Final Football Pool post; Dad wins again

With the conclusion of the NFL's regular season it is time to take one final look at my performance in the football pool in my dad's office pool. Needless to say it was a rough season for me.
After winning the football pool in week 15 I took a slide to end the season. Much to my dismay my dad's weekly total went up each of those weeks, giving his lead on me one final push at the end of the season. When all was said and done my dad outscored me on the season by 67 points. In the bar graph on the right my dad's point total is represented by the orange bar and my points are represented by the blue bar.

So I have my work cut out for me in the future. If I am included in the pool next year I will have to spend some more time planning out my point allotment on a weekly basis.

I clearly have relied too much on the defending champion Pittsburgh Steelers early on in the season and tended to give too many points to Matt Schaub at the Houston Texans. I think I did a little better with laying points on the Philadelphia Eagles though. In recent years I would tend to lay too many points on the Eagles, letting my fandom get in the way.

I was amazed at how much the New York Giants let me down this season, but I suppose that Giants fans feel the same way in general.

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I won the football pool

It finally happened. I won the football pool. I generally win at least one week every season and with the football season winding down I was getting nervous. With my overall weekly victory in the pool I also close the gap between my dad and I a little bit more, making the head-to-head point comparison slightly more manageable, but I still need some luck in the final two weeks of the season.

My dad, as represented by the orange shaded bar in the graph to the right leads the way with 1,308 total points this season. My total, as indicated by the blue bar, is now 1,273 points. My total has been boosted by two straight weeks of 107 weekly points while my dad has recorded fewer than 90 points each of the last two weeks.

We could cut him some slack for going away on a cruise vacation, but he was still able to make his picks prior to leaving and apparently was able to check them while away, which would lead me to think he could have just as easily made any changes at any time, so there goes that excuse.

My dad's down fall each of the past two weeks has been seemingly forgetting about Thursday Night Football. He failed to record a pick in either week. I will take every advantage I can get!

Finally, here is an updated look at the weekly progression in the pool comparing my results with my dad and the weekly winning total compared to the winning differential between me and the winner.

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Another rough week of football picking

It was another disappointing weekend of football picking for me this past weekend. Once again the Pittsburgh Steelers continue to laugh in my face as they quickly drop from Super Bowl champs to Wild Card pursuing chumps. However, given that everybody put big points on the Steelers against the Kansas City Chiefs, the loss didn't hurt me too badly (in fantasy football it is a different story though).

Even putting 14 points on the Cincinnati Bengals was not my ultimate down fall. Instead it was the late decision to put eight points on the Carolina Panthers. I had debated strongly picking the Miami Dolphins in the game but in the end I went with the Panthers on Thursday night at home. Had I gone with the Dolphins I would have been in position to finish ahead of my dad. The football poo would still have been out of reach though as "Robbie" had an unbelievably good week, recording a week high of 110 points. His success meant playing it risky on my Houston Texans with 16 points made no difference in the weekly prize.

As my weekly performance made a slight upturn, my dad saw his spike over the last few weeks continue to climb. Of course this is terrible news for me as the margin between us grows even more. At this point it is just about impossible to catch him before the season ends.

Thankfully I will be visiting the other side of the family this Thanksgiving, sparing me from the inevitable comments to rub it in about my ineptitude in picking games.

My fantasy football team also fell short of a victory this week to "Koy Detmer's Neck Beard", thanks in large part to Bears quarterback Jay Cutler and, ironically for me, Steve Slaton and Andre Johnson of the Texans. Donovan McNabb did all he could for me, but once again the Steelers defense chokes away another chance at a win for me.

The playoffs start this week though so we will see how far I can go. The opening round opponent is The Phrontiersmen. In the last meeting I came away with a dominating victory, which was the lone bright spot from my virtual football weekend.

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Football pool gives me a good lickin'

My performance is dipping as the season continues

Much like Ohio State gave Penn State a good lickin', according to Joe Paterno, the Onexia Football Pool crushed me this week. I scored a pool-wide season low 39 points. My down fall? Riding the hot hand of the Philadelphia Eagles after last week's dismantling of the New York Giants, thinking the Giants could rebound at home in a big game, and looking past the Tennessee Titans.

In those three games I placed 35 points on the wrong team. Picking those games would not have handed me a win but it would have helped me greatly in the season long competition with my dad who would have finished with with 69 points if the Eagles, Giants and 49ers had won.

Oh well. Here is an updated look at my points vs. those of my dad.

My points for the season in blue. My dad is in orange, and pulling away.

To top off the awesome sports week I had I also said good-bye t the NFL Suicide pool I have been in. Leave it to me to think the Green Bay Packers would rebound form a tough loss against a Tampa Bay team who was still looking for their first win. In retrospect it was unwise to pick against Tampa Bay for the fourth or fifth time this year. Of course they were due for a win. And I did not realize the game was in Tampa. I try to avoid picking road teams in suicide pools.

On the bright side, my fantasy team kicked butt this week, defeating the Phrontiersmen in the process. Tough match-up this weekend as I take on a first place team from the Eagles Blogger Division, Team Vicktorino. I remain two games out of first in the Phillies Blogger Division.

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Football Pool Recapping Week Four

Alone no more.

In a short amount of time I have become the 1972 Miami Dolphins. After posting the first ever perfect week in the Onexia Football Pool's history last year I have since found myself watching the results of my opponents with a bit more interest from week to week.

While I do not have a bottle of champagne ready to pop when another participant in the football poll takes their first (and sometimes only) loss of the week, I do find myself rooting against teams that I picked in order to remain the only undefeated football pool player in any given week. The perfect example would be last night's Monday night game between the Vikings and Packers.

