Welcome back to another spectacular season of the Prediction Game.  A full 17 week season with the Top 16ish going to the playoffs to crown our 2011 champion.  Last years champion 49erLou returns to defend his iron thrown.  Lou after wallowing in mediocrity most of the season rose like a phoenix from the ashes to eviscerate all opponents.  Chasing Lou once again is our army of regulars.  I noticed urnext bothered to get his picks in Week 1 this season. I guess he is going all in without the excuses.  Even my lovely little bee manged to fall out of bed before 5pm Sunday to get a few of her picks in.  Alas, welcome all new comers to the game.   Let me be first to say to who the [site decorum] are these guys?  They dominated Week 1.

I'm going to leave the rest of the recap as vanilla as the 49ers offensive game plan.  I'm already planning a revamp of the Top 5 Winners which will probably arrive next week.  Also the leader board will soon denote those holding a playoff seed.  Finally I'm kicking around a visual scoring explanation.   Typically Prediction Game results will be posted on Tuesday evenings.  There will be times where it will be a day late because of work schedule (like this week).  Ok, lets get to it.

Seattle Seahawks @ San Francisco 49ers

1. bakoninerfan, bhbf08, utah9er (4)
2. teekay, howtheyscored, sundaysfinest, nocal81(Vincent) (8)
3. danknerd49, Stupifyed (10)
4. reedkrase, supraman, ZeroIndulgence, bonbrillio, mountaindew77, Str8Balr, neder, nostocksjustbonds, David Fucillo (12)
5. Rhombus, McTee, sf49ers123, SanFranciscoKnights, houdeaney, EcERyda69, MATTCW, razertuc, San Fran Niners, AKinferno (14)

New England Patriots @ Miami Dolphins

1. mountaindew77 (6)
2. grantmp, supraman, Dubs fan in Boston, AKinferno (8)
3. Rhombus, McTee, reedkrase, SpurredOn, MATTCW, bonbrillio, bhbf08, mpotter14, Ninerfromacrossthepond, San Fran Niners, Stupifyed, Number22Drew, jpgarfunkle, Chukwamu, David Fucillo (14)
4. danknerd49, LASVEGASNINER, illini49er, Rossalex (16)
5. Ni9er, 49erLou, Beamer1960, renke81, Rabbit T, imjuliooo89, groug (20)

Oakland Raiders @ Denver Broncos

1. Rhombus, bakoninerfan, 49erLou, nocal81(Vincent) (2)
2. howtheyscored, bhbf08 (4)
3. mcwagner, RJames, houdeaney, wjackalope, Ninerfromacrossthepond, David Fucillo (6)
4. Haggardninja, mpotter14, jpgarfunkle (8)
5. AKinferno (10)

Dallas Cowboys @ New York Jets

1. Drew Kerr (PERFECT)
2. bakoninerfan, Ninerfromacrossthepond (2)
3. sf49ers123, Ten-Man, houdeaney, Stupifyed (6)
4. PHUT!, Rhombus, mcwagner, Dub4lif3, Ni9er, mpotter14, wjackalope, mountaindew77, utah9er, nocal81(Vincent) (8)
5. benna11 (12)

Philadelphia Eagles @ St. Louis Rams

1. Rhombus, bakoninerfan, Ten-Man, mikeinsp, Stupifyed (6)
2. McTee, RJames, SanFranciscoKnights, Dub4lif3, Rossalex, 49erLou, EcERyda69, bhbf08, mountaindew77, nocal81(Vincent), San Fran Niners, imjuliooo89 (8)
3. manraj7, Drew Kerr, benna11, LASVEGASNINER, Edggy, ZeroIndulgence, razertuc, Ninerfromacrossthepond, renke81, Rabbit T, Andrew Davidson, Alligator Arms, leaping_larry, David Fucillo, AKinferno (14)
4. PHUT!, grantmp, Haggardninja, supraman, MRandolph, houdeaney, illini49er, mpotter14 (16)
5. teekay, wjackalope, neder, Chukwamu (20)

Detroit Lions @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers

1. Haggardninja (PERFECT)
2. Ten-Man, teekay, EcERyda69, nostocksjustbonds (2)
3. manraj7, SanFranciscoKnights, jbrown63, LASVEGASNINER, MRandolph, houdeaney, Rossalex, djs9989, MATTCW, bhbf08, wjackalope, razertuc, mountaindew77, neder, Rabbit T (6)
4. Rhombus, danknerd49, SpurredOn, Ni9er, Edggy, sundaysfinest, bonbrillio, renke81, nocal81(Vincent), Chukwamu (8)
5. Dub4lif3, Stupifyed, Andrew Davidson (12)

The Week's Big 5 Prognosticators

1. bhbf08 - Who?
2. bakoninerfan - Huh?
3. Rhombus - Mmmmmm?
4. nocal81(Vincent) - outwitted by Bleacher Report /facepalm
5. mountaindew77 - Yaaaa Dew!!!

Week 1 Big Board Predictions (check your scores)

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.