Be patient or be a patient!

In week 4, Denver's loss to winless Kansas City dealt a serious wound to several players. In week 6, Washington's loss to the winless St. Louis Rams had a similar effect. In fact, our defending champion lost both of those weeks and, as a consequence, is now eliminated from the contest. This serves as a valuable lesson to be learned about Risky Football.

The National Football League is a volatile league. No kidding, you say! The physicality of the sport leads to injuries on a weekly basis. Injuries at critical times to critical players can result in unpredictable results. Moreover, the emotionality (if that's a word) of the sport leads to injuries to the psyche of teams and individual players. Even though these are professional players, we can expect uneven performances from week to week.

I think that most of us would agree that if Kansas City played Denver ten times, Denver would win at least eight of those games. We would probably have a similar agreement with St. Louis losing to Washington. We may even be correct to say nine out of ten or nineteen out of twenty.

But we would probably be wrong to say twenty out of twenty. And there's the lesson. Even a broken clock is right twice a day (once if it's digital with an AM/PM setting!). You're playing really risky Risky Football to put all of your points on ANY National Football League game.

I know that there may be a temptation after a big loss like the Chiefs' upset of the Broncos to load up to catch up. Be careful! Remember that Risky Football is a seventeen-week contest. There is plenty of time to make up ground. If you are steady and deliberate in your risks, the chances are good that the field will come back to you later in the contest when the next big upset occurs. Be patient and hold back some of your points until you get to the point when you are truly on the verge of mathematical elimination.

That point certainly does not occur in Week 6.

The first two weeks of Risky Football

So far, almost everyone has been able to be perfect with their risks. The first week is tough because one never really knows how good or bad any team is. Reputation and expert opinions mean a lot in the early weeks until you personally get a comfortable feel for the relative strength of the teams.

One challenge that the early weeks present is deciding whether to use an upper-level team early. If you choose Dallas or New England early because of one's uncertainty about other teams, those upper-level teams are not available late in the season when many more points are on the line.

Unfortunately, none of our players chose Indianapolis in Week 1 when they lost to Chicago or New England in week 2 when they lost to Miami. However, Buffalo did claim one victim in Week 2 who chose Jacksonville and San Francisco another the same day who chose Seattle.

The good thing is that you have fifteen weeks to recover.

Risky Football is coming!

We're a week away from accepting submissions for Risky Football. You can find a description and the rules for Risky Football on the S&P website. It is a different way of predicting professional football games that most players of the 2007 contest enjoyed.

For those of you who did play last year, I would like to alert you to several improvements. The first improvement is this blog from which we can inform you of news and tidbits as the season progresses.

Secondly, we have installed a calendar on the website that you can consult to find out in a glance when submissions are due. Thirdly, we have established S&P Gamers, a discussion group for all gaming that would be of interest to S&P players. There you can discuss strategy or the play on the field or any other aspects of Risky Football with other S&P players. Fourthly, we have embedded a widget from ESPN on the submission form that gives you a power rating of the teams (as ESPN sees it, anyway). Fifthly, we have embedded on the Risky Football standings page another ESPN widget that gives you updated scores.

We hope that you enjoy the 2008 contest and look forward to any comments that you may have about it.

Our new blog!

The new S&P blog is here! Now, I have a forum to share with you from time to time what our company is doing, how we approach the gaming industry that we have recently joined, and what we can do to help you enhance your gaming life. Pretty exciting! Check us out every few days.