Rules

The Best NFL Pool is a season-long picks competition. Each week you submit a ten-slot entry of NFL players and teams. Slots score from real NFL stat lines. The pool runs from Week 1 of the regular season through the Grand Final on the NFL's Wild Card weekend.

An "account" is the entity you compete as — most accounts are owned by one person, but multi-owner accounts are supported. Accounts persist across seasons; you can follow other accounts, leave one, or start a new one between seasons. The entry fee is set per-season by the commissioner.

Every week you submit ten picks: QB (team), RB1 (player), RB2 (player), WR1 (player), WR2 (player), WR3 (player), K (team), RT (team — return TDs), PLUS (team) and MINUS (team). Player slots score the player's stat line; team slots score the team's contribution to that role.

Every one of your ten picks must come from a different NFL team. PLUS and MINUS cannot be playing each other in the same game. Picks against teams on bye are allowed but score zero.

Each game in your slate has its own lock time, computed from kickoff: • Sunday games at or after 1pm ET — locked at 1:00pm ET Sunday (regardless of when the actual first kickoff is). • Sunday games kicking off before 1pm ET (London games) — locked at their own kickoff. • Monday games — locked at their own kickoff. • Thursday or Saturday games — locked at the earliest game of that day's kickoff. • Grand Final week (NFL Wild Card weekend) — every game in the week locks at the first kickoff. Once a slot is locked you cannot change it. Picks become publicly visible the moment they lock.

Stats are pulled from official feeds and applied to your picks. Player slots use the underlying player's stat line; team slots use the team's contribution to that role (e.g. K scores the team's kicking points; RT scores defensive/return touchdowns; PLUS adds the team's points scored, MINUS subtracts the team's points conceded). The full scoring table is published with each season's payout schema and finalized after each week.

Bye-week players score zero. If you fail to submit by lock, the system applies the missed-pick penalty — you receive the league's worst-eligible-pick score for that slot, ensuring you don't gain an advantage by skipping.

Your picks are private until each slot's lock time. After lock, every entry's picks for that slot become visible to all members. This keeps the meta honest: you cannot copy your rivals after they have committed.

Each week's highest scoring entry wins a weekly prize. Cumulative season-long points determine playoff seeding at the close of Week 14.

The top 115 accounts by points (plus any weekly winners not already qualified) advance to a four-round playoff. The top 40 receive a bye in Round 1. Each round eliminates the bottom of the field per the published seeding table. Playoff weeks 15–18 use normal per-day lock rules.

The NFL's Wild Card weekend is the Grand Final. Every game in the week locks simultaneously at the first kickoff. Tiebreakers (set on the Grand Final entry form) decide ranking when scores tie. The winner takes the cup; the top five split the championship pool.

Be a good sport. The message board has trash talk; it does not have abuse. The commissioner's word on disputes is final. Cheating — including pick-sharing across accounts before lock — gets you removed.