Cue Eye of the Tiger...

For I am a Survivor.
(dumma-dumma-dumma-dumma-dumma-dumma-dumma-dumma-Chris! Chris-Chris-Chris!)

I am well-aware that posting on this topic is premature and almost guarantees my demise come Sunday. But with financial planning for FY06, the normal wave of schoolwork, and me defending my cube against usurpers of my pranking throne a constancy, I might as well cook myself with a blog on my success on the virtual gridiron.

There are two times a year when I enter into the foray of competitive sports wagering. The first is the NCAA basketball tournament. You know, the deal where you are expected to magically pick the winner of 64 collegiate hoops teams using reasoning such as "Gonzaga is much more fun to yell than East Tennessee State" and "Arizona Wildcats are more fierce than Kentucky Wildcats - they're from the desert." Overall, I blow out of the gates, taking a commanding lead over the rest of the pool, only to choke in the round of 8 or something because I thought Stanford was for real. (Stick with the east coast when it comes to picking a champ.) And while 5th place out of 53 sounds good, it doesn't give me the funding I'd like to go on a shopping spree at Best Buy. Me walking away a winner is as likely as you picturing a DeLorean in your head in a color other than gray.

The other time is right now. This is the second year I've been in a survivor pool for the NFL season, and I'm am destined to take home the gold. (Count those chickens, Chris. Go on, count 'em.) The rules behind a survivor pool are:

1. Pick one winner of one NFL game each week.
2. If you correctly pick a winner, you will pick a winner the following week.
3. If you do not correctly pick a winner, you are eliminated.
4. You may only use a team once during the season.
5. You may not vote Jeff Probst off of the island.

So the name of the game is putting all your faith in one team to down their opponent so that you may live to see another day. There is a fair bit of strategy in this type of pool. First, you don't want to blow out your list of superteams early, because come Week 8 or 9 (assuming you make it that far), you'll be left praying the Giants can win on the road against the Patriots. I used this rule in Week 1, bypassing the easy pick of the St.Louis Rams over the lowly AZ Cardinals. While most people picked the Rams (and won), I took the Vikings to oust the Cowboys. Still a saf(er) pick, but at least I still have my Rams pick. (And judging from Monday night, the Vikes are a bit on the inconsistent side, no?)

A second strategy is to not pick the "lock" pick. This of course, could backfire in a big way, since risky picks have a better shot of putting you out of the race (Phillies in September? What?) But the payoff is when the rest of the league picks the easy favorite and they LOSE. Such is the case in Week 2, as a home win for the Packers against Chicago was a lock. Well, a rusty, broken lock anyways (Bears smoked 'em.) My left field selection of New Orleans over San Fran paid off. Lucky me. I look like a genius. (Actually, I look like a linebacker.)

See, I'm an expert, right? The pool after two weeks has dropped from 21 to 12. I'm as cocky as ever. And I still have my Rams pick, which I will now use in Week 3, while the rest of the people have to decide how all these injuries will affect the rest of the league. And while being on the Saints bandwagon for a whole week was fun, it's time to throw them under the bus. My pick o' the week Rams 27, Saints 14.

Week 4, here I come. (dumma-dumma-dumma....)