Back again for another year is the annual 2023 Niners Nation Weekly Prediction Contest. Found only here at NN, we provide you with a unique option of a limited 6-game weekly pick ‘em contest with a bit of a twist: You predict the winner and score, and get points based your accurate score prediction.

Better than a 16-game straight up pick ‘em contest because we offer a manageable six games each week, and it provides for some exciting score watching on Sundays!

For those who have never played, we pick six games each week, including the weekly 49ers and SNF games, other Sunday games, and an occasional TNF and MNF game. You predict the winner and score of each game, and those closest to the actual score accrue weekly and cumulative points throughout the season. At the end of the season we take the Top 16 contestants and run a Top 16 Playoff contest to determine the season individual Champion. For those missing the cut, we will do a separate Playoff contest Open tournament. Please take the time to read the rules and ask any questions you might have. Good luck to everyone this season.

Here's a link to last season's 2022 results and winners: 2022 Niners Nation Super Bowl Results post

20-24 was the most popular score prediction last season, occurring 158 times and garnering a total 158 points for players (1.0 pts/prediction).

Last season's best value score was 19-21, with the highest Points per prediction (2.10 pts/prediction).

2023 Prediction Contest Rules & Guidelines

1. 6 Games per Week - each week NN will select six NFL games for you to pick the winner and score. One of the six games will be the 49ers game (except the Week 9 Bye). The other 5 games typically consist of a mix of Sunday games (morning and/or afternoon), the Sunday Night Football Game, and an occasional Monday Night Football Game (when there is key marquee matchup). The games are selected at the discretion of the NN editor. Marc DeLucchi will be our Niners Nation host editor picking the games and posting the weekly Prediction Games thread.
2. 49ers TNF Game or Bonus 7th Game - This year we have two TNF games. For the 49ers Week 3 TNF game vs NYG and the Week 12 TNF game @ SEA, we will include this TNF game and provide an optional bonus 7th game to predict for the week. You can either predict a score for the 49ers TNF games OR predict the score of the Bonus 7th games, but you cannot predict both.
3. Weekly Picks on the Main Page - NN will post the weekly Prediction Contest games on a main page thread starting on Thursday of each week. You submit your scores in the required format for that week as a comment in that weekly thread. We will run the prediction contest in all Weeks 1 through 18, including the Week 9 49ers bye week, and continue throughout the post-season.
4. Weekly Results in the FanPost Section - weekly results will be posted as a FanPost. If you believe an error occurred scoring your prediction, please post a comment describing the discrepancy in the Scoring Results FanPost thread. Any score changes resulting from a scoring error will be corrected the following week.
5. Prediction Scores Deadline - Prediction Scores must be submitted before the official game kickoff time or they will not be counted. The time-stamp of your post counts as your prediction entry time. You may change your original prediction prior to game time but please try to do so as a Reply to your original score post.
6. Prediction Score Format - the Prediction Score Format will be required to closely follow as it cuts down on scoring errors, discussed in more detail below.
7. Contest Format - Each week the Scoring Result FanPost will announce the Top Winner/s of the week and the Overall Cumulative Points Leader/s. At the end of the 2023 Regular Season we will announce the Top 16 scorers who will move on in a separate post-season contest for individual bragging rights. The Top 16 cumulative scorers will face-off in playoff contest predicting the NFL Playoff games. During the Playoffs, the bottom 4 contestants will be eliminated each week until we crown a Prediction Contest Champion at the conclusion of the Super Bowl. Those players not included in the Top 16 playoff pool are invited to play in a separate Prediction Redemption Open Tournament for the playoffs, run like the regular season (no weekly eliminations, and the top Playoff games points earner is the Redemption Tournament champion).
8. Anyone with a ninersnation.com account is invited play and can join at any time.
9. There are no prizes for participating in this contest, just bragging rights and noteworthy mention for any winners.

Example of Prediction Score Format

To make the scoring easier to record and to avoid potential discrepancies with scoring posts, there is a scoring post format that must be followed. If you fail to follow this format, any incorrectly formatted scores for the week may be disqualified. I will attempt to alert anyone of a scoring discrepancy prior to game time. Please review the formatting rules before posting your results.

