(For those not in the league: Craig's cut-throat concept is different from what the on-line portals sometimes call "survival football." Other places, as soon as you get a pick wrong you're done. In Craig's everyone makes two picks a week (aside from when they take a bye) and must pick each team exactly once.)
Arizona over St. Louis today will double-cross a lot of people. It was even a fairly obvious time to take the Rams. (Then again, relative to the rest of a given week's slate, so was STL @ SF week 1.) Should the Rams at least hold off the 49ers at home later this year, those of us going with that game will be rewarded. If not, I suppose St. Louis makes nearly everyone unhappy this year.
Oakland over Washington today might bite someone. You should have taken the Redskins vs. the 49ers. (But that's like saying I should've taken Detroit vs. Arizona instead of vs. Chicago. Sometimes you can't square it all away.)
It's vaguely plausible that someone took Carolina over Chicago (if they made their picks before the season began and never adjusted), Miami over Cleveland, or even Tennessee over Jacksonville.
Posted by Matt Bruce at November 20, 2005 01:53 PMI made my picks for the rest of the season this weekend, and for some reason, I'm quite happy that my final week pairing is New England and San Francisco.
(This week, went with Kansas City and a bye ... I don't think they'll have a problem in Houston.)
Posted by: Cooch at November 20, 2005 02:04 PMI took St. Louis and Miami. I had a rough day. A lot of people are having a rough day as well.
Posted by: Craig D. Barker at November 20, 2005 03:07 PMI actually went 2-fer this week. That makes a whopping 6 of 11 times when I can say that.
As for STL -- that was one of my week 3 picks (over Tennessee). Felt good enough then.
As for more traditional cutthroat leagues...I'm down to the final two in my Y! one, with someone eating it last week w/ Atlanta (over GB) and this week with...St. Louis. This follows four perfect weeks by the four participants.
Also, tying it all together -- I had the aforementioned STL pick in the first week of the $20 -> $420 league I joined. As did about two-thirds of the players.
Posted by: ZD at November 20, 2005 11:15 PMNext year I'm going to use my byes first week just to give me a chance to get a handle on how the teams are. Also that'll make it look like I'm five points behind everybody so I won't get the taunting.
Though I probably won't have much to worry about regardless.
Also I too fell with St Louis; picking against the Cardinals has been rather fruitful thus far.
Posted by: John at November 21, 2005 06:52 PM