# SDMB NFL Pick 'em and Survival Leagues 2019
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568
**Category:** The Game Room
**Created:** [September 1, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568 "2019-09-01T21:24:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/1 "2019-09-01T21:24:47Z")
So I’m starting this thread way late because it just completely slipped my mind to start these leagues.
[Last year’s thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=860645)
Everyone is invited to play - it’s not like fantasy football where you have head to head matchups every week, everyone plays against the whole league, so if you end up dropping out mid-season it’s not a big deal. So try anything you want.
Pick 'em:
In NFL Pick 'em leagues, each player predicts the outcome of every NFL game. There are three different types, and we run all three. You can join any or all of them.
Straight up: You simply pick the winner of each game, and get a point if correct.
Spread: A spread is determined for a game (like with sports betting), where one team has a certain amount of points given to them, and you have to pick the game with that adjustment taken into account.
Confidence: The most complex one, but in my view also the most fun. There are no spreads, so you pick the winner straight up. But you get a confidence value you can assign to every game, 1 through the number of games being played that weekend, and can only use each number once. So if there are 16 games that weekend, you’ll assign the confidence number 16 to the game where the outcome seems most clear to you, 15 for the next one, all the way down to 1 for the one you’re least sure of. If you pick correctly, the confidence value of your pick is added to your weekly score. If you only play one league, I suggest the confidence league.
Survival:
Each player picks one team that has to win each week. If your picked team fails to win, you get a strike. You can only use each team once. Three strikes and you’re out.
These leagues can hold up to 50 players each, so we’re not really at risk for filling up, and you’re competing against the whole league, not one other team per week like fantasy football, so it’s not a big deal if you end up dropping out. I’d like for everyone to play all the way through the season, but it won’t hurt anyone if you don’t, so feel free to sign up if you’re only a little interested. The more the merrier.
[Pick 'em sign up](https://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/pickem)
Password for all leagues is cecil. League numbers are:
Pick em: 38089
Spread Pick em: 38092
Confidence Pick 'em: 38095
And this [link](https://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/survival/register/joinprivategroup?gid=24594&password=cecil) for the survival league.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2019, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/2 "2019-09-04T21:02:50Z")
Reminder to pick tomorrow’s game. You don’t have to do the whole week before the first game - you can do every game up until 5 minutes before it starts.
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### Author:  [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2019, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/3 "2019-09-04T21:17:25Z")
Singed up for them all, again. One of these years I’ll actually have time to watch lots of the games and form my own opinions. 🙂
In case anyone’s interested, 538 runs an [interesting predictions contest](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2019-nfl-forecasting-game/) where you assign a probability to each game. A bit of a different twist to a pick 'em contest.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2019, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/4 "2019-09-05T10:36:09Z")
That is a very cool idea. I’m definitely going to do it. There are no groups or anything so we can’t sign up together, but if anyone wants to try the 538 probability curve prediction thing we can compare scores.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2019, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/5 "2019-09-07T23:10:34Z")
Alright, get your picks in for tomorrow. I believe you can continue to join the groups throughout the year, so if you came to the thread late but still want to play, hop in.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2019, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/6 "2019-09-07T23:23:11Z")
Unfortunately because of how late I started the thread, I think we don’t have some people we normally do. I tried to piece back together who we were missing and sent out some PMs, but as far as I can tell there’s no way to see a user list of previous years like there is with fantasy football, so I wasn’t able to get a list to see who was missing. Participation is fine, anyway - 15 in survival, 12 12 and 11 in the pick em leagues. I’ll post in other FF/nfl threads to remind people who might’ve missed this.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2019, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/7 "2019-09-08T14:22:21Z")
I’m in. All three leagues. My confidence level is low. 🙂
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### Author:  [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2019, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/8 "2019-09-08T15:38:22Z")
Joined all, I’ll try to remember to start a college football pickem next year and a bowl game pickem in December.
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### Author:  [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2019, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/9 "2019-09-11T16:01:37Z")
Quick question on survival: can I make a pick now and change it later or does it get locked in immediately? This is going to be a very busy weekend for me and trying to get all my fantasy and pickem stuff done early.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2019, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/10 "2019-09-11T17:27:43Z")
You can change it.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/11 "2019-09-14T21:38:58Z")
I’m so tempted to pick Cleveland in survival, even after they shit the bed at home and are playing on the road Monday night. Not sure if I’ll be able to follow through with it. May end up going with a safe pick.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2019, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/12 "2019-09-22T09:39:12Z")
The New England vs NYJ game has 100% of the pick distribution of New England. 99% happens frequently, but I don’t think I’ve seen 100% before.
How are you guys doing in the 538 contest? I’m in the 88th percentile.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2019, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/13 "2019-09-22T17:24:09Z")
Sigh. Yahoo didn’t save my pick in survival for some reason. I picked Dallas. But not only did it not pick me saving Dallas, but it won’t even let me pick from the remaining games to get in a pick this week. I can’t pick anything. So I get a strike from not having an entry recorded.
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### Author:  [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2019, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/14 "2019-09-24T03:49:14Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> How are you guys doing in the 538 contest? I’m in the 88th percentile.
After week 3 I’m at 189.1 points, which it says puts me ahead of 77% of players.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2019, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/15 "2019-09-29T11:16:41Z")
The pick em league is set to require picks in by game time Sunday (1 eastern) but it’s not letting me switch my pick now. I didn’t pick the Thursday game. Anyone else find themselves unable to switch picks?
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [September 30, 2019, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/16 "2019-09-30T03:27:34Z")
And of course the change I wanted to make was from the Rams to the Chargers. So one week yahoo doesn’t save my correct pick, and then the next week they don’t let me change my pick for no apparent reason, so I’ve got 2 strikes strictly because of yahoo.
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### Author:  [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2019, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/17 "2019-10-02T15:39:08Z")
> [@borschevsky](#):
>
> After week 3 I’m at 189.1 points, which it says puts me ahead of 77% of players.
And after week 4, I’m down to 152.3 points, but now ahead of 82% of players.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2019, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/18 "2019-10-02T15:53:47Z")
This week was brutal. Everyone lost, but I lost 11 points less than the 538 model. I went from 91st percentile to 83rd percentile.
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### Author:  [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2019, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/19 "2019-10-02T17:19:04Z")
FYI, the Bears vs Raiders game is in London, but it’s a night game there so it’s the usual 1 pm eastern time start, so it won’t mess things up for fantasy or pick ‘em
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### Author:  [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)
#### Post date: [October 8, 2019, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sdmb-nfl-pick-em-and-survival-leagues-2019/839568/20 "2019-10-08T22:46:10Z")
Up to +171.3, better than 90%. I just want to note this here now, before my inevitable decline. 🙂
It’s probably not really true (I’m sure the math works out), but the 538 scoring really seems to encourage being conservative. 538 has a 90% prediction for NE over the Giants, which scores as +24 for a win and -56 for a loss. If you knock that down to 80%, the win payoff drops 3 points down to +21, but the loss penalty moves **17** points to -39.
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