There really isn't any reason to finalize your pick until 1 hour before the deadline in your pool. Is most pools, that should be Sunday at noon once all the injury reports come out, see Calvin Johnson becoming a surprise inactive a couple of weeks ago, making Green Bay a much bigger favorite. By then, the lines and popularity will both have finalized.

In my pool I can actually see the # of picks for each team, before the pick deadline.

LOL, standard?

Oh, and on Carolina also ATM, looking for reasons to switch.

If you're in a league on OfficeFootballPool, yes, you can see the # of picks before the deadline.

It is a huge advantage, it is LOL, and it should not be the standard. I don't know how people make their picks on Tuesday/Wednesday when 75%+ of the people in their pool haven't submitted.

Should be a black box, everyone submits and it all gets revealed at once.

Whoa, did the Carolina moneyline move like 100 points? I'm on CAR now too.

I'm guessing the majority of people who play these pools aren't aware of the separation factor.

lol

first play from scrimmage, Bradford pick sixed

first set of downs in Miami, Bills get a pick six

looks like we've got some ballgames today folks

Man, am I glad I switched from Miami to Carolina lol.

Good call on Carolina, wish I listened. Stuck with KC tho so worked out okay I suppose.

49ers @ Jax next week right?

How can you decide without knowing how popular the 49ers are going to be?

i think if you have SF using them now is fine, enough people will have used them up and be on different teams. NO at home is another good pick people will be on, but lots of people will also have used NO

Separation is great if it fits your plan for the season, but I find it much more important to make your picks according to a plan you create (and weekly evaluate/adjust) to leave options in future weeks. It's not as important to make picks different from everyone else as long as you don't paint yourself into a corner in future weeks which is what loads of people do.

Many, many people (especially on sites with huge casualfan participation) just take the biggest favorite they can every week; they soon run out of 8+ point favorites and are left flipping coins. Not sure I'm articulating my thought the best I could, but that's been a big part of the success I've had with Eliminator pools. Try to make picks that allow you a clear path to the end of the year. It also helps to have strong teams available to you when people start talking chops.

Not to brag, but for illustration: I'm in a pool with 4 people left from 45 or so. I'm the only one left with GB, NE, SF, SEA and DEN but I've only had 2 games that were decided by a single score. Everyone else is going to be scrambling for weeks with -140 teams while I'll be -250 or better pretty much every week until they run into a fairly standard upset. I'm not taking a chop unless it's overwhelmingly in my favor. It's not that I was picking games differently than them, just that I tried to leave myself the strongest pool of available options.

Future value is important, it's just so incredibly difficult to predict anything beyond 1-2 weeks in advance. I see no way to accurately predict what the matchups will look like 6-7 weeks out. Some teams end up having surprising value (KC). And some teams end up crapping the bed like no one's business (NYG, PIT, HOU). Other teams end up with season altering injuries (I wouldn't feel comfortable taking NE against anyone right now).

So while I think it's fine to look ahead 1 week, maybe 2 weeks, anything beyond that is just too unpredictable.

Separation, on the other hand, is based on actual data that is available to me right now.

I find the first 2-3 weeks of the season perilous in regard to planning, but once you get past that, I don't think it's too difficult to pick based on future value. Perfect examples include the JAC games vs SEA and DEN. Barring significant injury (which is a risk in every game every week, so not really worth considering), SEA and DEN are going to have strong games in the future. Why waste a team like that when they're -900 or something silly? There were plenty of other games to pick that were very solid wins.

I don't know how you can say you wouldn't feel comfortable picking NE against anyone in the future. I'll take NE vMIA, vCLE, vPIT and vBUF and not think twice about it.

Separation (defined as picking teams not popular according to broad reporting) is based on averages across tens of thousands of entries but you are blind to what your actual competition is picking. Look at tdomeski's pool this week - almost half the league had Carolina. The "separation" play would be to take SD which was reported as a 31% across Yahoo. What actual data do you have available about the behavior of your specific pool? I agree that you can make some guesses based on what the have available, but you don't have hard solid evidence (i.e. actionable IMO) that you are gaining anything in terms of separation. On the other hand, I can tell you with pretty high confidence that SB favorites will be strong choices at multiple points in the future.

I'm not sure if you've already done this, but would you mind posting your general plan for the rest of the season so if we remember, we can look back in 6-7 weeks?

It's a risk every single week, so the conclusion that you should come to is not to disregard the possibility of injury, but it should be to realize that your predictions are less reliable.

I'll put a little out there, sure. I won't be at a computer until later this afternoon though.

Which teams have you used so far?

