please. Tampa Bay (+9), New York Jets (+8), Philadelphia (+1.5 by game time), and Kansas City (+3.5) come to mind without even looking.  Cleveland (+4) tied.   And, Chicago (+7.5) came oh so close.
  8. Throw darts.
  9. Consult a psychic.
  10. Pray.

Well, week two in the NFL is upon us.  I’ll take the Saints to bounce back at home v. the Browns.

In college I’ll watch from the sidelines.   Thanks Tom Herman.