Run your NFL Playoff Pool Online
This is a playoff pool where Wildcard Weekend is done as a pick-all. Then, Divisional Playoffs, Conference Championships, and the Superbowl are done as brackets
You give each week of the playoffs a point score, similar to what you do in March Madness. For example, Wildcard Weekend could be 10 points, Divisional Playoffs 20 points, Conference Championships 30 points, and SuperBowl 40 points. Something like that. You can set it up however you want, but you probably want to make sure that one of the weeks, like the Super Bowl Weekend, doesn't overpower the rest of the points. Also, make sure each round (including Wildcard Weekend) has a different point score: that will reduce the likelyhood of ties.
To create your pool, just hit the "Create Pool" button below. You will get your own web page for your players to log into:
Some might say that there are not enough possible outcomes in a bracket with only 8 teams. But actually, with 8 teams, there are 128 possible outcomes! So your chance of hitting the perfect playoff brackt (or PPT!) is just 1 / 128. If you don't believe me, run the "Show Possible Outcomes" program on the personal web page you will get: you'll see all the possibilities, and who picked them, and which ones are still open. Or you can just run the program below to show all the possibilities. (Up until the playoffs are set, this will be based on a guess of who the 8 teams will be in the playoffs):
So you have 8 teams and 7 games (4 games divisional playoffs, 2 games in conference championships, and the superbowl): so there is 2 to the 7th power = 128 possible brackets. When combined with your Wildcard Weekend picks, you have even more possibilities. Be sure to have a different score for the wildcard round, the divisional playoffs round, the conference championships round, and the superbowl. . This will reduce the likelyhood of ties.
Questions on running your playoff pool
If you have questions on how to use the pool, or how to run the pool, feel free to email me at craigh01@gmail.comSquares Pool
We have another site with a free squares pool: squarespool.com. This site lets you run a free squares pool, where you pick 10 X 10 = 100 squares, usually for the super bowl. Some people do a squares pool for every monday night football game. I see a lot of squares pools in there for charities (usually baseball teams it looks like).Next year, consider running your local football pool online using our pick-all site: castle64.com. This lets you run your football pool online, and we support all kinds of different rules: survivor pool, confidence pool, best bet, various types of bonus points.
NFL PLAYOFF BRACKET
To start with, I'm just going to put the likely top seeds into the bracket. Remember, the bracket starts with the divisional playoffs. Wildcard Weekend is not part of the bracket. Once wildcard weekend is over, I'll update this with the actual bracket. The bracket in your personal page will be similar to this, but it will be generated automatically by the "pick your bracket" programNFL PLAYOFF SEEDS
The 49'ers pulled it off, so the wildcard games are SET:| Playoff seeds | ||
| Seed | AFC | NFC |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Baltimore Ravens (North) | San Francisco 49ers |
| 2 | Kansas City Chiefs (West) | Green Bay Packers (North) |
| 3 | New England Patriots (East) | New Orleans Saints (South) |
| 4 | Houston Texans (South) | Philadelphia Eagles (East) |
| 5 | Buffalo Bills (Wildcard) | Seattle Seahawks (Wildcard) |
| 6 | Tennessee Titans (Wildcard) | Minnesota Vikings (Wildcard) |
Wildcard weekend is set. The bracket will be set after wildcard weekend is over.
TIE BREAKERS
Since there are only 128 possible brackets that can be picked (some of them far less likely then others), there is a good chance we will have duplicate brackets. To avoid ties, the default behavior of the pool is to not allow duplicate tie breakers. I mean, if someone picks 42 as their total score for the super bowl, no one else can pick 42. The good thing about this is, you'll never have a tie. There is a small drawback though: the people that pick first get to chose a more likely tie breaker. Lets say the over/under for the super bowl is 45. That's what the odds makers think is the most likely total score (but, different sports books can have a different over/under). Anyway, whoever picks first can pick 45 for their tiebreaker. Let's say you are the second player to make your picks, (and you agree with the 45 number) you can say, "hmmm... should I go with 46 or 44?).This could be a big problem if you had hundreds of players!
To alleviate that, the duplicate tie breakers are restricted to only the SAME bracket. So if your bracket is identical (every team from beginning to superbowl), to someone else's bracket, and if he has 42 for the tiebreaker, then you can't pick 42. You can pick 43 or above, or 41 or below.
Anyway, that's just the default. You can turn that off and let mulitple players pick the same tiebreaker, and then if there's a tie, you'd just have to split the pot.