NFL Football Pool

How It Works

Each week, the Pool Manager enters the spreads. Spreads with a half point are favored since they lead to less pushes (ties)
Pool members submit picks for each game: either HOME covers or AWAY covers
The HOME team is always capitalized and displayed on the left with the spread
Example: KC -7 vs. mia means Kansas City is favored by 7 at home
Example: MIAMI +4 vs. seattle means Miami is a 4-point home underdog

Picks lock at each game's exact kickoff time.
If you submit at 1:00 PM and a game starts at 1:00 PM, that game is locked and your pick is ignored.
If you submit at 1:00 PM and a game starts at 1:01 PM, that game is accepted.
You can submit multiple times — only your latest accepted pick for each game counts.
Partial acceptance: if some games are locked and others are not, accepted games are saved and locked games are ignored.
An email is sent to you and the Pool Manager on every submission (even if all picks were locked).

Each game is worth 1 point
HOME covers if (home score - away score) > home spread
AWAY covers if (home score - away score) < home spread
Push if (home score - away score) = home spread — no points awarded to anyone
Scoring is manual (currently) — when a game goes final, the admin enters the score and points are awarded
Standings update immediately after games are scored

When submitting picks, you also enter a tiebreaker guess: the total combined points (both teams) for the last game of the week.
If two or more players are tied in the standings, the player whose tiebreaker guess is closest to the actual total points scored in the last game wins.
Closest means the smallest absolute difference — over or under does not matter (not Price is Right rules).
Example: The last game finishes with 51 total points. Player A guessed 53 (off by 2). Player B guessed 46 (off by 5). Player A wins the tiebreaker.
If a player did not enter a tiebreaker guess, they lose any tiebreaker automatically.
If the last game of the week has not gone final yet, ties fall back to alphabetical order temporarily.