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.
Second Chance NFL Survivor
Get your group back in the game.
Start a fresh survivor pool for the early exits or your whole group. Choose the opening week, give everyone all 32 teams to choose from again, and keep your main pool where it is.
$1 per entry. Nothing upfront.
How second-chance survivor works
Start fresh with all 32 teams.
Choose your opening week.
Create a new NFL survivor pool and set its starting week. Leave enough time to invite your group and publish before that week’s pick deadline.
Bring everyone back together.
Share the new pool’s invite link. Everyone starts with new entries and full lives. Teams used in the original pool do not count as used in this one.
Play out the remaining weeks.
With classic rules, members pick winning teams without reusing them. In a one-life pool, a wrong pick knocks that entry out.
Plan the shorter season
Keep the familiar rules. Revisit the finish.
A later start gives the field fewer weeks to thin out. Plan for that with extra picks and clear rules for anyone still alive at the end.
A shorter season.
A later start means members need fewer teams to reach the finish. The no-reuse rule has less time to narrow their options.
Add multi-pick weeks.
We recommend including double-pick weeks, especially toward the end. They use teams faster and give the field more chances to narrow. Check the remaining games and byes when choosing those weeks.
Plan how your pool ends.
More entries may reach the final week of a shorter pool. Set tiebreakers and prize-splitting rules before play begins. Decide whether a wipeout ends the pool or revives that week’s eliminated entries.
Your pool’s rules
Set the rules for your second-chance pool.
Start with the same full survivor rulebook. For a second-chance pool, pay particular attention to the starting week, opening games, number of lives, pick counts, and ending week.
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. Nothing upfront.
Pay only for the entries you keep.
- No credit card to start
- No minimum charge
- Set up before inviting anyone
Before the fresh start.
Make the invitation clear about which pool everyone is joining.
Our main pool is on another site. Does that matter?
No. It can stay there. The new pool has its own invitations, entries, and team-use history, so you do not need to move or import the original pool.
Is this a buyback into our original pool?
No. This is a separate pool with its own entries, team-use history, standings, and prize arrangements. A buyback or reinstatement returns someone to the original pool under that pool’s rules.
Do teams used in the first pool become available again?
Yes. The new pool starts its own team-use history. Members can pick a team they used earlier in the old pool, provided it is eligible for the new week. A bye or a game that has already locked still matters.
Can people still alive in the original pool join?
Yes, if that is how you want to invite the group. You can include everyone, limit your invitation to eliminated players, or bring in new friends. Each pool runs separately.
Does everyone join automatically from the old pool?
No. Share the new pool’s invitation so people can join it. Spell out the starting week, first pick deadline and time zone, buy-in, entry limit, and any rules that differ from your original pool.
Can we start on Sunday instead of Thursday?
Yes. A Sunday-start pool leaves the opening week’s midweek games off its pick sheet and uses a matching first deadline. Those games are not available for picks in that opening week.
Can the new pool include the playoffs?
Yes. Choose the ending round and decide whether team usage resets for the postseason. With fewer teams left in the playoffs, team reuse and picks per round matter even more.
What does the new pool cost?
$1 for each entry you keep in the new pool, with nothing upfront and no minimum. The new pool is billed separately.
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.