2023 Pick 'Em Contest - Introduction & Week 1 Games
It's time! Test your wits against the TNG computer, TNG staff, and fellow community members
We are just one week away from the start of the 2023 season and that means it’s time to unveil the 2023 TNG Pick ‘Em Contest! This is your chance to test your knowledge and prognosticating skills against our computer model.
Last year, Baylordad captured the inaugural TNG Pick ‘Em crown and we know he’s ready to defend his title. Can North Shore Mike, last year’s runner-up, take down our champion this year, or will a new contender arise? Click here to see last year’s results.
For those that played last year, the process will be the same, except that this year you’ll be picking 20 games each week. We’ll have each week’s standings and new slate of games to pick posted by Sunday evening each week. For a review, and for our newbies, the process is explained below:
Click Here to Open the Week 1 Pick ‘Em Entry Form
As we’ve mentioned previously, this will likely be different than any Pick ‘Em contest you’ve done in the past. For each game, we’ll show you our model’s favorite and their projected likelihood to win. You’ll then make your own estimation of the favorite’s chances to win. If you think the favorite will lose, then you’d enter a number less than 50 (i.e. you think the favorite has less than a 50% chance to win).
Here are a couple of examples:
Team A is a 57% favorite over Team B
Let's say you think Team A is 'guaranteed' to win, so you enter 100%. If Team A wins, you would pick up 25 points, while our model would only pick up 6.5 points. If Team A loses, however, you would lose 75 points, while our model would lose just 7.5 points
If you disagree with the model favoring Team A, and you believe Team B will win, you'd simply enter your pick as a number less than 50. For example:
Let's say you think Team B is going to win. You would still enter Team A's chance of winning. If you think Team B is 90% likely to win, then you'd enter 10% on the form for Team A's chances. In that case, here's how the points would be awarded:
If you're correct and Team A loses, you would gain 24 points, while our model would lose 7.5 points. If the model is correct and Team A wins, you would lose 56 points, while our model would gain 6.5 points.
For each game, you are simply picking the odds that our model's favorite will win. The more aggressive you are with the percentages you assign to the favorites chances one way or the other, the more points you can win. But, you can potentially lose much more if you are overconfident one way or another and you're wrong.
The idea is to give you a chance to risk more than a simple win/loss pick for each game, which also gives you a chance to win or lose more with each pick.
Rules:
Entries are due by 5pm each Thursday of the respective game week. Week 1 entries are due by 5pm on 8/24. Anything submitted after that point won’t be counted
The contest will run through the end of the regular season and will consist of 10 games each week
Winner will be determined simply by total points accumulated throughout the season. You must compete in at least 9 of 11 weeks to qualify to win. The TNG model is ineligible, as are members of the TNG staff
This is just for fun…no prizes other than the respect of your fellow competitors
Every Monday following each game week, we’ll post an updated Pick ‘Em standings table and we’ll send out the new batch of games to pick.
All in boys. Best of luck to everyone.
FYI: Here is the old fivethirtyeight.com post that explains the point calculation that we've adopted:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/methodology/how-to-play-our-nfl-forecasting-game/