Last season we had a pretty good time doing the weekly prediction contest, and with the season looming roughly a month away I wanted to bring the games back to attention and introduce it to the newer members who might be interested in playing.

Here's how it works: Every week, Fooch will pick six games for the rest of us to lay predictions down for. For each game he picks, we predict the score. We don't do Thursday games because they make it much harder to deal with for the official scorekeeper (that's me!).

Scoring is based on two metrics: point totals and point differentials. The idea is that you get one score for predicting the point totals and one score for predicting the point differentials, and the combination of those scores is your final mark. The closer to zero your final mark is, the better your prediction was.

So, if a game ends 14-13, and you predict the game 27-0, then you will score a zero in the point totals category (for being zero points off the total). However, the point differential in the actual score will be 1, and the point differential in your prediction is 27, so your score in the point differentials category will be 26 (since you were 26 points off). Your total mark for the game will be 26 (since 0 + 26 = 26)

Essentially, the closer you get to the actual score, the closer both your point totals and point differentials will be to the actual score.

Rankings for the week are based on these individual marks. The person who gets closest to zero in one game will be awarded 3 points. Next closest gets 2 points. Next closest gets 1 point. And everybody else gets zero. There will be ties. Everybody tied for first get 3 points. Everybody tied for second gets 2 points. And everybody tied for third gets 1 point.

In the rare event that somebody predicts a score exactly, perfectly on the nose (and we've seen in practice that it IS rare - less than 10 in over 1000 predictions last season), that person gets 10 points for the game.

So, theoretically, with 6 games a week and up to ten points awarded for first place in each game, you COULD get up to 60 points a week. This is ridiculously unlikely, though. I think the highest single week total from last season was something like 15. Totals accumulate over the course of the whole season, and the person with the highest totals at the end of the season wins the game and gets the reward.

Last season the reward was a front page story on the blog. We might upgrade this season. I'm thinking that a free, custom, Niners Nation t-shirt might be cool this season... but I haven't mentioned it to Fooch yet and we'd have to get the thing designed and printable before we can make it official. So we'll see. Something with monetary value seems to be the most awesome reward, though.

I have done all the scoring in the past. I have an Excel spreadsheet that does all the math for me, so I just have to type in everybody's scores and go. This is not to say that there isn't human error (just that there is a MUCH SMALLER chance for it), so if you ever see me make a mistake, call me on it and we'll double check.

Last season, we had about ten to twelve regulars playing on a weekly basis. With more new people this season, I think that this could get more fun (and more competetive).

NOW, I know that this is a little bit confusing in words. If you don't understand anything about the scoring, feel free to comment and we'll be happy to explain.