NFL Challenge Rules

Any player can initially compete in NFL Challenge by picking the winners (straight up) of that weekend's NFL games with our online form.

Each player will also select a member of The Sports Team to challenge. If the player wins the challenge (or ties), he/she can return the following week to play again. If the Sports Team member wins the challenge, that player can not compete again during that half of the season. For the purpose of this rule, the first half of the season is Weeks 1-8, the second half is Weeks 9-17.

If a player submits his/her predictions and the challenges selected are not available, that player will be assigned to the available member of The Sports Team with the lowest won-lost record for the season.
If a player wins a challenge one week and does not play the following week, that player is still eligible to return until he/she loses a challenge.

The player with the best overall record each week receives a prize. Player may be responsible for picking up all prizes. The weekly winners also qualify for the playoffs after the regular season. A weekly winner in the first half of the season who subsequently loses a challenge in the first half is not eligible to return for another try in the second half. A player MAY CHANGE his/her predictions prior to the start of the first game of the weekend. A Sports Team member can also change predictions during that same time period.

The tie breaker each week is the margin of victory in the Monday Night Game or, in the absence of a Monday Night Game, the final game of the weekend. The person closest to the actual margin wins the tiebreaker, even if they pick the wrong team to win. For example, if Player One picks the Eagles by 12 and Player Two picks the Browns by 1 and the Eagles win by 3, Player Two wins. Player One was 9 points off, Player Two was just 4 points off. Any player who does not submit a margin of victory will automatically be given one point.

In the playoffs, each weekly winner selects, prior to the first round, the winners of the first round games, the conference semifinals, the conference finals and the Super Bowl. Each player keeps the teams selected in subsequent rounds, even if they are eliminated. In other words, if you pick Philadelphia to win the NFC championship and the Eagles lose in the first round, you are counted as wrong in all three rounds.

The playoff champion is the player who has the most winners among the 11 games over the four playoff weekends. If a player picks Baltimore to win the AFC Championship over Tennessee and Baltimore actually defeats Oakland for the title, that player is still counted as correct. That same rule applies to the semi-final and Super Bowl weekends. If there is a tie for most playoff wins, the first tiebreaker is the margin of victory in the Super Bowl. The second tiebreaker is total points scored in the Super Bowl.

Only a maximum of 12 players can play each week. During the playoffs, a weekly overall winner who does not make his/her selections before kickoff of the first playoff game can not compete.

For the purposes of record-keeping, any Sports Team member who fails to submit his/her predictions by the above deadline, is not challenged and does not have a contingency plan, will be given credit for a record that week one win below the worst Sports Team member for that week. In other words, if the worst record was 8-7, those who did not submit their selections would be given a 7-8 record for that week. If that Sports Team member WAS challenged, the same rule applies except his/her record will also be at least one win below the player who challenged him/her. This is called the Frank Lotierzo rule.

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