Football God VIII Season Preview & Introductions

Welcome back to our latest season of Football God.  This is our 8th installment, which I have been eagerly anticipating.  Before we get to our particpant introductions.  Let's go over the main story lines of the off season?

Survivor Pool

For the first time in a long time, we have added a new way to score points.  Just to remember the rules, you pick one team a week that you think is a "lock" to win their game.  Once you've picked that team you cannot pick them again the rest of the season.

There is also a two strike policy in this league, meaning that if you lose one game you can still play until you lose again.  I'm really excited to see how this plays out.

Remember, this is a winner take all pool for points.

Can Joe 3Peat?

Joe became the 3rd two-time champion in league history last year, but the first to do it in back to back years.  I have to admit, I'm actively routing for anyone other than Joe to win this year.

Who will finish last?

John has had a strangehold over last place in Football God, finishing in dead fucking last every year from 2011-2014.  Who will step up...or step down and win the John McLane honorary last place trophy this year?  Only time will tell.

Now, onto this seasons players.

Two Time Defending Champion: Joe McLane

Football God History:

2009: 5th
2010: 5th
2011: 2nd
2012: 4th
2013: 1st
2014: 1st

That's a pretty stellar resume.  Joe has never fallen below the halfway point in 6 years of Football God.

2014 Runner Up: Rob Klingensmith

2010: 10th
2012: 7th
2013: 3rd
2014: 2nd

It took rob a couple of years to find his footing in this league, but he's finished in the money the last couple of years.

2014 finisher in the money: Gary Yingst

2014: 3rd place

Gary come out in his first year of Football God and showed us what it's like.  Very impressive debut for someone to come in without knowing the intricacies of the league and navigate their way into a money finish.

2008 & 2010 Champion: Anthony Folden

2008: 1st
2009: 3rd
2010: 1st
2011: 9th
2012: 3rd
2013 8th
2014: 11th

Folden has been mostly consistent throughout his Football God history.  Either consistenly in the money, or consistently terrible.  There hasn't been a whole lot of middle ground for this guy.  He's picking first in the draft this year, so maybe things will turn around for him.


2009 & 2012 Champion: Adam Johnson

2008: 4th
2009: 1st
2010: 2nd
2011: 8th
2012: 1st
2013: 7th
2014: 6th

I've won this thing a couple of times, and had a 2nd place finish, but other than that I've had a few not so good finishes.  After a 7th place and 6th place the last couple of years, I need to step it the fuck up.

2011 Champion: Shawn Voyten

There are only like 5 photos of Shawn on the internet, so I had to improvise

2009: 2nd

2010: 8th

2011: 1st

2012: 8th

2013: 6th

2014: 8th 

Shawn was a force to reckon with his first few years in Football God, but he's fallen off the last couple of years.  Maybe he gets back on track this year. 

Jim Rowing

2008: 3rd

2009: 6th

2010: 4th

2011: 3rd

2012: 9th

2013: 5th

2014: 5th

Other than a 9th place finish in 2012, Jim has been really consistent.  He's constantly finishing close to the money, or just in the money without getting over the top to the championship.  Jim is 1 of only 3 (myself and Folden being the others), to compete in Football God every year.  

Daniel Geissler

right before a brutal pancake block

2008: 2nd

2009: 7th

2010: 9th

2011: 6th

2014: 9th

Geiss is back for his 2nd year after a hiatus.  Geiss is the 4th of the originals, and other than a runner up his first year, he's had trouble getting to the top of the leaderboard.  If this picture says anything, Geiss has been training all year.

Chris Coldsmith (Munez)

2009: 4th

2011: 11th

2012: 6th

2013: 9th

2014: 4th

Munez had a few tough years in football god, but finished just outside of the money last year.  He was only 18 points from 3rd adn 32 points from 2nd, so he may be fending for the title this year.

Expansion Teams

David Eplin

Eplin is a recent transplant to Nashville, TN.  He spend some time in Pittsburgh and Morgantown, after growing up in downstate WV.  Many of us know him through a friendship he made with Joe at Pharmacy school.

Matt Cvitkovic (Civ)

Matt hails from Pittsburgh, born and raised in Pittsburgh.  Many of us in the league know him from Edinboro University.  He is recently wed, and a big drinker of Twisted Tea.

And, with no further adieu, my prediction for the 2015 Football God winner.

Colin Reilly

2009: 9th

2011: 10th

2012: 2nd

2013: 2nd

2014: 7th

Colin put together back to back 2nd place finishes, both times it coming down to the Super Bowl itself to decide the champion.  Colin took a step back last year, but with him constantly being competitive in the pick'em and fantasy portion of the league, I think this is the year he puts it all together and gets himself a championship

2015 Predictions:

#1 Colin Reilly

#2 Joe

#3 Folden

#4 Adam

#5 Voyten

#6 Geiss

#7 Jim

#8 Munez

#9 Rob

#10 Eplin

#11 Rob

#12 Civ

No reason to predict Civ for last other than he's the last one to sign up for the leagues.  So i'm just making a guess.

