Better late than never.  Holiday season is suppose to be a time to slow down.  Not here, it's time to pile on so everyone else can whisk away for the holidays.  BTW, have a happy holiday and don't forget to get your predictions in prior to Sunday.

Playoff Format:

I've been thinking long and hard about the appropriate playoff format.  Last year an NCAA tournament bracket format was tried with one on one match ups leading up to the SB to determine the champion.  This years playoff format is going to attempt to be as similar to the regular season format as possible while incorporating an elimination process. 

1. The top sixteen finishers in the regular season prediction contest move onto the playoffs.  Everyone tied for 16th place is included in the playoffs, meaning if 5 people are tied at 16th place than the playoffs will start out with 20 contestants.

2. The scoring system will remain the same as the regular season. Predict the game winner and score closest to the actual score to accumulate points.  Still 10 points for predicting a perfect score, if not 5 points for 1st place, 4 points for 2nd, 3 points for 3rd, 2 points for 4th and 1 point for 5th place.

3. Each week will have eliminations.  The bottom tier predictors will be eliminated with the rest moving on to play another week til the SB where a winner will be crowned.  Each week is scored individually, meaning everyone starts back at zero points.  Ideally the bottom four people will be eliminated each week.

4. All 16 contestants play the Wild Card round. Top 12 advance onto the Divisional Round.  Top 8 advance onto the Championship Games.  Top 4 advance onto the Super Bowl.

5. Like entering the playoffs, being tied for the last advancement spot will move a contestant onto the next round.  For example if two people tie for 12th place on Wild Card weekend than both will advance to the next round.  If your score is zero after any round than you are eliminated. Sorry even if tied for the final advancement spot a zero gets you eliminated.  Why I say ideally the contest will try to eliminate the bottom 4 players each round, possibly more than four get eliminated, possibly less than four get eliminated.

Those not in the Playoffs:

Those who do not qualify for the playoff tournament receive an invitation to the Bignerd Invitational Tournament (BIT).  What's an invitation?  Well, if you see the prediction contest and want to play than you are invited.  Like the regular season the scoring format will remain same.  Points will accumulate each week with the top scorer after the SB is crowned the winner.

Ok, now onto Week 15 results ...

San Francisco 49ers @ San Diego Chargers

1. PHUT! (8)
2. groug, whobob (12)
3. Andrew Davidson (16)
4. grantmp, Drew K, ezoo, Ninerfromacrossthepond, mpotter14, illini49er, leaping_larry, DuikeBuike (20)
5. these3words, manraj7, ZeroIndulgence, Rabbit T, jpgarfunkle, mikeinsp (26)

Chicago Bears @ Minnesota Vikings

1. 49erLou (14)
2. jpgarfunkle (18)
3. Andrew Davidson, J2daZ, howtheyscored (20)
4. Rhombus, PHUT!, San Fran Niners, reedkrase, sf49ers123, Haggardninja, imjuliooo89 (24)
5. grantmp, Rabbit T, Drew K, fanoftheunderdogs, whobob, jbrown63, mpotter14, Chukwamu, DuikeBuike, mountaindew77 (26)

Green Bay Packers @ New England Patriots

1. DuikeBuike (6)
2. Ninerfromacrossthepond, McTee (8)
3. Drew K, wjackalope (14)
4. Rhombus, manraj7, ZeroIndulgence, sf49ers123, fanoftheunderdogs, whobob, Delmuir, mpotter14, Ten-Man, mountaindew77 (20)
5. fortyniners, TeeKay89, David Fucillo (Fooch) (22)

Jacksonville Jaguars @ Indianapolis Colts

1. fortyniners (2)
2. grantmp, chikmagnet_565, Drew K, J2daZ, Haggardninja, whobob, jbrown63, Edggy, leaping_larry, bignerd (6)
3. groug, San Fran Niners, Andrew Davidson, Rossalex, ezoo, howtheyscored, illini49er, Chukwamu (8)
4. Ten-Man (10)
5. sf49ers123, MATTCW, McTee, 49erLou (12)

