Gonna be a really interesting Week 17. Colts vs. Titans winner take all, Steelers have to win and root for Cleveland of all teams, Chicago vs. Minnesota with a first round bye on the line for the Bears and a playoff spot for the Vikings, and Philly needing a Vikings loss to stay alive. And, of course, plenty of seeding to be determined as well.

The Saints have now a huge advantage. They can rest their starters for three weeks.

Cowboys need to fire Scott Linehan. His play calling sucks in the red zone.

There is no way the Rams are going to lose to the 49er next week so the bye is off the table for the Bears. The Bears already know they can beat the Vikings at home and since I doubt they want to play the Eagles in two weeks they are going to find a way to loose against the Vikings next weekend.

OAK by 7 for MNF.

Man if the Queefs blow it next week the Pats can once again sneak into the #1 seed in the AFC.

Amazing that Pittsburgh has fallen so low that they're rooting for the Browns to upset the Ravens.

Something of an update.

Since we have a lot fewer people involved in the prediction league than years past, we can't do the typical 16 person playoffs that we've done in the past. Instead, I've got a couple of alternatives for people that want to predict the playoff games.

One option is a standard playoff bracket, similar to years past, only with 12 people. Like the NFL, seeds #1-#4 would all get byes through the first round. If you're not familiar with how the playoffs have worked previously, you can look over the full details on last year's thread. The general gist is that everyone predicts all the playoff games and the margins of victory for that week, but it's done in a 1v1 matchup format against another player. Whichever player has the better record for that week (or, if tied, best predicted margins of victory) moves on to the next round. 

The other option is to just continue with a standard league prediction for the games that week. This would start with a blank slate, and everyone just picks all the playoff games over the four weeks, as well as margins of victory. Most correct picks (or, if tied, best predicted margins of victory) wins the playoff league.

I've put a poll up to gauge what people want to do, let me know what you're interested in.

Week 16 Results

For the second time this season, a user came within one wrong prediction of the elusive perfect week. TheGoldenBoy went 15-1, only missing out on the Ravens upset of the Chargers. Even without TGB's success, it was an extremely positive week for the league as a whole, with everyone who bothered to make predictions posting 12 or more wins. Angelus was presumably off mourning how bad his fantasy team collapsed after winning the league last year.

The Golden Boy's impressive week gives him a two game lead heading into the final week and probably narrows the list of people who can reasonably catch him down to just Level1Death. Given L1D's PP advantage, he would almost assuredly win any potential tie, meaning he needs to pick two more games correctly than TGB this week in order to take home the league crown. Cycychris has an extremely outside shot, and would likely need to bank on a bevvy of upsets to have a chance (especially considering he is likely to lose a tiebreaker). Everyone else is pretty much just hoping for better playoff seeding. After Angelus forgot to pick this week, NobleTeam360 has a real chance to qualify for the playoffs.

As with seasons past, if you don't want your picks seen by another member, you are welcome to PM them to me. As no one signed up to take people's picks for people who don't want their predictions seen by me...you're out of luck, unless someone volunteers now. We will need someone to fill this role during the playoffs, though, so pls volunteer. It's not hard, I promise.

Here's the schedule for the last week of the season. All of these games are on Sunday, so no worries about picking early games this time around. For potential convenience for those who might base their predictions based on playoff implications, I have bolded and italicized teams that have clinched a playoff spot, bolded teams that have not clinched a spot but control their own destiny, and italicized teams that are still in contention but need help to reach the postseason. A team that is neither bolded nor italicized is eliminated from playoff contention.

Finally, if you have not done so yet, please vote for the type of postseason prediction formatting you prefer. We only have four votes so far in the poll at the top. Additionally, if you prefer a playoff system, please let me know if you would rather the top 4 predictors get byes for the first round, or have everyone predict in the first round and the two best losers move on to the second round.

I prefer everyone predicts everything including margins. Top 8 move on.

Of course my suggestion won't be popular but, I think the winners should be only margins and not the most correct picks. HFA would be correct picks>margins perhaps. In the case of no HFA margins> correct picks. The reason being of course is that margins are much more difficult to predict than simply picking the correct pick, unless you go for the upsets.

Since the last box did not work for me I wrote my guess directly in the matchup.