Newsday Fantasy NFL Football League Pigskin Pick'em

I used to play a NFL Football pool at work but stopped a few years ago. I'm a huge NFL football fan and New York Jets fan but I'm not the biggest gambler and it kind of bothered me sometimes to pick against the Jets while using the spread some weeks. Sometimes I'd be rooting against my own team just because I wanted to win the pool (which I never did). It also bothered me that I'd be rooting more for a particular score rather than a win or loss in any given game. It also bothered me that some people would win the pool even though they knew nothing about football; the nerve of 'em. So I stopped playing. I never really caught on to the Fantasy Football thing either because it just took too much time to manage for me. But I just discovered a Fantasy Football League that's different from the others. It's more like a giant weekly and season long football pool on newsday.com's website. It's called Pigskin Pick'em. You can register for free at any point in the NFL season (I just registered week 6). You pick winners for each game each week without a spread. I love that there's no spread; makes it purer. Then you can choose up to five "Best Bets" out of the weeks games.

Game Scoring

You earn 5 points for every winning team you pick
You do not lose any points for a pick which your team lost
You earn 5 points for every correct Best Bet (a game you chose as a Best Bet where you also chose the winning team)
You lose 5 points for every incorrect Best Bet (a game you chose as a Best Bet where you picked the losing team)
In the event of a tie between two NFL teams, the game is voided for the current scoring period. The game and your pick will still display on the My Picks page but not be included in the scoring update for the week. If you chose a best bet on a tied NFL game, it also is voided, neither gaining or losing any points.


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Each week there are prizes of $25.00 for whoever scores the most points and at the end of the season there are big prizes for the top three cumulative winners. 1st Prize is $1000 Cash, 2nd Prize is a Playstation 3, and 3rd Prize is a Blu-Ray Player. It's fun and I can make my picks any time before the weekend and I don't have to put up ten bucks each week to play. The one thing it's missing is social networking. It would be nice to be able to interface with the other players. You can view their names and scores but you can't communicate with them. I earned 35 points my first week picking seven winners and seven losers. I wish I joined the first week of the season because some people have over 300 points already, but now I know and I can play next season from the beginning. And I don't have to pick the New York Jets every week, but this week I did pick them. They better spank the Oakland Raiders in Oakland.

So go to Newsday's Pigskin Pick'em and check it out. If you register and play you can look for me progressing up the chart to beat you. My name is Sportstuffblog (surprise, surprise). Drop me a comment to let me know you joined and tell me what you think. Have fun. Play Ball!


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New York Media Starts Same Old Jets Talk

The honeymoon is over Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez! It only took the New York media till week seven to start the "Same Old Jets" talk. If nothing else they are the same old Jets just because the media has decided to anoint them as such. After week three the NY Jets were 3-0 and the NY media was putting them up on a pedistal and calling Mark "The Kid" Sanchez the second coming of Broadway Joe, and Ryan was Weeb Ewbank. Now three weeks later at 3-3, after an ugly loss to the lowly Buffalo Bills in which Broadway Mark threw six INT's, they're looking more like Joe Walton and Glenn Foley. Such is life in the New York spotlight. In this town when you're playing well you're darlings, and when you're not you're in the doghouse. Welcome to the city that never sleeps Rex and Mark, have a nice stay!


Buy New York Jets Tickets

I think Rex Ryan knew that this season with a rookie QB at the helm, no matter who that QB is, there were gonna be some ups and downs. He also knew exactly what it would be like in the Big Apple under the microscope in the biggest media market in the world. All he had to do was ask his father Buddy. But Rex is a realist and he knows where his team stands. He knows he still has good players (one less if you count Kris Jenkins) who will respond to these losses and try to make the improvements needed to win again. He'll also have to make improvements in his game management. In the first three games things just seemed to fall in to place for the Jets. And the last three games it was just the opposite, especially the Bill's game, when they committed penalty after penalty after turnover after turnover after questionable call. Now they're talking about simplifying the playbook for Sanchez and going back to a more basic plan. After giving Sanchez the car keys and letting him take take out his date he should go back to riding his bicycle now. There's got to be a happy medium. Maybe they just let him bite off a little bit too much than he can chew. I give Rex Ryan credit for sticking with Sanchez. It's the right decision at this time. Don't panic just yet. Make a change now and you lose the team's confidence in your decision making. Sanchez made mistakes in his first three games. The difference was he didn't make too many mistakes, and the rest of the team, especially the defense, played much better and got the job done. We got a glimpse of what this team can do and we started to jump the gun like so many other seasons in New York. We liked what we saw and started dreaming of yesteryear. But wake up now. Back to reality.



The Jets go in to this weeks game against another lowly team, the Oakland Raiders. They should win this one. Sanchez just needs to develop his short term memory and forget about last week in particular. Protect the ball and don't turn it over. That, combined with better defense (without Jenkins), and good running will win games for the Jets. Once again, a good running game will take the pressure off The Kid and open up his Play-Action passing game. Get the win here where you should and prove the media wrong. Don't be the Same Old Jets!

