Let me start again with housekeeping. Much of this was mentioned last week, and I am repeating it for the new readers and participants. As I mentioned at the beginning of the season in Passing the Torch, I will be working with One.Cool.Customer on the new BTB contest, Pick 256.

Each Tuesday, I will give a detailed report of how we did, individually and collectively. O.C.C. will give a summary of the top performers for the week and overall. He will post the link for the week's contest. Here are two updates:

• He will be recycling the same link each week, and not generate a new link. So, you may bookmark the link and begin posting your picks anytime on Tuesday. You don't need to wait for him or me to provide a new link or wait for our Tuesday posts to be published.
  
• Coty Saxman helped him develop some code that will "grab" your username and auto-fill your entry with your correctly spelled username. That will only work on links from one of O.C.C's pages. That JavaScript technology is unavailable on FanPosts. I will post the same link - here - but you will have to fill in your own username. Use the link on O.C.C's page instead.

Each week, early on Tuesday morning (O.C.C is in Germany; he is active while most of us are dreaming of sleeping) the link will be activated, and you may begin posting and editing your entries for the upcoming weekend. After the Thursday kickoff, the link will be deactivated. All of our entries will be loaded into a spreadsheet and he will begin preparing the next week's contest.

Earlier on Thursday, O.C.C will also post the picks of the Front Page Writers, and give a reminder that all new picks need to be in before Thursday kickoff. That's one of the main differences between Pick 256 and KD's 10-for-10 Contest. You may not omit games, and must make picks in all games before any kick off. So, there will be a Thursday deadline - usually in the evening, but earlier on Thanksgiving. Here is his post from week #1, and his post from week #2.

In the final post of the week (sometime Friday or Saturday), O.C.C will post a link to download the spreadsheet that is automatically generated from all of your entries. This lets you follow along and keep score - you and your fellow participants. Here is that post from week #1, and here is that post from week #2. With these two spreadsheets (week #1 spreadsheet and week #2 spreadsheet), you may join me in tracking yourself and everyone else this season. Or, you may just continue reading and let me do the work for you.

Housekeeping out of the way... Still here with me? Let's go.

We almost set a record total in week #1 with 467 individual participants in Pick 256. Not everyone made it back, but we had 358 played this week. Of those, 54 were new. So, we are now tracking 521 individual players. Wow!

Since everyone has to submit a pick for each game, there were 358 picks for each game (except, one lost his Thursday pick because it was submitted late; however, O.C.C's grace allowed the other fifteen picks to stand). We had some clear preferences in all but one of the contests. Only the Jaguars-Redskins was a tossup (184-174 picking the Skins). No game was unanimous, although three games had fewer than ten picks for one team. Our biggest win: 354-4 picking the Broncos over the Chiefs; our biggest loss: 9-349 picking the Browns over the winless Saints.

The first two or three weeks, we tend to pick winners based on reputation (or last year's record). It takes a while to catch on to this year's achievers, and this year's underachievers.

Here's how we did in week #2 picking each game (sorted by our wins - most down to least):

We had the exact consensus picks as the Front-Page Writers (same majority preference for each game) in week #1, and entered week #2 tied at 10-6. Ever here how one vote matters? Five of the FPWs picked Buffalo, and four picked Miami. Over 70% of us picked Miami. Our other fifteen consensus picks were identical. So, by the strength of one of the FPWs, they will take a one-game lead over us after two weeks (19-13 to 18-14).

Our consensus was no better than our individual scores. Our average individual score for the week was 8.03, and our consensus was 8-8. We were doing all right through the early games, but then we missed both of the late FOX games (Rams over Bucs and Chargers over Seahawks). Then, we finished the weekend in style by going all in for the night game hosts, both of whom blew second half leads and lost.

angie'sdad needs to stay in the sunlight. He was the star of the weekend, with a sparkling 12-2 record going into the night games, and had every right to feel confident that the heavy-favorite home teams would prevail, and he would finish with 14. Unfortunately, both lost. Three players caught him for top week #2 scores, and join him at 12 - the same top score as last week.

Congratulations to angie'sdad, Dcowboy, ssgcizzle82, and Trufus for surviving all the trap games and getting 12 right. 16 more finished with eleven. Here are all 358 scores from week #2, sorted alphabetically by score:

After a nineteen-way tie in week #1, I certainly expected the logjam at the top to continue through week #2. It is tight at the top, but it isn't tied. After posting a top score this week, and a near-top score last week, our new leader stands alone with 23. Congratulations, Dcowboy, and well-done. You have five on your heels, and thirty-nine within three of the lead. So, keep the hammer down, and let's see if we can match your pace.

[Edit: I inadvertantly counted week #1 "cowboy of the north" and week #2 "cowboyofthenorth" as two different individuals. Instead of two different players, one with 10 the other with 9, I have fixed all the numbers on this FanPost. We now have "only" 521 individual participants, and cowboyofthenorth is listed only once, with his total score of 19.

Please check your scores. Are there any others among you that played both weeks and had your scores separated into two entities?

Hopefully, everyone will begin to use the autofill when entering usernames, and this won't happen again.]

Here are all 521 scores (everyone who played week #1, week #2, or both), sorted alphabetically by score:

Look for O.C.C's Pick 256 newest post today; look for the Front Page Writers' picks to be published on Thursday morning; and get your picks in for week #3 before Thursday night.