1-0 in WIP Suicide Pool

Although I hate the team, I picked Dallas over the New York Football Giants as my entry for the week in the Glen Macnow Suicide Pool over at WIP. Dallas won, 45-35, which means that I'm still in the contest and that I'm not allowed to pick Dallas as my pick of the week for the remainder of the season. One wrong pick = elimination from this season's contest.

I made it through 8 weeks last year before being eliminated, which isn't bad at all. It wasn't nearly good enough to win anything, but not too bad. You basically need a perfect 17 consecutive picks to win the grand prize given the thousands of entrants. The games are "straight up," no Vegas-style point spread applies. Two seasons ago, my first attempt, I was eliminated in the first week, which is quite the mood killer. If anyone has any strong feelings on games to pick or stay away from, hash it out in the Comments section below. I avoided the Eagles in the opener because they have a habit of losing it.

I happen to find this more fun than the NCAA men's basketball tourney pools, given that with 64 mostly obscure teams to track most people who win do so by making essentially random guesses which are carved in stone weeks ahead of time. I know more about football and the NFL is reasonably trackable; a person can make informed decisions one at a time that you have all week to sweat over. There's also the strategy involved in figuring out when in the schedule you anticipate needing to pick underdogs, seeing that after 5 or 6 weeks of picking the strongest teams you could easily blow all of your safe bets for the entire season. This is what I call a fun contest!

I'll be letting you know my picks after each weekend until (if?!) I'm eliminated, and I encourage you to share yours in each weekly post. I'm not letting you know who I pick ahead of time for the whole internet to see; you people are my competition! I will happily argue potential pros and cons of each pick in the Comments section though.