Going into the game I was guaranteed to not win as I trailed "Alaskan" by seven points (I picked the Vikings with seven points, but Alaskan also picked Minnesota) but I noticed that "Alaskan" had an unblemished week in the pool. So naturally I found myself puling for the Packers (in all honesty I was rooting for them anyway).

With the Vikings picking up the win late last night I am now forced to share the honor and accomplishment with another. "Alaskan" is my 2007 New England Patriots. Congrats "Alaskan", for going undefeated is certainly no easy task. It takes a small amount of skill and a large chunk of luck.

"Alaskan" had his share of luck, much like the 2007
New England Patriots did against the Baltimore Ravens

Here is a look at my results compared against my dad (more on that in a bit) and "Alaskan"...

Oooh...do you see that dip from my dad (yellow line)? My dad had a rough week as he put too much stock in one of our favorite quarterbacks, Kerry Collins, and put way too much faith in "Big Game" Tony Romo and the woeful Dallas Cowboys. I picked the Cowboys too because I was taking the Denver Broncos (and Brian Dawkins) for granted, but I only put three points on the game while my dad put 10 points on the big D.

With the 98-75 victory over my dad this week I make up some serious ground, but still trail my dad in the overall points total. Here is the updated progress bar...

What will next week hold in store? Check back next Tuesday to find out!

EDIT: After closer examination, I actually have pulled ahead of my dad in the overall points total. My points are represented by the blue bar while my dad is represented by the orange bar. I will need to figure out a way to make the tight race look better in bar form, as it looks lopsided right now.

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Football Pool Recapping Week Three

Week three of the NFL season is in the books and so to is another week of the football pool. Points for players in the pool mostly went up this week, aided by a Dallas Cowboys victory last night in the Monday night game.

As you can see from the chart above, my points went up from last week, but so did my dad's at the winner for this week. For the first time that I can remember everybody picked the Houston Texans to win against the Jacksonville Jaguars. I tend to put too much stock in Matt Schaub since he went to my high school and graduated a year before me, but I only put five points on them this week, and I do not wish to tell you how close I was to picking the Jaguars in that game.

Thisclose.

My biggest downfall, like many of my competitors, was laying 15 points on the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Cincinnati Bengals. Evan my dad, who has become somewhat of a Steelers loyalist in recent years, only put six points on the defending Super Bowl champions, who blew a fourth quarter lead.

And perhaps I am going to have to start taking the New York Jets more seriously, even though they are lead by a freshman quarterback who torched Penn State in the Rose Bowl. I put eight points on the Tennessee Titans, lead by Kerry Collins and the team who also had the best record in the NFL a year ago, but that game did not turn out well for me at all.

A frustrating week once again for me, as I lose even more ground in the overall points race to my dad. I now trail by 22 points, which at this point in the season is not impossible to rebound from. Clearly I am doing something wrong with my points selection because if this were just a matter of picking the winners with no confidence points, I would actually be winning.

Through three weeks I have a game record of 32-16 while my dad is 31-17. The best record is 34-14, shared by six people.

In the overall rankings I am currently sitting at #14, 47 points out of first place and 21 points behind my dad.

On a related note, these blog entries have inspired a fellow football pool player to create his own site. Al, who is a three time champion of the pool and one of the more outspoken ones on the message board, has decided to join me in tracking his progress and compare it against...my dad. For a humorous look at the pool, check out Al vs. Kevin's Dad.

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Football Pool Recapping Week Two

The second week of the football was not as kind to me as the season's opening week. But only one participant broke triple digits in point total this week so congratulations to "Raider Mike".

My personal downfall came in putting too much stock on John Kuhn and the Green Bay Packers (11 points vs. Cincinnati Bengals at home), the arrogant New England Patriots (12 points at New York Jets), and the defending Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers (14 points at Chicago Bears). Yesterday I was celebrating the atrocious place kicking performance of the Steelers' Jeff Reed as his act put my fantasy team up by half a point going into Monday night. Little did I know that Dallas Clark, my fantasy tight end, would have a career night and I would go on for an easy victory regardless (more on that later). So I pit this week on you Reed!

Here is a look at my updated chart for my progress in the football pool this year.


As you can see, everybody took a dip this week but the difference between my picks and the winner's picks increased. You will also notice that my dad came away with a narrow victory over me this week, by one stinking point.

Here is an update on the year log competition between my dad and I.


Tune in next week for a look at week three!

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Football Pool Recapping

It started off as a bad week for me, as I entered the Monday night slate of games in next to last place, and that was only because one participant had failed to cast their week one picks! But with a pair of late victories by the New England Patriots and San Diego Chargers, I jumped over 100 points for the week and leaped four players to finish the first week in 14th overall, but trailing the overall leader by just 20 points.

The way this pool works is you make your picks and assign confidence points, from 1-16. For example, if I feel strongly confident that the New England Patriots will beat the Detroit Lions, which if the situation came up I would, I would assign the game 16 points. If I was unsure who would win a match-up between the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs, I would pick a team and assign just one point, so I would not be hurt too much by a loss.

There is a winner every week based on points received each week of the NFL season and the points accumulate all season to determine an overall winner.

Looking at the graph below, as primitive as it is for week one data, shows how I did compared to the weekly winner (congrats to StreetRebel). The red line will track the difference between my points and the weekly winner's points. In addition, the orange line represents my dad's progress.
Of course I will also be paying close attention to the overall points total between my dad and I. Last season my dad destroyed me overall, although I will always hold the fact that I have had the company pool's only recorded perfect week.

This week I fell behind early but used a strong back end of picks to close the gap and pull within 12 points as we prepare for week two. Remember, orange represents my dad while the blue bar designates my overall point total.


Tune in next week for another update on the football pool!

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