Eliminator Pool: Week 9

Over the past few years, we have given the subscribers of Footballguys.com some help in playing office pools, one of the most popular methods to follow the NFL aside from fantasy football leagues. For the past few seasons, both Dave Larkin and I have written the “For The Win” column where Dave attempts to pick each and every NFL game against the Las Vegas spread. This has been a very popular feature, so this year Footballguys once again is presenting the Eliminator Challenge, where staffers have to pick a team to win each week. Just one? That sounds easy, but here is the catch – you can only pick the team you choose in a given week once all season long. Many contests and pools out there get pretty big, so an Eliminator (or Survivor) Pool can go 16 or 17 weeks.

Jeff Pasquino has provided some insight into this kind of contest previously with a preseason strategy article, which describes this kind of contest along with some advice on how to pick a team each week:

Survivor Pool Strategy

This pool will run all season long, but to keep participation up, the pool will crown the staffer with the best W-L record for the season (which means that everyone in the pool will continue to make picks every week).

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS

Week 8 was a quick turnaround from the perfect Week 7 results. Upsets by the Bengals over Tennessee, Minnesota over Green Bay, and Miami over the Rams gave the staff four combined losses on Sunday, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers barely held off the Giants on Monday Night Football to keep it from being a disastrous week for the group. Seven staffers slid by with the Buccaneers, which was yet another reminder that any given Sunday (or Monday) could yield an upset. Nine staffers are still perfect on the year with the middle game coming this week. It gets tougher and tougher as we go, so let's take a look and see what NFL Week 9 will have in store for the staff.

THIS WEEK'S PICK SUMMARY

Here are the picks for this week.

DISCUSSION

Week 9 has four more teams on a bye week, and there are just a few teams that are favored by double digits. Both Pittsburgh (-13.5 at Dallas, -850 to -950 Money Line) and Kansas City (-10.5 to -11 vs. Carolina, -510 to -650 Money Line) are top choices if one focuses solely on Week 9, but many have already used the Chiefs or the Steelers, or are saving Pittsburgh for later in the year. Several alternative picks are available this week, starting with Green Bay (-5 to -6, -230 to -250 Money Line) at a very banged-up San Francisco on Thursday Night Football. Tennessee (-5 to -5.5, -230 to -250 Money Line) hosts Chicago with similar odds, and Houston (-6.5 yo -7, -295 to -310 Money Line) comes off their bye for a trip to Jacksonville, another franchise that is changing quarterbacks due to injury. Both Arizona (home against Miami, -4 to -4.5, -190 to -225 Money Line) and Tampa Bay (hosting the Saints, -5 to --5.5, -230 to -240 Money Line) are also viable options as well. Seven games have Money Lines over -200, so there are plenty of choices for the staff for Week 9. It will certainly be quite interesting to see what the picks look like this week.

The picks are in later Wednesday night, and many of the picks did land on several of the top teams listed above, starting with Pittsburgh with 9 of 22 picks. New England snuck in at second place with four selections as the Patriots are road favorites on Monday Night Football (-7, -330 to -340 Money Line) against a very bad Jets team - but if there was ever a spot where New York might steal a win this season, this could be it on national television against a divisional foe that is also struggling. Houston comes in next with three picks, while Kansas City and Green Bay received two votes each. Two unique picks round out the week with Tennessee and Washington (-2.5 to -3, -140 to -150 Money Line) as the "Football Team" hosts the other bad New York squad (more on this pick in the comments below). Some very interesting picks in Week 9 here with seven different teams chosen, which certainly could make things interesting come next Tuesday in another exciting week in the Footballguys' Eliminator Pool.

Please note a few things: We will be doing these picks every week, win or lose, to keep it entertaining all season long. Normally a Survivor/Eliminator pool would end once all but one player lost once, but to provide our subscribers with more perspectives, everyone will pick every week even if they lose. That said, we will still try and honor the spirit of an Eliminator/Survivor Pool, trying to win every week and not re-use any teams during the year.

COMMENTARY

Each week, contestants are invited to submit any comments that they might have about their picks. If they submit them early enough, we post them with the article. If not, the comments will be within the section below.

Clayton Gray: I'm having a little trouble coming up with a pick. Oh, wait -- Pittsburgh against the QB4 with Dallas. That was easy.

The Pick: Pittsburgh Steelers

Jeff Pasquino: This week should have been simple - and in the end it was - but I wanted to consider saving my pick for Week 11. It is always tough to look ahead and try to save a team for later in the year, as I have learned in the past, so ultimately I decided to go with Pittsburgh at a very bad Dallas team that will be starting their fourth-string quarterback, but for those readers who are planning on going the distance for 17 weeks and may have to make two picks soon in more complex pools, I would say that Arizona and Houston were also under consideration. The Cardinals were close to being my pick to save the Steelers for a trip to Jacksonville in Week 11, both because that is a tougher week to pick and that Arizona is both coming off of a bye and has few good options to use them left on their schedule. Ultimately I decided to take what looks to be a gift horse pick with Pittsburgh as I think I found a viable Week 11 option, but for anyone looking to go against the grain, the Cardinals are a very viable option. Targeting teams against Jacksonville, Dallas, and both New Yorks seems like a very viable strategy for the rest of the way.

The Pick: Pittsburgh Steelers

Justin Bonnema: I'm going with the Washington Football Team this week for a few reasons. The most obvious being a soft home matchup against the Giants. Washington lost by one point a few weeks ago to this team, but coming off of a bye week as three-point favorites, they should rebound. It's also clear that Daniel Jones, who sometimes flashes great potential, is guaranteed to turn the ball over once or twice. Washington features a solid defense (ranking fourth overall in Football Outsiders DVOA metric), and their offense matches up well this week. Lastly, their schedule, outside of a road game against the Cowboys, gets much harder from here on out, so this may be the last opportunity to pick them with confidence.

The Pick: Washington Football Team

Good luck this weekend!

Questions, suggestions, and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com

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