As far as my predictions last year.  I did pretty well near the top.  I had Joe, Gary, Munez, and Shawn in my top 4, 3 of which came true.  I also had John finishing in dead last.  But, come on.  That's the easiest bet you could make.  I'm going to miss bashing him in these.

Good luck to everyone this year.  Should be a crazy fun season.  Let's amp up the shit talk in the facebook group, you fucking pussies.  

Football God VIII Rules

Welcome to another year of Football God.  We have 10 returning players this year, and two brand new players.  Those are Will Barnes and Matt Cvitkovic.  I'll start with some basic rules, most of which are copy and pasted from last year.

Here is how you win the Football God Championship.

You need to have the most cumulative points between several different categories.

Fantasy Football
College Weekly Pick'em
Pro Weekly Pick'em
Preseason Predictions.

Survival Pool

There is a NEW way to win points this year.  We will be doing a Survival/Suicide pool (depending on which name you know it by.)

The way this works is you pick one team every week to win a game.  Once you've used a team you cannot use them again the rest of the season.  If you pick a team and they lose, you are eliminated for the season.

There are only two ways to win points in this Survival Pool.  If you are the last person standing, you will win 50 Points.  However, if you and one other person lose on the same week, noone will receive any points.  The only other way to win points, is if you make it all 17 weeks without losing and there is another person who does the same.  In that event, any parties that make it to the end of the season will receive the full 50 points.

Fantasy Football

Fantasy Football scoring will go the same as it did last year.

There will be 12 teams, with the top 6 getting a playoff spot.

You receive 10 points for every regular season win.
You will receive 20 points for playoff wins
The top 2 regular season players will receive a first round bye that also wins them 20 points
If you win the Fantasy Championship you will receive a 50 points.

The draft order goes in reverse of last year's final standings.  With Will and Civ going to the back of the draft order since they are new players.  I flipped a coin for Will and Civ's draft position to make it easy.  That makes our draft order this year as follows.

#1 Folden
#2 Geiss
#3 Shawn
#4 Colin
#5 Adam
#6 Jim
#7 Munez
#8 Gary
#9 Rob
#10 Joe
#11 Civ
#12 Will

As always this will be a snaking draft, so Will has the last pick of the 1st round and the first pick of the second round.  Feel free to trade draft picks if you want.

PRO & COLLEGE PICK'EM

Pro Pick'em and College Pick'em will work the same as last year.  You will receive one point for every game you predict correctly.  As well as a bonus every week that you have the highest combined total of games picked correctly between college and pro.  When only college or pro are playing (college in august, Pros in December) there will be a 5 point bonus.  The Winner of each Pro and College Pick'em will receive 50 points.  We will not be picking against the spread in the Pro Pick'em this year.

Bowl Pick'em

The bowl pick'em will go the same as last year, with the winner receiving 25 points.

PRESEASON PREDICTIONS

I will send out the Template for Preseason Predictions next week, once I work the bugs out.  10 of the 12 of us know how this works already, so Will and Civ, feel free to ask me any questions once this gets going.



MONEY
The league dues will be $40 again this year, so please mail them to me at 1441 Potomac Ave Apt#2 Pittsburgh, PA 15216.

If you want to give it to me in person that's fine but please do not hand me cash or send me cash in the mail.  Everything in check form please.

Lastly, we need to lock down a date to do the Fantasy Draft.  We will do it online as always.  The Season starts on Thursday September 10th.  I'd like to have the draft on Sunday September 2nd.  Does that work for everyone?

There will be lots of email requests to join each of the pick'em leagues, survival pool, and the template to fill out.  To the new guys, there is a lot that goes on at the beginning but once the season starts, it's just a matter of making picks for games, and setting a fantasy lineup.  So don't get discouraged.

I'll do my yearly introduction post in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime.  Email me any questions you have.

Football God Final Standings

Here are your final standings.  Munez jumped back into the mix with the Patriots winning, but he unfortunately fell a little bit short.

1. Joe 898
2. Rob  834
3. Gary 820
4. Munez 802
5. Jim 796
6. Adam 782
7. Colin 755
8. Shawn 728
9. Geiss 696
10. Andrew 671
11. Folden 638
12. John 409

Congrats to Joe on his 2nd consecutive championship.  Congrats to Rob on finishing in the money 2 years in a row.  Congrats to Gary for placing in the money in his first year.  

Good season to everyone.  I'll be in touch with you guys about your winnings. See you all next year. 

2-1 Point Upate

Here are the point updates after yesterday's awards show.

1. Joe 898
2. Rob  834
3. Gary 810
3. Jim 796
5. Adam 782
6. Munez 762
7. Colin 745
8. Shawn 718
9. Geiss 696
10. Andrew 671
11. Folden 638
12. John 409

Final Standings will come out tomorrow.

Point Update 1/22/15

Hey fellas, I'm not going to go to long here, so I'll just get to it.