Jets Need To Take Off After MNF Loss

In my last post I said that the NY Jets needed to do three things in order to win their Monday Night Football game in Miami against the Dolphins. I said rookie Mark Sanchez needed to protect the ball - he did. I said the Jets running game needed to get something going - they really didn't, but the passing game and offense overall was very good. And I said that the Jets defense had to find a way to contain the Miami Dolphins' Wildcat offense - they couldn't. Out of those three things you would have thought that the defense would handle their part of the deal. You would have thought that Sanchez would blow it somehow and or the running game would be anemic. Leon Washington and Thomas Jones only rushed for 44 and 42 yards respectively, but the running game was boosted by a pair of fake punts engineered by Special Teams Coach Mike Westhoff - one a beautiful 26 yard run by punter Steve Weatherford and the other a 12 yard scamper by Brad Smith. No, the Jets lost this one in surprising fashion. The previously tough Jets defense was totally unprepared to stop Miami and their ball control, clock eating, run happy Wildcat offense. Which, by the way, is what the Jets offense could look like if they could just excel at running the ball.



With the addition of Braylon Edwards, Mark Sanchez has another big threat at his disposal and the Sanchez-Edwards combo picked up any slack from the injured Jericho Cotchery and the weak rushing game, connecting five times for 64 yards and a TD. Edwards also made some key catches to set up two more scores. I get the feeling that Edwards is gonna be a key player on the New York Jets and I hope he keeps himself out of trouble so he doesn't wind up like the receiver from that Blue New York football team! Kudos to the Jets brass for going and rescuing him from Cleveland.



The Jets defense, though, is not the first defense to be embarassed by the Dolphins' unpredictable Wildcat scheme. They've been giving defenses fits since last season when they did it with Chad Pennington, and now they're doing it with Henne at the helm. Rex Ryan might be right that the Jets defense made Henne look like Dan Marino, but Mark Sanchez stepped up this game and looked like Ken O'Brien. The difference in this game was when the Dolphins went to the Wildcat the Jets D continued to come with the pressure and over pursued, and got burned for it. Repeatedly! But it wasn't like there was a lack of effort on the Jets' defenses part. Maybe they should have played more of a read and react type of game against this type of offense than a pure attack defense. But Rex Ryan's Defenses don't play that way. So they got burned. I think they'll be okay. They played great defense the first four games and the offense (Sanchez) made their mistakes. Now Sanchez stopped making mistakes and the offense played well but the defense had a lapse. When they finally put it all together with all three phases the New York Jets are gonna be some team. They should keep their heads up high. The Jets have to go in to next weeks game at home against the 1-4 Buffalo Bills and do just that. Put a complete game together and win a game that they should win. The Bills have their backs up against the wall and should not be considered a gimme. But the Jets should win this game and go in to the Raiders game at 4-2. And we all know what they should do against the Raiders. That would make them 5-2 when they meet up with Miami again. Maybe by then Rex Ryan can come up with some kind of plan to stop the Dolphins' dangerous Wildcat.

NY Jets' Sanchez Crash Back To Earth

After an incredible, unprecedented 3-0 start to his NFL career, Mark Sanchez - and the NY Jets - finally played a game in which they were unable to overcome his rookie mistakes against a strong New Orleans Saints team in The Big Easy. It looked like The Kid Sanchez had one too many Frozen Hurricanes on Bourbon Street Saturday night (hey, is he old enough to drink?). Throwing multiple interceptions(3), one for a TD, and fumbling in his own end zone, while handling the ball like a hot enchilada, for another TD, Sanchez finally played a rookie clunker of a game! It was bound to happen, especially against a solid playoff caliber team like the Saints at home. The sad thing is that the Jets defense played so incredible that it's amazing how bad the offense had to perform to lose this game. I mean two series which they held the Saints back on 4th down tries and a couple of times they made goal line stands and forced them to kick field goals instead of going for a touchdown. But without a consistent running game the Jets offense becomes one dimensional and predictable, and that's not a good thing when you have a rookie QB in there. This, coupled with the poor protection from the Jets offensive line, spelled disaster for Sanchez and company, despite the strong play from the defense.


Highland Mint New York Jets Mark Sanchez Draft Photomint

Hopefully The Kid learns from these mistakes. My guess is he will. He made mistakes in the first three games but not as many as in New Orleans. Brian Schottenheimer and Rex Ryan have undoubtedly been telling Sanchez to protect the ball the first few weeks. I'm sure this week they must've been screaming it at him. But the key for Rex Ryan's players is to be lose and have a good time. We'll see this Monday night in Miami if Mark Sanchez can do that. It's not as easy to have fun when you lose, and I'm sure Sanchez is feeling that right now. He doesn't want that losing feeling again; so the key for him is to protect the football and minimize his mistakes. If the Jets' running game can get something going (don't they have two Pro-Bowl running backs?) and if the defense can limit the Miami Dolphins' Wildcat Offense, which has been averaging 183 yards per game (tops in the NFL), and if Sanchez wipes the butter off his fingers, they can win this game and be 4-1 atop the AFC East after the New England Patriots lost to Denver Sunday to go 3-2. Those are three big ifs.

It's a huge test for these New York Jets, and it will reveal what kind of character they have in '09. If they can bounce back on the road after a big loss away from home it'll show what kind of a team Rex Ryan is building. We'll see what the New York Jets are made of on Monday Night Football in Miami. Mark Sanchez; are you ready for some football? Hold on to it this time and IF the rest of the team can keep their part of the bargain you should come out ahead.