Sportstuffblog: 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.

Reebok NFL Recline PH3 Jets Mens

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!