Using the Site

Basically the site is pretty easy to use, after logging in you will be at the "MAIN MENU" where you'll see a series of buttons.

 

  1. To get started choose "WEEKLY PICKS". This is where you will enter your initial picks.
  2. If you want to change any of your picks choose "UPDATE PICKS".
  3. If you want to see what your record(s) or the league record is choose "VIEW RECORDS".
  4. If you want to see what picks your fellow competitors made for a game choose "VIEW PLAYER PICKS". (but only for games that have already started or completed)
  5. "CHANGE PASSWORD" is self explanitory.
  6. To see standings from past seasons choose "year SUMMARY".
  7. Finnaly, while you are logged in, DO NOT use the browser buttons to go from screen to screen, use the navigation built into each page in the site!  When you are finished  you should ALWAYS USE THE "LOGOFF" BUTTON! The Footballwizards is actually an online application, unlike a typical web site which most of us just close our browser when were done, the LOGOFF button will properly clean up resources such as releasing memory, session state data, user information, yada yada yada and a bunch of other boring technical stuff. Don't worry the world won't come to an end if you forget to, eventually the server will realize your done with your session and take care of everything. After logging out you'll be back at the home page where you started.

A few key items to keep in mind:

 

VERY IMPORTANT: Once you begin making your picks don't stop until you have made all of them and hit the "SUBMIT" button. You can always go back and change them if your not sure about a pick (provided the game hasn't started). You will see a message on the top of the screen next to the Weekly Picks header indicating if your picks were successfully recorded or not. There is a timeout on the server that will disconnect any sessions where it doesn't see any activity over a period of time. This is controlled by the ISP and last time I checked I think it is around 20 minutes. Also VERY IMPORTANT, at this time there is no other confirmation except the message at the top of the screen to let you know your picks were successfully accepted. The best way to verify your picks is to go into the Update Picks screen, select the week you just entered picks for, if your picks are displayed on the screen, they have been recorded in the database.

You can make your picks for any week(s) you like. I highly suggest that you make them EARLY in the week, or even a week or so ahead. You never know when there might be problems with the server or the internet or whatever. The point is that if you don't get your picks in for a week the application will charge you with a LOSS for every game for that week. That can be really hard to come back from. Once you begin making picks you have to make ALL the picks for that week. You can't leave some unselected and come back to them later, but you can change them after they've all been made. All games are scheduled in eastern standard time (EST), keep that in mind based on the timezone your located in. Once a game has started you will no longer be able to make a selection for that game! You will see NIT (Not In Time) next to the game, and this will be counted as not making a pick which will be counted as a loss.

For example, if you realize at 1:30pm on Sunday afternoon that you forgot to make your picks for the week, once you go to the "Weekly Picks" page you will see NIT for all of the 1:00pm games. However, if there are games that start later than the current time, like 4:05pm, you will be able to enter your picks for the remaining games. So at least you'll have a chance on those games.

On both the Weekly Picks and Update Picks screens you'll have a chance to print out a copy of your picks so you can keep track of how your doing.

The "Update Picks" page works pretty much the same way. You can change your picks as much as you like until the game starts.

In order to keep things fair you will only be able to see the picks that other players have made for any games that have already started and also games that have been previously played (any prior week(s)).  So you won't have to wait until all of the games have been played and recorded into the system to see how your doing against your competition!  This is a new feature for 2010.

NFL Flexible Scheduling

TThe NFL can make certain game time scheduling changes according to their flexible scheduling rules.  As soon as I am aware of any game changes made by the NFL I will adjust the game schedule table to reflect the changes.