Rules
Your house rules
have a home.
Your scoring, your tiebreakers, the traditions your group has built. You decide how the pool runs. We help you make it work.
NFL Survivor Pool Hosting
Your NFL survivor pool, down to the last house rule.
Keep the pool your group knows. Strikes, double-pick weeks, a Thanksgiving deadline: bring your rules to a home built for the commissioner running it all.
$1 per entry for the season. Nothing upfront.
How NFL survivor works
Stay alive one week at a time.
Pick a winner.
In a classic survivor pool, pick one NFL team each week. You can only use each team once, so this week’s choice affects what’s left later.
Make it through the week.
A winning pick keeps you alive. A wrong pick eliminates you in a one-life pool, or costs a life when your group allows more than one.
Outlast the field.
Keep playing as other entries fall out. Your rules decide how the pool ends, including what happens if everyone loses in the same week.
Your pool’s rules
Every NFL survivor rule you can set.
Run the classic one-pick, one-life pool, or keep the variations your group has added over the years. Whether your group calls it a suicide pool, a knockout pool, or an eliminator pool, set it up around your house rules.
Format and season
- Objective
- Entries pick a team to win each week, or a team to lose
- How picks resolve
- Straight up, or against the spread
- Starting week
- Any week from 1 to 18, or start in the playoffs
- Where it ends
- Any week from 1 to 18, any playoff round, or the Super Bowl
- The opening midweek games
- Count them, or skip them so your pool starts Sunday
- Entry deadline
- Close the pool at your first week’s deadline, or keep taking late entries for as many weeks as your lives cover
- Entries per person
- One each, or a cap you choose
Deadlines
- Pick deadline
- At the first kickoff, at each game’s own kickoff, or a day and time you set
- One week’s deadline
- First kickoff, each kickoff, or a day and time for one week only, like Thanksgiving
- Postseason deadline
- First kickoff, each kickoff, or a day and time, separate from your weekly rule
- Per-game lock
- Always on. A game that kicks off early locks early
Elimination
- Total lives
- One or more. With one life lost per incorrect pick, one means elimination on the first incorrect pick; N means elimination on the Nth incorrect pick
- Lives lost in a multi-pick week
- One life per incorrect pick, or one life for a week with any incorrect picks. With two wrong picks, those rules cost two lives or one
- Ties
- An incorrect pick that costs a life, or a correct pick
- Everyone out in the same week
- End the pool there, or revive everyone who started the week or only the entries with the most surviving picks. Decide separately whether revival can extend the pool past its final week
- Finishing the pool
- Share the win, or break ties by remaining lives, correct picks, or another rule you set. Decide how prizes are split before play begins
- Rebuys
- When permitted, handled manually by the commissioner
Picks
- Picks per week
- One pick, or several
- Picks in a specific week
- Double-pick weeks late in the season, or any other count for a single week or playoff round
- Team reuse
- Each team once a season, twice, or no limit
- Picking against a team
- Pick against each team once a season, twice, or no limit
- Playoff team reset
- Used teams reset for the playoffs, or stay used
- A missed pick
- Costs a life, takes the most popular available team, or follows the largest spread: favorite for pick-winners, underdog for pick-losers
Visibility and control
- Seeing other picks
- As each game locks, or all at once at the deadline
- Point spreads
- Shown on the pick sheet, or kept off it. A pool that plays against the spread always shows them
- How ATS spreads get set
- Automatically from the market at any day and time, or manually. Unused for straight-up pools; the time is ignored in manual mode
- Half-point ATS spreads
- Automatic spreads always use half-points, so games cannot push; manual spreads are not guaranteed to use half-points
- Commissioner picks
- Enter and fix picks for a member, or turn that off
- Commissioner visibility
- Always off. Nobody sees a pick before it locks, you included
- Rules text
- A rules page generated from your settings, plus a note in your own words
- Audit markers
- Always on. Commissioner picks are flagged "C" and revivals "R"
- Advance picks
- Always allowed
- Entry management
- Keep track of who has joined, how many entries they have, and who still owes their dues.
Don’t see your house rule? Tell us what it is.
Your house rules
People
Your pool.
Your people.
Your members won’t be added to a marketing list or shown sportsbook promotions. You decide who joins.
Support
Get help from
a real person.
A setup question, a scoring issue, a house rule you want to try: you’ll hear from the people building Picksheet.
Football pool pricing
$1 per entry. For the season. Nothing upfront.
Pay only for the entries you keep.
- No credit card to start
- No minimum charge
- Set up before inviting anyone
Before kickoff.
A few things commissioners often want to know.
Can we start a second-chance pool midseason?
Yes. Pick the starting week for a new pool. It can be a fresh start for people knocked out of your original pool, with its own entries and team-use history.
Can our regular-season pool continue into the playoffs?
Yes. Choose the last playoff round you want to include. Decide whether used teams become available again, and set any different postseason deadlines or pick counts.
Can I fix a member’s pick?
Yes, when commissioner pick authority is enabled. Picks entered by the commissioner are marked so members can see that a commissioner made the change.
Does Picksheet collect our buy-ins?
No. You and your members handle dues and prizes. The hosting fee is the only money that comes to Picksheet.
Ready to run your pool?
Set up your pool and make sure everything looks right before inviting your group.
Need a hand with your rules? Get in touch.