Harry's Football Challenge

.....I started this (in 1989) because I found my interest in NFL football dragging a bit in the season when my preferred team would be eliminated from the playoffs (Hey!  They went 7-9 last year!), and because I like games, and I like setting up games where I can participate.  I keep doing this because I really don't like how fantasy football is all about the superstar.  The teams, records, etc., don't mean a darn thing.  So this game allows me to use my drinking a beer, eating some chili football watching to lead to being able to test your wits against others.

.....Each week, I'll send out a ballot.  The ballot scores all the games that had not started when the ballot was sent out.  (For example, if a ballot came in on Sunday morning, September 8th, I'd count everything *but* the Thursday game.)  Here is how the ballot works:

.....I send out the ballot in Excel.  This is the first week's ballot.  In the "team" column, pick the one- or two-letter for the team you think will win.  (Why two letters?  Twice each year, for example, the Bengals play the Browns, and the Chargers play the Chiefs, etc.)  In the second column, list your confidence from 1 ("There is no way this team can lose!") to 16 (or 13, or 14, depending on the week) ("Does anybody know a drunken monkey with a dartboard?")

.....As an example, there is an automated player, HOMEBOY.  HOMEBOY always picks the team with the best record; in the case of a tie, HOMEBOY picks the home team.  (Week 1 HOMEBOY uses last season's records.)  There is great shame in getting beaten by HOMEBOY.

.....There are three ways in which scores are kept:

1. Right-wrong record.  Lat year, my old buddy in Florida, Steve, won, going 171-85.  The best record ever was put up by my Dad of 191-65.

2. Points.  If the team you picked as choice #1 wins (in a week with 16 games), you get 16 points.  If your #2 team wins, you get 15 points, and if your last pick team wins, you get 1 point.  Last year Steve won that, too, with 1401 total points.

3. Winning weeks.  Each week, the person with the best R/W score (using points as a tie-breaker) gets 3 medal points.  The person with the second-best score gets 2, and the person with the third-best score gets 1.  I added this one to give people who might feel that they are two far behind to win in one of the other ways a reason to keep playing into December.  Although last year Steve won that, too, with 14 points.  Honestly, the Triple Crown is not all that common.)

HOMEBOY's rules:
  Picks: Homeboy picks the team with the better record.  In the case of even records, HOMEBOY picks the home team.  In the late season, Homeboy can go 10-6 or better consistently, although in more recent seasons, the practice of phoning-it-in for the last couple games for teams with playoff spots locked down can hurt HOMEBOY.

  Ranking:  HOMEBOY's ranking is determined by how much better one team's record is than another.  For example. the Colts won eleven more games last year than the Raiders, so HOMEBOY is confident that the Colts will crush the Raiders next week.  In the case of two games with teams separated by the same number of games, HOMEBOY favors the game in which the prefered team is playing at home.  If there are still games in which the teams are separated by the same number of points, homeboy scores teams with better records more highly, on the basis that they should be more consistent.  (Homeboy has more confidence in the Falcons (13-3) beating the Saints (7-9) than in the Patriots (12-4) beating the Bills (6-10).)  After that, I use the randomize function in Excel.

  Questions?