Philadelphia Eagles @ New York Giants

1. Haggardninja (8)
2. SpurredOn (10)
3. foosball4949, Chukwamu (14)
4. Drew K (16)
5. Rabbit T, beecharmer (20)

Atlanta Falcons @ Seattle Seahawks

1. Andrew Davidson (4)
2. ZeroIndulgence, sf49ers123, illini49er, bignerd, beecharmer (6)
3. Rossalex, Delmuir, leaping_larry, 49erLou (8)
4. fanoftheunderdogs, Ten-Man (10)
5. groug, TeeKay89, wjackalope, urnext (12)

The Week's Big 5 Prognosticators

Andrew Davidson - Was harassing me earlier in the week as to where were the prediction results, now I know why. Yes you are good, got your likeness in the fan post title and have generally been disgruntled throughout the 49ers season.

Drew K - How appropriate we feature Drew with draft talk kicking off this week. Stick around and we will get to see which of his picks are better, prediction contest or draft.

Haggardninja - You'd never guess he had no clue what he was doing at the start of this contest. A top 5 placement puts him in better position to secure a playoff spot. I'm sure I'll have explain the rules to him all over again.

whobob - Bob is constantly ranking in the Top 5. If I'm rooting for ninja than I'm definitely rooting for bob to crash and burn in the playoffs. whobob, please finish 6th and get off my list for one week.

sf49ers123, illini49er, leaping_larry and 49erLou - Yep, all of them again. It was that kind of week.

Leader Board After Week 15

• DuikeBuike - 1st place ... so far
• howtheyscored - Excellent job ... so far
• 49erLou - Doing well ... so far
• whobob - Right on pace ... so far
• leaping_larry - Looking good ... so far
• Andrew Davidson - A good performance ... so far
• foosball4949 - Nice job ... so far
• illini49er - Feeling good ... so far
• these3words - Impressive ... so far
• Haggardninja - Good job ... so far
• mikeinsp - Peer recognition ... so far
• sf49ers123 - Keeping pace ... so far
• ZeroIndulgence - Making the grade ... so far
• groug - Holding on ... so far
• Rabbit T - Above the crowd ... so far
• rlott#42 - Marching along ... so far
• PHUT! - You Qualify ... so far
• wjackalope - Continuing to cling on ... so far

Week 15 Big Board Predictions

I was in a rush, the format for last week was funky so please check your scores. Any errors resulting in point correction will show up in next week's results.

Scoring Explained

Your prediction has these same three components as the actual game score.

1) If you predict the correct winner for an individual game, we will score your prediction against the actual game. If you predict the incorrect winner for an individual game, your prediction will not be scored.

2) Ideally, you will predict the exact point differential of the actual game. Say, for example, this is 45. If you predict a score with a PD of 45, the difference between your predicted PD and the actual PD is 0 (45 - 45 = 0). The worse your prediction, the greater that difference becomes. Therefore, the closer the difference is to zero, the better.

3) Ideally, you will predict the exact point total of the actual game. Say, for example, this is 65. If you predict a score with a PT of 65, the difference between your predicted PT and the actual PT is 0 (65 - 65 = 0). The worse your prediction, the greater that difference becomes. Therefore, the closer the difference is to zero, the better.

So, assuming that you predict the correct winner of the individual game, we simply add the difference between your predicted and the actual PD to the difference between your predicted and the actual PT. The closer this total is to zero, the better your prediction is. A zero exactly will always be a perfect prediction.

pPD = Predicted Point Differential
aPD = Actual Point Differential
pPT = Predicted Point Total
aPT = Actual Point Total
x = Subscore

|pPD - aPD| + |pPT - aPT| = x

That total becomes your subscore for each individual game. These subscores are then ranked, and the five best (including ALL ties) are awarded points. Perfect predictions are awarded 10 points. If the highest subscore for a particular game is not a perfect prediction, it is awarded 5 points. Points then follow in descending order, so that all of the second best predictions get 4 points, the third best all get 3 points, and so on.