The biggest victor from championship weekend for us was Jim.  He correctly predicted the AFC and NFC winner as well as the NFC loser.  This gave him 85 big points and put him in the money for now.

The other big winner was Joe, who also correctly predicted the Superbowl.

Gary lost out on all of his potential points and Rob sort of limped along.

So, with only the Superbowl and the individual awards to come out.  Here are our standings.


1. Joe 878
2. Rob 814
3. Jim 796
4. Gary 770
5. Adam 762
6. Munez 742
7. Colin 705
8. Geiss 696
9. Andrew 671
10. Shawn 658
11. Folden 638
12. John 409

What this means, is that Joe has basically wrapped up his second championship in a pretty convincing fashion.  Rob or Jim would baically need to get all of the individual awards to prevent him at this point.

So, what we're really playing for is 2nd place.  Rob and Jim are both vying for that spot.  The other will likely end up with 3rd, with Gary, myself, and Munez on the outside looking in.

There will be one more point update after the individual awards are announced.  Dont' forget to get your last pick'em of the year in.

Point Update 01/13/2015

Hey guys, only a few weeks remain in the Football God season, and thinks are certainly beginning to show themselves.

Yesterday a few people got some points that helped their cause.  Joe was in 3rd going into the finale of the bowl pick'em last night.  However, Munez and I both picked the Ducks, while Joe picked the Bucks.

This gave him 67 points in the bowl pick'em edging out Andrew by 1 point.

This extends his lead on Rob to nearly 40 points and makes him almost a lock to finish in the money.

Geiss and Jim each received 30 points for having Oregon as the National Championship loser.  For Geiss this could be too little too late, but for Jim it appears he may have a new lease on this season.

Geiss's only real chance to get into the money is going to rely on the Colts reaching and winning the Superbowl.  For Jim, he still has his Super bowl champion, loser, and NFC championship loser still in it.  If Seattle and N.E reach the superbowl this week, Jim should jump up to the top 3.

What's going to stop Jim from winning, no matter how it plays out is that Joe has the same Superbowl winner and loser as Jim.  So, Jim's ability to rise can only go so far.

In the rest of the top 6, Rob is sitting at #2 right now.  His biggest hope is that Indi and Seattle both lose this weekend.  That would give him 65 more points and really help him guarentee to finish in the top 2.  Munez is sitting in 6th, not far from the money, but his Ability to rise is based solely on the remaining performance of the Patriots.

The last person to watch is Gary, who has Indi and Green  Bay in the Superbowl.  This could push Gary into the top as well.

As for Me, I sit in 4th only 8 points back from Gary, but it's virtually assured that I'm going to slip the rest of the way.  I have no NFL playoff contenders left to help prop my score up.  So I'll basically be a spectator the rest of the way.

Here are your points up to todays date.

1. Joe 823
2. Rob 784
3. Gary 765
4. Adam 757
5. Jim 721
6. Munez 717
7. Geiss 696
8. Colin 675
9. Andrew 671
10. Shawn 653
11. Folden 608
12. John 384

New Years Point Update

Welcome to 2015 my friends.  I'm going to start this week by posting the points, and then by doing a little bit of analysis afterward.

The big chances this week are from the NFL division and wildcard predictions.  Here is how everyone did in those.

Munez 125
Jim 125
John 120
Joe 105
Rob 105
Adam 105
Geiss 90
Shawn 90
Colin 75
Andrew 75
Gary 60
Folden 60

A couple of things happened from these results.  Obviously, this hurts Gary a lot, as he had a sizeable lead over the rest of the field for 3rd place.

Munez and Jim benefited the most from this as they have pushed themselves into a better shot for the money.

What saved Gary a little bit here was that he and Rob finished tied for 1st place in the Pro Pick'em.  This means that they each get 30 bonus points.

Lastly, on the point front, is the Bowl Pick'em.  In this Munez is leading with 22 out of 32 bowls correct.  However, if you remember, the bigger bowl games are waited more heavily than others.  The points go

2 points for smaller bowl games
5 points for New Years Six bowl games (Rose, Fiesta, Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Peach)
10 points for National Championship

So, Munez had 3 of the New Years 6 games correct, while I had 5 of the 6.  So, I am actually in the lead of this.  Figuring out all of the numbers the totals look like this as a group.

Adam 57
Munez 53
Joe 51
Andrew 50
Shawn 45
Jim 45
Rob 45
Folden 42
Colin 42
Geiss 40
John 40
Gary 40

Again, Gary hasn't done himself any favors in the Bowl Pick'em, dropping double digit points to both Munez and I, the closest people behind him.

So, total points and rankings to this point.

1. Joe 779
2. Rob 769
3. Adam 746
4. Gary 740
5. Munez 704
6. Jim 667
7. Colin 652
8. Geiss 649
8. Andrew 649
10. Shawn 629
11. Folden 583
12. John 376

I'll write more about the Analysis on things next week.  As points won't change much.  I just wanted everyone to know where they stood points wise.