The format is: Visiting Team @ Home Team: Visiting Team score - Home Team score

Using the San Francisco @ Pittsburgh Week 1 game as an example, if you think San Francisco will win 24-14, the required format is: San Francisco @ Pittsburg: 24 - 14

If you think Pittsburgh will win 24-14, the required format is: San Francisco @ Pittsburgh: 14 - 24

A bold highlight of the intended winning team (if provided) will override a conflicting score format. A bold highlight of the intended winning team is not necessary but helps clarify the winning team in case of an error in the score format, for example:

San Francisco @ Pittsburgh: 14 - 24 would be scored as San Francisco winning 24 - 14

You can post scoring predictions at any time up until the start of the official game time. Scores must post by the start of the official game time or will be considered late and not counted in the scoring totals.

You can change your scoring predictions multiple times if needed. If you make a mistake in the formatting, we will try to reply to your post reminding you to correct or clarify prior to game time. Changes should be made as a reply to your original post. For any multiple/conflicting score posts, the latest time stamp will be used as the player's official post, and any prior scores will be overridden.

Scoring Explained

To qualify for scoring points, you first must predict the correct winner/s of any of the six weekly prediction games. No Subscores are generated and no points are awarded if the predicted winning team loses.

When you make a qualified prediction of the correct winner of a game, you get what we call a "Subscore." The Subscore is calculated based on your predicted score compared to the actual score. Your Subscore value is then compared with other contestants' Subscore values and ranked in ascending order for points as defined below.

Subscore - the subscore calculation involves 4 parts:

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

pPD = Predicted Point Differential - if the predicted score is 30-21, then the pPD = 30 - 21= 9

aPD = Actual Point Differential - if the actual score is 24-17, then the aPD = 24 - 17= 7

PD = |pPD - aPD| = |9| - |7| = 9 - 7 = 2

pPT = Predicted Point Total - if you predict a score of 30-21, the pPT = 51

aPT = Actual Point Total - if the actual game score is 24-17, then the aPT = 41

PT = |pPT - aPT| = |51 - 41| = 10

Subscore = PD + PT = |pPD - aPD| + |pPT - aPT| - You add the PD and PT values, Subscore = 2 + 10 = 12

Basically, the closer your Subscore is to zero, the better chance of getting points.

Perfect Score - for correctly picking the winning team and the exact actual score (subscore = 0), 10 points are awarded followed by 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0. There can be any number of perfect scores, each awarded 10 points. The lowest Subscores (including ties) will be each awarded points (i.e. there are possible multiple contestant points awarded for 10 points, 4 points, 3 points, 2 points and 1 point awarded).

No Perfect Score - if there are no perfect scores (no subscore = 0), then the lowest Subscores are awarded 5 points followed by 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0. The lowest Subscores (including ties) will be each awarded points (i.e. there are possible multiple contestant points awarded for 5 points, 4 points, 3 points, 2 points and 1 point awarded).

Bonus Points - additional bonus points can be earned by picking 4, 5 or 6 winners each week.

4 wins out of 6 games = 1 bonus point awarded and added to your points total.

5 wins out of 6 games = 2 bonus points awarded and added to your points total.

6 wins out of 6 games = 3 bonus points awarded and added to your points total.

Bonus points will be adjusted during the post-season playoffs with only 1 point awarded for 4 correct wins and 0 points for 3 or fewer wins.

Maximum Points (the Unicorn) - The maximum theoretical points in a week is 63 points (6 perfect scores = 60 points, plus 6 winners = 3 bonus points, total 63 points). An average week is anywhere from 8 to 10 points. The perfect week score of 63 points will never happen in our lifetime.

Minimum Points (the Whammy) - if you predict 6 games and earn zero points for the week, you qualify for the dubious distinction affectionately known as a "Whammy." This happens more than you would like, so predict carefully and strategically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyjLNt3EMTE