Revenge of the Birds Pick'em League: Week 1 Picks and Rules

Editor Bump:  With 24 participants already there are a few "regulars" from last year's group that have yet to chime in (boog, matt, bc, hev, etc.) so each of the Pick'ems (standard and survivor) get a date boost to keep them fresh on your browser.  Be sure to have your picks in for the Pick'em League before the Pittsburgh kick-off to qualify for the Week 1 results.  There could be a 20-way tie for first.  ::smirk::

With Revenge of the Birds now a healthy community of many participants, it quickly became clear to me during the Preseason Pick'em League that I need to make tracking picks and participants easier, especially as I'll be on the road with work until the snow flies.  Following are the updated Rules Lawyer's Guide to the Revenge of the Birds Pick'em League:

1)  To qualify for any given week of picks the entire selected slate of games for that week must be predicted.  Each week will have eight games to pick from and will always include the Thursday game (if scheduled), the Cardinals' game, the Sunday Night game, and Monday Night Football game.  The remaining games will be chosen for their competitive unpredictability or relevance to the NFC West playoff picture.  

• Thursday games happen regularly in today's NFL, be sure to have your Thursday game pick posted to RotB before kick-off; you can post just the Thursday game and pick the Sunday games later, just do it as a "reply" to your Thursday pick.
• Picks must be posted before kick-off time for those respective games; if you wanted you could post your picks for Thursday, Saturday, early Sunday, late Sunday, and Monday all separately just before their kick-offs.  You must post these continuing picks as replies to the original post. We  will have a lot more than the dozen or so participants we had last year,  so the easier it is for me to find your picks, the better it is for you.
• There will be no slack on omitting a pick.  If you forget to pick one of Sunday's games the entire week's picks are thrown out.  So double check your picks versus the slated games.

2)  To qualify for the Pick'em championship a total of nine weeks of the NFL regular season must be picked; it is mandatory that picks are made for Week 16 and 17.

• Here is where the Pick'em strategy can come into play as weeks with tough match-ups can be skipped entirely.
• The last two weeks of the season must be picked to create an interesting finish to the league.  It is conceivable that someone can jump to a commanding lead after nine weeks of picks and just ride out the rest of the season with that winning percentage.  Picking the last two weeks of the season when starters are potentially getting rested on a playoff run gives the greatest potential to "mix it up" on the Pick'em leader board.
• Those that participate for the entire 17 week season will receive a bonus "thank you" to the extent that my prize budget will allow.  Irishcardinal received some playoff swag last year including a pennant, hat, and some Cardinals M&Ms.

3)  Individuals' rankings are based on a correct vs. wrong percentage with the leader having the highest percentage correctly picked.

• For example, hevchv picks thirteen winners correctly for Preseason Week 4.  Thirteen of sixteen gives him a 0.813 winning percentage which would be a great start to the season for anyone.  Bezekira gets six victories correct and he would have a 0.375 winning percentage and would have an uphill battle to catch up with the leaders, but certainly not insurmountable.
• In case of winning percentage ties, the tie breakers are Weeks Won Points then Weeks Picked followed by number of times the Cardinals were picked, with the last tie breaker being SBNation tenure.  Hopefully a tie doesn't go that far!
• Speaking of ties, in case the NFL has a tie (like the Bengals and Eagles last year) unless you predicted a tie, it counts as an incorrect pick.  If you predict a tie and one actually happens besides getting a correct pick you'll win two tickets to the UFL Championship Game in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 27.  No, really.

Effectively nothing has changed from last year's format except we'll be picking from a smaller slate of games with the only new element to the standings will be "Weeks Won Points".  Whoever has the best record any given weeks earns one Weeks Won Point.  In the case of ties, that point is split between all the tied participants.  This "Weeks Won Point" total is the first tie-breaker and is only used for that.

Week 1 Pick'em Selected Games