NFL PICK'EM POOLS
Nobody gets eliminated, every week is a new contest, and every game is against the spread. Two formats, one decision: five picks or the whole slate.
WHAT MAKES A POOL A PICK'EM
Pick'em is the other great family of NFL pools. Where survivor is an elimination game — one straight-up pick a week, one life — pick'em is a weekly contest. Everyone picks games, the best card wins the week, and next week everyone starts even again. Nobody spends October watching from the sidelines because of one bad Sunday in September.
Both pick'em formats on FootballPools are played against the spread. The spread is what makes every game worth picking: straight-up pick'em collapses into "take the favorites" and everyone submits the same card, while a spread makes each side of every game a genuine 50/50 call. One line per game is captured and frozen before picks lock, so the whole pool plays the same number all week — no shopping for a better line, no arguing about whose spread counts. New to spreads? Start here.
From there the two formats split on one question: how many games do you want to sweat?
Pick 5
Five games. All five right, or nothing.
Each week you choose any 5 gamesfrom the slate and pick a side of each against the spread. Get all five right and you win the week's pot — shared if others also went five-for-five. Miss even one and your card is dead.
The engine that makes it addictive: when nobody wins, the pot rolls over. A few winnerless weeks stack into a jackpot, and suddenly the whole pool is sweating a Monday-night backdoor cover for triple the usual money.
- · A push counts as a loss — it breaks the card
- · A postponed game voids the pick; 4-for-4 on the rest still wins
- · One season entry fee funds a weekly pot
- · Picking which 5 games is half the skill
Pick All
Every game. A point a pick. Most points wins.
Each week you pick every game on the slate against the spread. Every correct pick is worth exactly one point; the most points takes the week, and ties share it. No all-or-nothing cliff — a 12-of-16 week is a good week, and even a rough one puts numbers on the board.
It's the format where everyone has something to watch in every window: you have a side in the Thursday game, the London game, and both ends of the Monday doubleheader, all season long.
- · A push scores zero — shown as a push, not a miss
- · Postponed games are excluded from your count
- · A week nobody scores in has no winner — zero doesn't win
- · No ranking games, no confidence points — every pick is worth 1
Which One Fits Your Group?
Casual group, mixed engagement
Pick All. Five minutes of picking covers the whole week, there's no "which games do I choose" homework, and everyone scores something every week, so nobody checks out in October. Season standings give the pool a long arc.
Group that wants drama and jackpots
Pick 5. All-or-nothing cards mean most weeks somebody's five-for-four heartbreak is the story of the pool, and rollover pots build real stakes. Choosing which five games to play is a genuine skill layer on top of picking sides.
Can't decide? Run one of each
They're separate pools with separate entries, and plenty of groups run both off the same group chat — Pick All as the season-long table everyone's on, Pick 5 as the high-stakes side game. Survivor makes a third.
Either way the machinery is the same: frozen spreads, per-game deadlines, automatic scoring from live NFL data, reminders before every lock, and a payment tracker for the pot the commissioner holds. All 18 weeks of the 2026 season.
How a Pick'em Week Actually Runs
Whichever format you choose, the weekly machinery underneath is identical — and it's the part a spreadsheet pool can never get right:
The lines freeze first
Each game's spread is captured before its picks lock and never moves again. Whether you pick Tuesday night or Sunday morning, you play the same number as everyone else in the pool.
Games lock one by one
Each pick locks at its game's kickoff, or when the Sunday afternoon slate begins — whichever comes first. You can take the Thursday game Thursday and finish your card Saturday night; changes are free until each lock.
Locked picks go public
A pick becomes visible to the pool the moment its game locks — the Thursday takes are out in the open while Sunday's are still sealed. Waiting never buys anyone a peek.
The week settles once, completely
Results come in from live NFL data, and the week is graded only when every game in it has finished — cards score once, correctly, with pushes and postponements handled by the rules engine rather than a commissioner ruling.
Reminders go out by email and push before every deadline, so the only way to miss a week is to really commit to missing it.
Pick'em FAQ
START YOUR PICK'EM POOL
Free for pools up to 5 members. Pick your format, share the code, and the scoring runs itself.