How to play Fantasy Football Confidence Pools

The concept behind a Fantasy Football Confidence Pool involves you choosing which teams you believe will win each game that is played and then you rank the game in accordance to your confidence in that particular team winning. You can do this either using the point-spread or straight up, depending on the configuration option chosen by the commissioner. You will want to understand the configuration options chosen by the commissioner when the league was created so you can properly make your weekly choices.

The commissioner will use the MFS configuration wizard to step through the different settings available, such as, the league type, the number of weeks to drop for the season total and all tie-breaker decisions. Some of the other configuration choices provided is the number of teams allowed in the pool and a game lock option; this is used when the commissioner wants the members to be able to make their choice right up until the start of the first game of the week or whether each game will lock once it begins.

Other configuration options to set up allow the commissioner to decide whether auto picks are allowed in the Confidence Pool and how many times a team can actually use auto picks or whether they must manually enter their picks each week. The commissioner will be able to designate how many drops weeks to grant to remove bad weeks for each team and to prioritize the weekly and season tie-breakers used for positions in the standings in case of a tie.

To play the game, you must place a different weighting, also known as a confidence value, on each matchup winner. Within the NFL season, when there are no bye weeks, there are 16 NFL matchups. So, when you are choosing the matchup that you feel the most confident about, the one that you consider your easiest winner, you should assign it a confidence value of 16. With the matchup that you feel the least confident about, you would want to assign it a confidence value of 1. In between that range, you will fill in your picks according. In the end, you will have assigned 136 confidence points (16+15+14+...+3+2+1=136).

The points for a Confidence Pool are totaled each week throughout the season. You will receive the points you assigned for the winners that you accurately predict. For the games that you picked incorrectly, you will receive a zero. The person with the most points at the end of season, after Drop Weeks are factored in, is the person who wins the first place prize. Some pools may actually pay out a prize for the weekly winners as well.