Wednesday, November 10, 2010
HAVE I FALLEN SO FAR AND IS THE HOUR SO LATE? For those of us who play fantasy football, this is an odd moment. We're all 9/13 of the way through our regular seasons, yet the actual football regular season is only at the halfway point, with 28/32 NFL teams having played just eight games so far. So in one sense it feels very late, but there is so much football left to be played.
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Even better: the Thursday night games start this week. Another primetime game for me to enjoy? Why thank you, television gods.
ReplyDeleteAdam, speaking of fantasy football, what is the status of the ALOTT5MA elmination challenge on ESPN? It was down to me and one other person, and two Sundays ago, we both lost. Does that mean there's no winner? We both made picks again last Sunday, and he lost and I won. Did that serve as a tiebreaker?
ReplyDeleteOof. I stopped looking. I have no strong opinion.<span> </span>
ReplyDeleteI think if no one's perfect, it should come down to end of regular season percentage (I think I'm way out on that, myself).
ReplyDelete<span>That's a totally different game. Elimination challenge is about how long you can stay perfect. I see the options as 1) no one wins because no single person stayed perfect the longest; 2) the two people who did stay perfect the longest tie; or 3) last Sunday served as a tiebreaker and I win.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm obviously not objective here. And there's no money at stake, so it's not hugely important either way. (It is interesting that I've done this sort of pool every year for over a decade now, and this, the first year I didn't put money on it, is the closest I've ever come to winning.)</span>
if you don't agree on it in advance as a tiebreaker, it's not.
ReplyDeleteLet's call this week a clean slate for everyone in terms of record, but obvs not in terms of team choice.<span> </span>
Hmm. That kind of penalizes the people who have done better, in two ways. First, those of us who currently have only one loss could end up losing to someone with 3 or 4 losses. Second, now that we're deeper into the season and have a better idea of who the good and bad teams are, those who made bad choices early may have better teams left to pick than those of us who made better choices and picked winning teams.
ReplyDeleteBut, as I said, it's for fun and not terribly important, so I won't press the point any further and will play along with whatever you decide.
Most importantly... do I start Joe Flacco (who, I think, plays tonight) or Tom Brady who has to go against Pittsburgh? Right now I have Flacco going and have benched Brady for the first time (aside from his bye).
ReplyDeleteWell (says the guy who is currently tied with Jake and one other player with 8 points out of 9, but blew a week 5 pick instead of making it to week 8), the "How to Play" page says:
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Elimination Factor
<p>You must select which team you believe will be the winner. If you are correct, you will advance to the next week's game. If you are incorrect, it will greatly decrease your chances of competing for the grand prize or second place prize (unless there are no other perfect entries present at the end of the promotion). You may not pick the same team to win twice during the season, and the game will continue each week until the end of the season.
</p><p>(emphasis added). So, my read is that while Jake and the Baldwin entry made it the longest in our group before initial incorrect picks, the game goes on for our group -- it just means no one from our group is very likely to win the Grand Prize or Second Prize. It's not clear to me that the ultimate results for the group are meant to turn on how long you made it before your first miss. (Though it would make sense that the person with the longest winning streak by the end of the season would win under the tiebreaker rules.) My sense is that there's no need for a clean slate, and there's ample time for people with 2, 3, 4, or even 5 losses catch up with the teams that have only one.
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Interesting. The official rules make the contest's name, "Elimination Challenge," quite incongruous, as it appears that a losing pick does not eliminate a contestant.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that the official rules govern only who wins the grand prize and second place prize, and do not apply to individual groups, as results within groups are not "official" and are of no consequence to ESPN.com.
Because the official rules don't specify how to determine a winner within a group (as opposed to across all groups), my instinct as a former lawyer is to use gap-filling rules similar to those found in the Uniform Commercial Code. What occurs in the "usual course of business," i.e., every other so-called "elimination" or "suicide," or "knockout" pool I've ever done, is that once you make an incorrect pick, you're out. If all remaining players get knocked out the same week, they are either declared co-winners or proceed to some sort of tiebreaker.
Well, it depends on what/who is being eliminated each week. One might say that if you miss on a pick, you're eliminated from the contest. One might also say that the ESPN.com game revolves around picking winning teams that are sequentially eliminated from your available choices in ensuing weeks.
ReplyDeleteI'm perfectly fine with an ultimate ruling that Jake and Baldwin were perfect through week 7 and therefore were both the last to be "eliminated" and are co-last-to-be-wrong (or that one of the list of tiebreakers applies and someone is the winner). But I also think, hell, what's wrong with playing out the year and seeing who comes out on top through 17 weeks?
Just to be clear, I'm arguing this solely for the fun of it, because I have, as Lisa Simpson once said, some "nerdish leanings," and enjoy arguing about rules, especially because I don't get to do it for a living anymore. There's nothing wrong at all with playing out the string, and I fully intend to do so -- already made my pick for this week, in fact. But I'm making myself a tinfoil trophy to put on my desk, damnit.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/v/kQFKtI6gn9Y" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="170" height="140
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