Playoff bracket

A playoff bracket is the simplest pool there is to run and the easiest one to get wrong on paper. Fourteen teams go in, eleven games get played, and everybody in the office writes down who they think wins each one. Whoever calls the most is ahead; whoever calls the last game right usually takes it.

Here you tap a team to advance it. The next round redraws itself as you go, which matters more than it sounds — football brackets reseed after the first round rather than running on fixed lines like a basketball bracket. Pick an upset and the whole side of the draw rearranges.

Two ways people run this as a pool. One point a game is the friendly version: everyone fills in a bracket before the wild card round, one point per correct winner, and ties broken by whoever called the championship. Weighted rounds is the version that stays interesting — one point in the wild card round, two in the divisional, three in the conference championships, four for the title — because somebody who had a bad opening weekend is still alive in week three.

Whichever you pick, get every bracket in before the first kickoff and keep a copy. Exporting the sheet as an image and dropping it in the group chat is enough of a record; it is time-stamped by the chat and nobody can quietly revise a pick.

Want the seeding rules spelled out? The NFL bracket page covers byes and reseeding. Want blanks to hand around a room? Print an empty one. Still working out who is even in? Clinching scenarios.