Why Suicide Pools Are Great for Real Football Fans

I admire simplicity. This is true in all areas of my life. I'm a jeans and T-shirt guy, I drive an automatic and my favorite tool is a hammer. So it should come as no surprise that my favorite sports wager is the Suicide or Do or Die pool.

If you asked most people their favorite pool, they would say filling out a March Madness bracket. Not me, I hate those. I wish I could have the time in my life back that I spent agonizing over the proper way to fill out that year's bracket. I used to scour and devour every stat available, looking for any edge I could come up with to fill out the perfect bracket.

And it never mattered. I always ended up losing to someone who didn't follow things and instead took less than a minute to fill out their bracket. Sour grapes? You bet. Now, I refuse to enter any March Madness pools that have an entry fee and I fill out my bracket in 30 seconds. Still haven't won one, but at least I am no longer depressed about it when my bracket falls to pieces.

Now, I am not opposed to having pools that are inclusive. I always enjoy the Super Bowl pools with questions like: What will be the first commercial shown during the game or Which team will win the coin flip. But those pools are brainless. Do you really agonize over which team is going to kick the first field goal? And the nice part is everyone is happy when Aunt Sally, who hasn't watched a football game since the last Super Bowl, wins the pool.

And that's what makes the Do or Die pool great. It's simple, it's inclusive but very rarely does someone who knows absolutely nothing about the game end up winning.

For those of you who may have never heard of a Suicide pool, you pick an NFL team to win each week. If you win, you play the following week but if you lose you are out. The only other rule is that you cannot pick a team more than once. Last person in wins the pot.

There is a famous saying in the NFL which goes: On any given Sunday, any given team can beat another. And that's what usually ends up happening in Do or Die pools. Most of the players load up on what appears to be a lopsided game and the winless palookas knock off the undefeated stars. One year, that happened in back-to-back weeks and a Suicide pool I was in with a bunch of people ended after just two weeks.

But this year, there has been an amazing lack of these types of upsets. The end result is that my Do or Die pool, which started with 92 players, still has 24 people left after 12 weeks. It has been an easy go of things so far. Three teams (the Saints, Colts and Vikings) have combined for a 31-1 record while four teams (the Lions, Bucs, Rams and Browns) have a 5-39 record, with two of those wins coming when they played each other.

Basically, there have been very few "Any Given Sunday" upsets this season. The three that jump to mind are when Oakland beat Philadelphia; Tampa Bay beat Green Bay and Washington beat Denver. But all three of those upsets came with the underdog at home, negating some of the shock value along with the ability to take out a lot of Suicide pool participants.

But now things are really getting interesting. Most players have already used the good teams and the bad teams may not be in play, either, if they are going up against conference opponents for the second time (or facing off against an elite team that you have already used). So, this is when people who pay attention should have an edge.

This past week, I survived with Tennessee, as the Titans pulled out a 20-17 win with a 99-yard drive that ended with a touchdown on 4th-and-10 on the final play of the game. At first glance it may seem that I was fortunate to win this week, but the final score was not indicative of how much Tennessee controlled the game.

The Titans dominated at the line of scrimmage, out-gaining the Cardinals 532-292. Only Tennessee meltdowns in the Red Zone, a key fourth-quarter fumble by the Titans and the Cardinals scoring on a 99-yard kickoff return kept the game close at all.

A person who did not follow the league would never pick Tennessee. The Cardinals were 7-3 overall and 5-0 on the road coming into the game while the Titans were 4-6. But Tennessee was undefeated since replacing Kerry Collins with Vince Young after an 0-6 start. And the Cardinals had an unsettled situation at quarterback, with starter Kurt Warner leaving the previous week's game early due to concussion-like symptoms.

When I made the pick, no ruling had been made in regards to Warner. But I figured that even if he did play he would be at less than 100 percent. It turned out that backup Matt Leinart played the whole game and he passed for 217 yards. Arizona is a passing team and Warner averaged 271.8 yards per game, including the previous week when he finished with 203 yards after leaving the game late in the second quarter.

The obvious choice this past week was the Bengals, who had a home game against the Browns. In fact, 13 people in my pool did just that. But by picking the Titans instead, that leaves me the option of playing the Bengals this week, when they have the easiest game on the board with a home contest against the Lions.

And that's what makes the Do or Die pool fascinating. Like chess, you can plan your moves in advance to give yourself an advantage over the player who just goes week to week (or move to move). The rules are simple yet strategy exists to make it advantageous for those who follow the game. And that's why the Suicide pool is my favorite of them all.