The Untitled Rules for 2026

The Untitled is an NFL regular season picks pool. Each week, you'll pick one team that you think won't make the playoffs. At the end of the season, you score a point for each team you picked that missed the postseason. Highest score wins.

  1. Plain English
    1. The entry fee is $10 and we'll try to award the entire purse to one entrant.
    2. You pick one NFL team per week.
    3. You can't pick the same team twice.
    4. Your goal is to pick teams that won't make the playoffs.
    5. Each team you picked that misses the playoffs scores you one point.
    6. Whoever has the most points at the end of the regular season wins.
    7. If there's a tie, we'll apply a tiebreaker; it's better to pick playoff teams later in the season.
    8. If we can't break the tie, the tied entrants will keep picking teams to lose in the playoffs until we have one remaining entrant.
  2. Overview
    1. The entry fee for every entrant is $10. It must be paid before an entrant will be allowed to begin making picks.
    2. The intention of the contest is to be a winner-take-all format.
  3. Regular Season Picks
    1. Each week, an entrant must pick one NFL team.
    2. An entrant may not pick the same team more than once.
    3. An entrant's pick is due by the scheduled start time of the final game that week (usually, this is Monday at 8:30pm ET, but not always).
    4. An entrant may not pick a team after that team's game has already started that week.
    5. An entrant is allowed to pick a team on bye but that selection must be made by the deadline defined in Rule 3.c.
    6. An entrant is allowed to pick a team that has already been eliminated from playoff contention as long as they are in compliance with Rules 3.c and 3.d.
    7. An entrant is not allowed to modify a pick after that team's game's scheduled start time.
    8. If an entrant does not make all eighteen picks during the season, they forfeit their entry fee and are eliminated from contention.
  4. Scoring
    1. At the end of the season, an entrant's score is the number of teams they picked who ended up not qualifying for the NFL playoffs. As defined, a perfect score is 18.
    2. The single entrant with the highest score at the end of the NFL regular season will win the entire pot.
    3. The Nth tiebreaker number for an entrant will be the Nth week in which they picked a team that ended up making the NFL playoffs.
    4. We will attempt to break a tie between two or more entrants by looking at the 1st tiebreaker number; whichever entrant has the higher 1st tiebreaker number will win; if two or more tied entrants have the same 1st tiebreaker number, they will remain tied and the entrants with lower tiebreaker numbers will be eliminated. We will then attempt to break the tie between the remaining entrants by using the 2nd tiebreaker number, then 3rd, and so forth, all the way up through the 18th. If ever a single entrant remains after evaluating a tiebreaker number, they will win the pot.
    5. If two or more entrants are tied for the highest score and have exactly identical tiebreaker numbers, all tied entrants will compete during the NFL playoffs to attempt to determine a sole winner.
  5. Playoff Tiebreaker
    1. For every game of the playoffs, the entrant will pick which team they think is going to lose.
    2. The entrant will earn one point for every loser that they correctly pick.
    3. The entrant's pick for a game will be due by that game's scheduled start time.
    4. If an entrant fails to submit a pick for a game, they will be eliminated.
    5. At the end of each round of the playoffs, we will eliminate any entrant who has fewer points than the entrant with the most points.
    6. An eliminated entrant receives $0.
    7. If there is ever only one entrant who has not been eliminated, they receive the entirety of what remains in the purse.
    8. If we get through the Super Bowl and still have entrants tied, they will split the purse.
  6. Miscellany
    1. All picks must be made by the entrant on the website with potential exceptions only made in the event of website downtime.
    2. In the event that these rules underspecify a situation that must be ruled on, the pool administrator will retain the authority to make the ruling.