============================NFL NEWS AND UPDATES============================

SUPER BOWL LIV

49ers (15-3) vs. Chiefs (14-4)

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Hey everyone, and welcome to the 2019 NFL Thread!

If you're new here, this thread serves for any NFL related discussion on the site, as well as a number of different fun activities to participate in. These include:

#1: Preseason Predictions

#2: Weekly Predictions

#3: Fantasy Football

#4: Some form of Postseason Predictions (more TBA)

The following posts will detail the various components. Please note that all users are welcome to participate in any, all, or none of these components; you are not required to participate in any of them to participate in all.

Thanks for stopping by, and remember, the Jets suck.

PRESEASON PREDICTIONS (Open until the start of Regular Season)

Preseason predictions are the first activity all users are welcome to participate in. Here, you will predict how the upcoming NFL season will play out. Naturally, this means that predictions will only be open until the start of the regular season.

If you wish to participate, please copy/quote the table below, and fill it out with the various teams in the league based on how you think the season will go. The first 8 rows represent the division standings at the end of the regular season. You should fill these out in the order you think teams will finish (so the division champion goes in the #1 cell, runner up in the #2 cell, etc.).

The Division Winners column is a little different. Here, you should rank the division winners (the teams you picked to win the division), from the best record, to the worst record. So, for instance, if you think the Chiefs will win the AFC West and have the best record in the conference, you should put them in the #1 cell. If you think the Patriots will win their division and have the second best record in the conference, put them in the #2 cell. Note that you are ONLY ranking the division winners here; do not put any wild card teams here, even if you think they will finish with a better record than a division winner.

The Wild Card rows are where you will put the two teams you think will secure a wild card spot in each conference. These are the two best records in each conference who did not win their division. The wild card team with the better record will go in the #1 column, and the worst record goes in the #2 column.

The Divisional Round rows the teams you think will advance past wild card weekend in each conference. Since the #1 and #2 seeds have byes, the two teams that you ranked #1 and #2 in the division winner rows should automatically advance and be #1 and #2 on this row as well. #3 and #4 in this row will be the winners of the games on Wild Card Weekend (#3 Division Winner vs. #2 Wild Card and #4 Division Winner vs. #5 Wild Card). 

The Conference Championship will be the two teams that emerge from the Divisional round in each conference. Note that the #1 seed will always play the lowest remaining seed in the Divisional Round for each conference, and the #2 seed will always play the highest remaining seed. This means that if you pick the #4 and #6 seeds to advance to the Divisional Round, then the divisional round games would be #1 vs. #6 and #2 vs. #4, which in turns means that you CANNOT logically predict a conference championship where the #1 seed plays the #6 seed (as they are playing in the divisional round). I won't discount your prediction if you do this, but you are guaranteeing yourself at least one wrong answer.

The Super Bowl row is the two teams that emerge from the conference championship games. One should be AFC, one should be NFC.

The Super Bowl Champ row is pretty self explanatory: The team you think will win it all.

Finally, the #1 Draft Pick row. Choose the ONE team that you believe will have the worst record in the league this season.

For the sake of helpfulness, I've compiled an example table, using last season's results as the method for ranking teams. PLEASE USE TEAM ABBREVIATIONS WHEN PREDICTING, it will make my life much easier when transposing this to google sheets.

WEEKLY PREDICTIONS (Open during Regular Season)

Each week during the regular season, users will be invited to submit their predictions for the games occurring each week.

Unless there are any major objections, I'm going to be trying something a little different. While in the past, we've had people simply fill out tables, I've decided to try using a google forms sheet that people can fill out easily. This should hopefully make things not only more convenient for predictors, but also reduce the chance for mistakes when recording results (something that admittedly happened too much last year).

I'll post more when the regular season begins, but for right now, if you choose to participate, just know that you simply pick the winner of each game occurring that week. At the end of the week, standings will be posted, both for the overall week and the season overall. You're welcome to participate as much or as little in this as you like, but the postseason challenge at the end may ultimately be limited to the best predictors for the season (which requires consistency).

Note that any games not predicted, or not predicted on time, will result in an automatic loss.

FANTASY FOOTBALL

Anyone interested in running a league again? I'm down if there's enough people who want to do it.

DALLAS COWBOYS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL!!!!

If nothing else, I admire your consistency.

Brady gets number 7, just a matter of who he plays against in the Patriots invitational come Feb.

We must unite and make sure Cowboys and Trump go to the super bowl.

I'm down for preseason and weekly predictions. I'll submit my preseason later this weekend. Also might be interested in fantasy. Currently in random ESPN league.

Well this came out of nowhere.

Apparently Andrew Luck retired in the middle of a preseason game. AFC South is looking like it's the Texans to lose now.

Jacoby Brissett will take over as QB. He is 1-1 as a starting QB (two starts coming for New England during Tom Brady's 2016 suspension), with 3500 passing yards, a 59.1% completion rate, 13 TDs, 7 INTs, and 5 rushing TDs under his belt.