3rd? 4th? 6th? annual DBR Survivor Football

I am not sure how many times we have done this, but I have been horribly delinquent in getting this started and we need to do it NOW!!!

Time for our annual NFL Survivor Football game, played via Yahoo Sports. If you do not know the rules for Survivor Football, it is easy:

1) Each week, you pick a NFL team to win their game. Betting lines are not a pat of it -- so, for example, lets say the Packers were playing the Colts. Many people would be tempted to pick the Packers, knowing that the Pack merely needed to win by 1 point for them to "survive" in the game.

2) You cannot pick the same team twice -- ahh, here is the strategy part of it! If you pick the Packers in week 1, you are not allowed to pick them again all season long. Trust me, when it gets down to week 9 or 10, it is nice to have a strong team in your back pocket that you can pick.

3) If your team wins, you survive to the next week where all the remaining other survivors will pick as well. Eventually, everyone will be eliminated except one person and we will have a winner.

Most seasons, we lose more than half of the group by week 5... but it generally takes until about week 13 or so to get a winner. A couple years ago we still had 3 pickers alive in week 16 of the season, IIRC.

Anyway, here is how you join --

Go to http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/survival to sign up. We will have 2 DBR groups... 1 for "perfect picks" and 1 where you get to miss one game and still stay alive. You will need to input the "group ID #" to find and join each of the groups.

The "DBR No Mistakes" group ID is #25510
The "DBR One Mistake" group ID is #25516

Both groups are password protected. The Password is "Duke"

-Jason "join fast!!! I think we may need to get picks in before the first game on Wednesday!" Evans

So far we have 18 participants in one group and 17 in the other. Everyone knows you can sign up for both, right?

-Jason

Signed up for both...let's get it! Thanks again for doing this, Jason!

I'm in!

Just started law school, so I'm a bit out of it... is tomorrow's game still preseason or does Sun start the regular season? Yahoo says first picks not due until 9/9...?

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Originally Posted by sue71

Just started law school, so I'm a bit out of it... is tomorrow's game still preseason or does Sun start the regular season? Yahoo says first picks not due until 9/9...?

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Tomorrow does start the regular season, but Yahoo let me set the pick deadline and I chose Sunday at 1pm ET. I would imagine that means you can pick game sup until Sunday at 1pm ET but if a game has already started -- like the Wednesday Night game this week -- it would become unavailable for you to pick once kickoff has happened.

But I am just guessing and, to be safe, I have already made my picks for this week.

-Jason

Hopefully the first weekend doesn't kill as many people as it did last year.:o

My picks are in, meaning I'll probably have one more week till my season is over. :o

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Originally Posted by ncexnyc

Hopefully the first weekend doesn't kill as many people as it did last year.:o

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That Cleveland-Cincinnati game was brutal last year. I went with a semi-risky pick for this week, we'll see if it works out for me.

The Survivor pools did not close with the game on Wednesday. You can still join and can still make picks up until 1pm on Sunday. So, it is not too late if you have not joined yet!!

-Jason

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Originally Posted by JasonEvans

The Survivor pools did not close with the game on Wednesday. You can still join and can still make picks up until 1pm on Sunday. So, it is not too late if you have not joined yet!!

-Jason

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Cool game! I haven't heard of it before but love the strategy involved. Thanks for setting it up Jason!

FYI...I'm going with reverse psychology and picking the Eagles to beat my beloved Browns in the "no mistakes" game. That way if the Browns win, it sucks I'm out of the game but hey my Browns WON :o

I'm taking Atlanta in the "1 mistake" game this week as I believe the Chiefs will be THE worst team in the league this year.

Legit question...I'm in a league that costs $25 per entry, and I did 4 entries. I'm seriously considering going with all four picks for Houston this week. Yes, that is not diversifying...but if I win, then I have 4 entries to diversity next week. If I lose...well, I go out in a blaze.

The other choice is to pick 4 separate games, with the odds being that I lose at least one, which makes me with 3 or 2 picks the next week.

Right now I have all in for Houston...but I'm beginning to think that's not the best idea.

Thoughts? Advice?

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Originally Posted by Udaman

Legit question...I'm in a league that costs $25 per entry, and I did 4 entries. I'm seriously considering going with all four picks for Houston this week. Yes, that is not diversifying...but if I win, then I have 4 entries to diversity next week. If I lose...well, I go out in a blaze.

The other choice is to pick 4 separate games, with the odds being that I lose at least one, which makes me with 3 or 2 picks the next week.

Right now I have all in for Houston...but I'm beginning to think that's not the best idea.

Thoughts? Advice?

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I'd diversify for this week b/c then you don't use up Houston in all your leagues too. Houston gets to face Jac. twice a year as well so you'll have them saved for other weeks as well. I'd probably go one or two entries for Houston, then you have Chicago against a bad Indy team, Detroit versus a bad St. Louis team, Philadelphia versus a bad Cleveland team (and a tough schedule so wasting them this early isn't a terrible thing) and even the Saints versus Washington (who face a tough schedule after apart from the Chiefs in week 3. I'd say at worst you might lose one entry and you save Houston in some entries for when they play Jac. If you want to go out with one team, I'd suggest Philadelphia who after Cleveland only face 3 teams under .500 including Washington twice. Washington is a divisional QB with a QB who could win a game with his legs. Carolina is a dangerous team and the Bucs look to be improved. That and Vick is healthy at this point.

I went with Detroit in both leagues. Of course they are losing early in the second quarter. Week 1 is a dangerous week in this contest.

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Originally Posted by Bob Green

I went with Detroit in both leagues. Of course they are losing early in the second quarter. Week 1 is a dangerous week in this contest.

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I went with Minnesota, who is down 9-0 at home to the Jaguars. I lost on picking Cleveland over Cincy week 1 last year, but this would be far more embarrassing for me.

The bad news is the Lions are losing to the Rams 13-10 at the half with QB Matt Stafford having thrown three interceptions. The good news is there is another 30 minutes of football to be played and Stafford certainly shouldn't throw three more interceptions. For me (and nine others) to survive, the Lions must stop giving the ball away.

The Jaguars just scored a TD to go up 23-20 with 20 seconds to go. I feel awfully stupid right about now.

EDIT: Okay, it just went into overtime. I feel slightly better now.

I survived: Lions 27, Rams 23. As I stated earlier, Week 1 is dangerous in this contest. I lost in Week 1 the first two years and for a while today I thought this was going to be a short year. By the way, this is year 6 for DBR Survivor Football.

I know Houston is going to be a better pick in future weeks, like when they are playing Jax, but I went with them because week one is so darn hard to predict. I wanted as much of a sure thing as I could find for this week. 30-10 - thank you very much!

-Jason "I may pick against Miami virtually every week of the season ;) " Evans

Several of the so called experts claimed Cleveland's ranking as one of the top rated pass defenses in the NFL last year was one of those bogus stats. The justification for that view was that they were so easy to run against that nobody bothered to pass the ball. I wonder how those experts are feeling now after they came up with all those picks yesterday against the Eagles. That was a very close call yesterday and I had flashbacks to last year's first game.