1 (Sep 3) Indianapolis over Oakland Correct IND 21, OAK 17 -
2 (Sep 10) Cincinnati over Pittsburgh Correct CIN 20, PIT 10 -
3 (Sep 17) New Orleans over Arizona Correct NOR 31, ARI 7 -
4 (Sep 24) Kansas City over New York (NYG) Correct KAN 31, NYG 7 -
5 (Oct 1) St. Louis over Jacksonville Correct STL 34, JAC 20 -
6 (Oct 8) Chicago over New York (NYG) Correct CHI 27, NYG 21 -
7 (Oct 15) San Diego over Jacksonville Correct SDG 24, JAC 6

So, for the above (non-2p2, FWIW) pool, my plan through 14 looks something like this. List would be in order of descending preference for the week.

8
NEvMIA
DENvWAS
SF@JAC
SEA@STL
GB@MIN

9
GBvCHI
SEAvTB
NEvPIT
DALvMIN

10
TENvJAC
GBvPHI
SEA@ATL

11
SEAvMIN
PIT@DET
GB@NYG

12
HOUvJAC
DETvTB
GBvMIN

13
SFvSTL
DALvOAK
BALvPIT

14
DENvTEN
GBvATL
NEvCLE
BALvMIN

These would be my preferences each week, with the first team on each week being the one I'd pick right now if I had to. Obviously if there's a bad injury, I'd adjust accordingly. Weeks 10 and 11 are the only ones that seem highly exposed to being tough to pick based on potential injury (mostly Russell in 11) and prior selection (if I used GB in 9 and didn't want TEN for whatever reason in 10). I don't see the pool lasting this long though.

True, but at the same time, I don't think you can "pick scared" burning a highly valued asset when the risk of injury doesn't really justify it. Outside of QB, there aren't a lot of positions that would create catastrophic situations that would sway a team from being a huge favorite to a dog. It just doesn't happen that often. Additionally, I think allowing room for error (i.e. multiple options) is important because you can't just set a line and then never revisit it.

Going back to the Denver and Seattle vs Jacksonville games, I think it was silly to use either of them that week since they both have multiple 10+ point favorite games left on the schedule. In week 3 I took NO (-360) and in week 6 I took Chicago (-360) - both huge favorites that were unlikely to be as big a favorite in many (if any) games the future. Obviously, sometimes this comes back to bite you in the ass - in tdomeski's pool I had MIN vs CLE and a (-300) Vikings team **** the bed vs a team starting their 3rd QB, on the road, just after trading...etc.

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To flip the conversation a little, how do you pick teams to gain separation? Are you simply looking to pick the least popular team you feel comfortable with?

I hope this doesn't come off as contentious, BTW. I do think separation has value and will shade some picks based on what I think others in my pool will do, but until you get down to just a few opponents, it's difficult to guess where they're going to be. In the above pool, I am fortunate that most of their lines are pretty similar and I have some built in separation. Since their picks don't actually affect my ability to pick winners every week though, I think it makes more sense to focus on my winning rather than what they're doing.

Nice. Wish I hadn't used GB and NE. Both teams have a lot of future value.

If you still have DEN, this is a fantastic week to pick them. Second highest moneyline and most people have used them so very few people are picking them. I've used DEN, SEA, and SF so my early pick is GB.

29 remain

I have used: IND,NE,NO,DEN,GB,SEA,CAR,SF

In my pool I can see the picks before the deadline.

20 picks in: 14 on DAL, the other 6 on teams I have used.

Is it better +EV to take Dallas or coinflip on another game(KC or BAL maybe?)

wow, you've really used up all the good second tier options this week. NE, NO, GB, CAR, SEA.

I think you're absolutely correct to be concerned about taking Dallas due to their popularity.

However, the decrease in win probability from the Cowboys to (KC/TEN/BAL/OAK) is way too large. In your case, and I wouldn't recommend this to many people, I think the right play is to stick with Dallas despite how popular they're going to be.

FYI flynn/tuel is starting for buffalo most likely

Is this this week to take the Giants? They're coming off a bye, playing a West Coast team and playing at 1 PM. The line last time I looked was -7. There are 13 teams left (we started with 150) and nobody remaining has used Tennessee (-13) yet so I figure everyone jumps on them at home against the Jags. But I can't see another spot to use Tennessee later on unless it's when they play the Jags again, assuming we even make it that far, so I'm tempted to just ride the bandwagon. Thoughts?

The thread in Sports Betting is a lot more in depth than this one, check it out.

I fixed your post to focus on what is really important.

Short answer is that NYG, IND, NO are all excellent picks this week.

TEN is an absolutely horrible pick due to how popular they are.