Unfortunately I’ve had to cancel the NFL Playoff Pool this year. It turns out that I screwed up the seedings for the AFC and some people were able to pick teams in games that couldn’t possibly happen. This is not fair for those players and therefore the only choice I have is to cancel the entire pool.
Thanks to everyone for signing up and I’m extremely sorry to have made this mistake. Better luck and (more diligence) next year.
The Playoff Pool details are up. Check it out and sign up!
I just looked for the rules concerning a tie for first place overall. There aren’t any. And I don’t recall it ever happening before…
UPDATE – it happened in 2007 (oddly enough that one also involved Buckshot), and the tie stood!
So if NYJ can hold off the fierce Bengal attack and win by at least 10 then Steve and Buckshot will split the first place money.
I’ve had a crazy few months with multiple computer failures and a long string of other unrelated computer issues that have prevented me from updating this site. That’s behind me now and I’ve finally managed to update the Standings and Account Balances.
You are probably well aware of it already, but Julian is having a banner season with 3 weekly wins under his belt, an easy victory in the first half, and a commanding lead in the overall competition. I was on the other end of that deal in the first half with no wins and a commanding grasp on the bottom of the barrel. fortunately I’ve turned that around somewhat and have managed a couple of wins and a thin lead in the second half. Here’s a summary of the winners of each week:
| Week | Winner |
| 1 | Robert Ballinger |
| 2 | Tino DiBattista |
| 3 | Jack Fraser |
| 4 | Julian Neale |
| 5 | Joe DiBattista |
| 6 | Julian Neale |
| 7 | Bob Lumley |
| 8 | Steve Ward |
| 9 | Adrian Neale |
| 10 | Steve Moore |
| 11 | Sean Phillips |
| 12 | Richard Powell |
| 13 | Sean Phillips |
| 14 | Julian Neale |
Here we go again for another season of NFL, Poolaholic style!
We’re back once again with the standard spread pool AND the suicide pool. I’ll be updating the site with all the rules and pricing information soon, but for now you can feel free to register for the pools and start thinking about your picks. There are still a couple of weeks of preseason football to go, and then the big show starts on Thursday, September 10th at 8:30 PM (ET). All picks must be in prior to game time.
I’ve sent out invitations to registor for the pools to all players from last years pools. Please feel free to forward those invites to your friends and family members. I’m not looking to make the pool huge, but a few more prizes to spread around is always a good thing.
Here are the direct links in case you didn’t get the email:
Poolaholic NFL 2009 (Against the Spread)
Poolaholic NFL09Suic (Suicide Pool)
Don’t forget to register for BOTH pools as they are both included in your registration fee. Week 1 Spreads are already available on the site and you can start entering your picks right away!
This website gets pretty quiet during the NFL offseason. That’s mainly because I really don’t have anything interesting to say. I don’t get too excited about all the player trades or the draft talk, and let’s face it, Tom and Giselle getting married for a second time really isn’t prime-time news for me (even if shots were fired at the paparazzi following the event).
But when they announce that the NFL will be releasing the schedule for the upcoming season in a live, 2-hour prime-time telecast “for the first time ever”, I start to get pretty excited.
Excited about how ridiculous that is!
It’s even worse than when TSN devotes an entire day every year on NHL draft day for their live talking heads, who really don’t have anything new or interesting to say because they’ve said it all before (yes I mean you Pierre), to speculate about how many squares of TP John Tavares might use during the first day of his NHL career!
Don’t we have anything better to do than to watch 2 hours of talking heads chatting about the schedule for something that won’t even happen for 5 more months?
Go outside people!
While watching the Superbowl yesterday I was very excited and I assumed that it was because other recent Superbowls have been blowouts, or at least (I told myself) because the winner was never really in doubt.
But then I got to thinking about last years game between the Giants and the Patriots and I remembered that it was actually pretty close and it really could have gone either way. So I did a little digging to see what the scores from recent years have actually been:
2009: Pittsburgh Steelers 27–23 Arizona Cardinals
2008: New York Giants 17–14 New England Patriots
2007: Indianapolis Colts 29–17 Chicago Bears
2006: Pittsburgh Steelers 21–10 Seattle Seahawks
2005: New England Patriots 24–21 Philadelphia Eagles
2004: New England Patriots 32–29 Carolina Panthers
2003: Tampa Bay Buccaneers 48–21 Oakland Raiders
So the games between the Colts and the Bears in 2007 and the Steelers and the Seahawks in 2006 were never really in doubt, but you have to go all the way back to the Bucs vs. Raiders game in 2003 to find a true blowout. The rest of these games were within 4 points!
I’m sure that all of these games were exciting in their own way, but it seems pretty typical that the brain tells you that the thing you remember the best (ie. the most recent game) must have been the most interesting or exciting thing to happen in a long time.
The brain is a pretty funny thing!
Updated Standings and Balances
Well that was exciting. Who would ever have thought that Arizona would be in the Superbowl, never mind that that might actually be IN the game and even have the lead in the final seconds. This was easily the most interesting and the most exciting Superbowl that we’ve seen in a long time. And aside from a few minor officiating controversies, and a close-up on Bruce Springsteen’s crotch that I wasn’t expecting, it was a very entertaining game to watch.
Congratulations to all of our winners in the Superbowl pool this year! Because of a 4 way tie for third, there are a lot of us:
1st – $155 Joe
2nd – $65 Tino
3rd – $10 Aaron
3rd – $10 Adrian
3rd – $10 Bob
3rd – $10 Sean
Well it was a day for the lower seeds as the Ravens and the Eagles preyed on the favorites in the second day of Wild card games. With the way these two teams have been playing lately, this is really no surprise…
So the lineup for the Divisional round will be:
SATURDAY
Baltimore at Tennessee
Arizona at Carolina
SUNDAY
Philadelphia at New York Giants
San Diego at Pittsburgh
Good luck next week!
So the higher seeds held up today (going counter to the Vegas odds AND the majority of players in our pool) and will advance to the Divisional round next week. But the real story is that those of us that took Indy to win the Superbowl are pretty much eliminated from contention in this pool. I haven’t checked to see if we are mathematically out, but I’m pretty sure…
UPDATE: Well, I did a bit of playing and it seems that since nobody took Arizona or San Diego to advance very far, it is still possible for those of us that took Indy to go all the way to win the pool. It’s not very likely, but possible!