04/19/24
January 04, 2019
SportsFilter: The Friday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
1. I'd be willing to do that, but only if I could pick the competing player. I want to go against Art Schlichter.
2. I guess that would be OK. But would the computer be deciding on locks? I don't know if I want to turn a machine loose with my locks. I might end up with nothing but bagels.
3. I don't have a favorite team. Please don't tell others living in the New England region. I'm more interested in narratives and trajectories than pride and devotion. Interested in who's doing well and why, and who's not doing well and why. At the moment, I'm much more interested in Anthony Lynn than Jason Garrett. Much more interested in the Andy Reid tree than the Belichick tree. And which place will end up having more ugly truths revealed - Pittsburgh or the Vatican.
posted by beaverboard at 10:48 PM on January 04, 2019
I like #2 quite a bit as I was rather forgetful this year. There were a few weeks where I thought I had made my Sunday picks just to find out that was terribly wrong.
I don't like #1 at all. I'm just not a head to head competition type of guy.
Not sure about #3 as everyone would pick the hottest team in the NFL as their favorite team for that season. Life as a football fan is already bad enough being a Lions fan, so I'm not very crazy about Pats fans getting an automatic +10 over me every week just because my favorite team sucks.
posted by NoMich at 09:44 AM on January 05, 2019
I agree with all of NoMich's comments.
posted by bender at 11:35 AM on January 05, 2019
Would rule 3 favor fans of a favorite team most likely to keep a lock or least likely? An always-lock on the Lions would be busted more often than an always-lock on the Pats.
I guess that would be OK. But would the computer be deciding on locks?
We could potentially make the random picks all non-locks.
An alternative to rule 2 would be to give a player who missed a week a score 1 below the lowest-scoring player of that week who selected all the games.
posted by rcade at 11:33 AM on January 06, 2019
2 and 3 are great but I get my fill of being screwed by head to head matchups in fantasy football. Would you also pick a random number between 1 and 30 (40?) for the point spread?
posted by tron7 at 10:58 AM on January 07, 2019
For next year's NFL Pick 'Em, I'd like to float a few cockamamie ideas and see what players think.
1. What if you picked each week against another player in the game and amassed a W-L record?
2. What if every pick you didn't make was made by the computer picking at random?
3. What if your favorite team was always a lock with no -10 penalty for being wrong?
The thinking behind 1 or 2 would be to keep players in the game even if they accidentally missed a week or two. No. 2 is crazier, but I'd like to find some way to encourage everybody to stick with the game.