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Suicide League
I've never done a suicide league before this year. My rules for picking were to always take a home team if the schedule provided for it. Also, I looked at point differentials on NFL.com for the best pick week to week. For the first 8 weeks I just picked the best game. Then in week 9 I started planning the rest of the season.

  1. Baltimore Ravens over Kansas City Chiefs
  2. Washington Redskins over St. Louis Rams (in hindsight, a terrible pick)
  3. Philadelphia Eagels over Kansas City Chiefs
  4. Chicago Bears over Detroit Lions
  5. New York Giants over Kansas City Chiefs
  6. Green Bay Packers over Detroit Lions
  7. New England Patriots over Tampa Bay Buccaneers
  8. San Diego Chargers over Oakland Raiders
  9. New Orleans Saints over Carolina Panthers
  10. Miami Dolphins over Tampa Bay Buccaneers (gulp)
  11. Minnesota Vikings over Seattle Seahawks
  12. Cincinnati Bengals over Cleveland Browns
  13. Pittsburgh Steelers over Oakland - Way to go, Super Bowl Champs.


I had Indianapolis in week 13 in my second half planning but then decided I could maybe take them the last week of the season if they were undefeated (yes, against Buffalo). I also thought about Carolina over Tampa Bay but can you really trust Jack Delhomme? Turns out he didn't start that week and the Panthers won.

If I had won week 13 week 14 would have been a little dicey but doable. After that I would have had Denver over Oakland (15), Arizona over St. Louis (16) and Indianapolis over Buffalo, or maybe Atlanta over Tampa Bay (17). There were only 12 people left at the beginning of the week I was eliminated.

Despite wanting to burn down Heinz Field the suicide (also called survivor) league was pretty fun. There were a lot of very good and a lot of very bad teams this year so maybe it was easier than in years past. Like fantasy football it makes you pay attention to the rest of the league.
I ran the suicide pool in my office for 5 years. Finished second once, and third once. Not bad when you consider it was out of 50 people.

It's a lot more strategic than people think. At first it seems easy, but then you realize if you're not careful you have some really impossible choices to make at the end of the season.

Posted at 12/17/2009 7:55:06 PM by Vinny


 
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