As was posted earlier this week, Phinsider user ricenbeans82 is offering two tickets to the Philadelphia Eagles at Miami Dolphins game next month. The game is the Week 14 contest on December 11th.
The tickets will be awarded to whomever picks the best against the spread for this Sunday's games. Last night's Jets at Broncos and Monday Night's Chiefs at Patriots games will be ignored. All you have to do to enter is leave your picks below.
All ricenbeans82 asks is that you please be able to attend the game - and please root FOR the Dolphins, not for the Dolphins' 2012 draft positioning.
In order to ensure there is only one winner, there will be two tie-breakers. The first will be to pick the final score of the Bills at Dolphins game. The second will be to pick the score of the Eagles at Giants Sunday night game. If the tie breakers are needed, I will go first by total points scored, then by closest to the actual score. Then move on to the second game. If everything is still tied, I will put all of the winners into a the radomizer at Random.org and the winner will be decided that way.
I will then ensure that both the winner and ricenbeans82 have the contact information for each other. Ricenbean82 will then mail the tickets to the winner.
In case you have never picked a spread before, it's a way of handicapping a game so the contest is "fair." Basically, one team starts with a head start. If a team has a negative number, that means they trail the other team by that many points. Then, at the end of the game, if the favored team (started with negative points) does not "cover" the spread, or score enough points to overcome their negative points, the losing team still "wins" versus the spread.
For example, last week, the Dolphins were 4 point favorites. The spread looked like:
Washington Redskins (+4) at Miami Dolphins (-4)
The final score of the game was Miami 20, Washington 9. So, even with the 4 point advantage the Redskins had (i.e., Miami "scored" 16 points with the spread), the Dolphins still won. If the final score had been 13-9, the two teams would have "tied" and a 12-9 score would give the win versus the spread to the Redskins.
Hopefully that all makes sense.
So, to determine our winner, we will use the following system. If you pick the winner versus the spread, you get 2 points. If the two teams tie, you get 1 point. If you don't beat the spread, you get 0 points. When the points are tallied (and any tie breakers needed), a winner will be announced.
The spreads we are using are below, and feel free to leave any questions you have as a comment, and, of course, leave your entries in the comments as well.
Good luck!
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+13) at Green Bay Packers (-13)
Carolina Panthers (+7) at Detroit Lions (-7)
Jacksonville Jaguars (-7) at Cleveland Browns (+7)
Tennessee Titans (+6) at Atlanta Falcons (-6)
Oakland Raiders (+1) at Minnesota Vikings (-1)
Buffalo Bills (+2) at Miami Dolphins (-2)
Dallas Cowboys (-9) at Washington Redskins (+9)
Cincinnati Bengals (+7) at Baltimore Ravens (-7)
Arizona Cardinals (+9) at San Francisco 49ers (-9)
San Diego Chargers (+4) at Chicago Bears (-4)
Philadelphia Eagles (+4) at New York Giants (-4)