2003 Football Pool
Weekly Update

Week One

"That's why this is the greatest pool ever invented." --John Dickshot

Mr. Dickshot was, of course, not referring to the hours and days and nerve-endings invested in creating the new-and-improved website. (He doesn't even own a computer.) He was referring to the fact that you never know when the Texans from Houston are going to fly into the great state of Florida and beat one of the many teams there.

Miami hasn't lost a game on opening day in 12 years. Pretty impressive. But that gets trumped by not losing on opening day ever. Who is going to pick against Houston Week One, 2004?

Miami's loss helped hand over two-thirds of the football pool players their first loss. That does not set a new Ducey-Pool record for the biggest percentage hit in a single day, but it is the largest number of losers ever gathered together at one time. What a start to the 2003 season. What a start to the 2003 Ducey Pool.

Current standings...
125 players in the lead with no losses
271 players in Second Place with One Loss

Those numbers assume that everyone's check was mailed on time. We are still waiting for confirmation on a few people. But if everyone pans out, we are weighing in at a full 396 people this year. You know how much you paid. You do the math on that. It is a big number. So I say this to 2 out of every 3 of you: it's time to start picking winners.

"What happened to the cool feature that let you see which people picked each team in aggregate??? Am I missing something??" --Matt Eastwick

The programming of the website is an ongoing process. One of the remaining pages to be programmed is the list organized by pick. It will not be as pretty as last year's table, but it should get the job done. If you want to check for it, click on [W2] in the Leaders chart as the week progresses. I hope to get it up by Saturday at the latest.

Picks are due by 12noon PST Saturday afternoon. Do not pick the same team as you picked in Week One. This is the heart of the Ducey pool. If you have been around a few years, this is old news, but if you are a rookie, do not make the mistake of picking a team twice during the season. It has happened a few times before and the results are never pretty.

Other than that, I think we are successfully underway. Welcome aboard. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Ducey