This will be the last blog post of 2009. Look for an email announcement for 2010 to be sent out sometime in late July  or early August. The email annoucement will go out via the announce_zebrapool distribution list, so make sure you’re on it to receive the announcement.

If you want to be added to the distribution list, you can subscribe by visiting: http://zebrapool.com/mailman/listinfo/announce_zebrapool.com

There’s been a lot of talk over the course of this season about altering some aspects of the game to avoid too many multiple winners next year. Thanks for all of the suggestions, but I think these are the changes that I’m going to implement next year:

1. Eliminating all buybacks. It is a survivor pool, after all. The only reason buybacks were in place was to extend the game in the early years of this pool. Everytime I took a look at the payout this season, eliminating buybacks would have decreased the $$ in the pool, but there would also be far fewer players remaining who made it through without needing any buyback advantage. 2009’s payout would have been more than $200 more per player if we didn’t have buybacks.
2. Doubling up on picks in specific weeks (to be determined prior to next season). So in certain weeks each player will be required to make two picks instead of just one. Both picks will need to win to move on. There will probably only be two or three weeks where this will happen.
3. Changing auto-picks to no longer pick a favored team. Auto-picks will choose an underdog instead. I haven’t decided if this should assign the biggest underdog or not.

Things I don’t think I’ll change:

1. Maximum number of picks will remain 5 per person. If you try to skirt this rule by signing up under a different name or there is any suspicious or shady behavior, you’ll get kicked out.
2. Entry fee will remain $10 per player. One of the reasons that this pool was started was due a major increase in the entry fee of the previous pool I and some friends participated in.

Add your thoughts below… They aren’t final yet so you might still be able to change my mind.

Happy new year, see ya next fall!

With one game to go, it’s either going to be 13 players left ($403 per) or 10 players left ($524) depending on what the Jets do tonight.

And just for the record, if we hadn’t had buybacks this year, it’d already be settled and it’d be $603 per player.

Can you believe that someone actually forgot to send in their pick this week?

I think it turned out to be a harder week to pick than normal, from all of the suspensions, injuries, teams resting their starters, etc. Should be interesting.

Go Iggles!

We have 24 players remaining and we are looking at a payout of $218 per player. (Would have been 15 players with $241 each  if we didn’t have buybacks.)

I will contact each player that makes it through week seventeen to arrange the payout. Please wait until I contact you. Obviously, Paypal is the easiest option for me. I can just send it right back to you. If you need a check instead, it’ll take a few extra days to move the money around and cut a check to you. (Tips are greatly appreciated!)

Only Sunday games this final week, so we should know by Sunday night what the final tally is. All picks due by 10am ET on Sunday.

All received picks have been posted. Can’t believe it, but one player didn’t submit a pick this week. If you made it through fifteen weeks, don’t you think you’d make sure you submitted a pick? linesmaker appears to be back up and running.

Eight different teams were picked by our 26 remaining players. Should be an interesting week.

Open thread below.

This week, if you want to pick in the Friday night game, I must have your pick by Friday evening at 5pm ET. All other picks are due Sunday at 10am ET.  The linesmaker feed is still all sorts of messed up, so I might have to do the odds manually again.

Happy holidays!

Open thread below.

So for those clamoring about getting rid of buybacks next year, I’ve pretty much made up my mind. All of the other rules I think will stay the same.  Look at this way: Let’s assume the season is only fourteen weeks long. So we now have 48 players left, splitting a pot of $5,240. That’s roughly $109 per player.

But 16 of those remaining players used their buyback to stay in the pool. Let’s assume we didn’t have buybacks this year, so we’d have 32 players left with a payout of $113 per player. So if I get rid of buybacks, not only does it spare me the headache of having to keep track of buyback payments in addition to hundreds of picks every week, the payout of those that survive (remember, it IS a survivor pool) is actually higher!

Basically if you have buybacks, you just end up with more players splitting a bigger pot. It all evens out in the end. And like I just said, it’s a Survivor Pool. The only reason I had buybacks was to keep it running longer into the season when I first started out with much fewer players. Wouldn’t have made it much past the halfway mark of the season the first couple of years, but there’s no reason now that we’re almost guaranteed to have multiple winners after seventeen weeks.

So this week, we have both a Thursday and a Saturday night game. If you want to pick in the Thursday night game, I must have your pick by Thursday afternoon at 5pm ET. If you want to pick in the Saturday night game, I must have your pick by Saturday afternoon at 5pm ET. Anyone who picks those games will have their pick revealed as soon as the system records the final score. All other picks are due Sunday at 10am ET.

Open thread below.

Another stumble by the Steelers, the second in three weeks, knocked out another 14 players. So after thirteen weeks, we have gone from 367 to 54 players.  If we hadn’t had buybacks this year (they are gone next year), that number would be 34.

So let’s update who is picking who so far this season.

A few weeks ago, NFC teams held the advantage in times picked, and that continues to be true. Out of 2,776 picks so far this season, NFC teams have been picked 1,565 times; AFC 1,211.

Led by the Eagles, the NFC East is still the most popular division to go to, at 22% of all picks. The NFC North is second at 18%, and the AFC North is next at 17%.  The Ravens are the most popular pick so far, edging out the Eagles by seven. The Vikings and Packers come in third and fourth, respectively.

However, breaking that down by wins, the Ravens is still on top, winning 211 of the 217 times they were picked.  Coming in second, the Vikings are perfect so far, going 192 for 192. They needed overtime to pull it out today, but the still-undefeated Saints are third with 160.

Which teams turned out to be bad picks?  Well, the Packers top this list, having lost 91 of 180 picks. Primarily due to their upset loss to the Raiders, the Eagles come in second, 73 of 210.

Speaking of the Raiders, their upsets against picked teams are responsible for eliminating 118 players, which is almost a third of the pool.  First they beat the three-point favorite Chiefs in week two. Then it was the 14-point favorite Eagles in week six. Then it was the nine-point favorite Bengals two weeks ago. And finally the 15-point favorite Steelers this afternoon.

The Bengals come in second, having caused 82 eliminations.  74 of those came in their week two upset of the eight-point favorite Packers, so a number of those players did buy back (13 of those players are still in the pool now).

There are still four teams that noone has picked so far: the Browns, Raiders, Rams, and Buccaneers.

All picks are due at Sunday at 10am ET. If you want to pick the Thursday night game, those picks must be in by Thursday at 5pm ET.