Rules & How It Works

Everything you need to know before you join — read this, then head to /join with your invite code.

How It Works

Fourth & Fail is a straight-up confidence pick'em pool. Every week, pick the straight-up winner of every NFL game — no point spread involved. Rank your picks by confidence: assign points counting down from 16, one number per game, using each number once, with your most-confident pick always worth 16. Get a pick right and you earn that many points; get it wrong and you earn zero. The week's high score can win a weekly prize, and the season-long total decides final standings and any season payout. It's a private, informal pool between friends — admission is entirely up to the commissioner, with no exceptions, and joining closes once Week 1 kicks off, so don't wait. Buy-in and prize amounts (if any) are set by the commissioner and tracked in the app, but money changes hands directly between players, not through the site. To play: get the invite code from the commissioner, sign up, and join before the season starts.

Official Rules

  1. 1. Joining & admission. Admission into this pool is entirely at the commissioner's discretion — having the invite code doesn't guarantee a spot, and there are no exceptions to who's let in or when. Joining also closes once the season starts: once Week 1's first game kicks off, no new players can join, and no former player who left can rejoin, for the rest of the season.
  2. 2. Format. Confidence pool, straight-up picks only — never against the spread. Every game you pick each week gets its own confidence value, each value used exactly once. Your most-confident pick is always worth 16, and the values count down from there, one per game. A full 16-game week uses 16 through 1; in a bye week the bottom numbers drop off instead (a 15-game week uses 16 through 2, a 14-game week 16 through 3).
  3. 3. Scoring. Pick the winner correctly and you earn the confidence points you put on that game. Pick wrong and you earn zero. (An actual tied game, if it ever happens, is voided — it counts for no one.)
  4. 4. Picking & locking. Each game locks on its own, a few minutes before its own kickoff — not the whole week at once. You can keep making or changing picks for any game that hasn't kicked off yet, even after earlier games that week have already started or finished. Once a game locks, that pick is final.
  5. 5. Partial weeks are fine. You don't have to submit a full week at once — save what you have and come back before each game's own kickoff to fill in the rest.
  6. 6. Missed picks cost your lowest number. If you don't pick a game before it locks, you score zero for that game and you forfeit your lowest remaining confidence value for the week (in a 15-game week with nothing else missed, that's your 2) — so an early weekday game you didn't get to in time doesn't wipe out your best number.
  7. 7. Weekly prize & tiebreaker. If the pool has a weekly prize, the player with the week's highest point total wins it. If two or more players tie for the week's high score, it's broken by everyone's predicted combined final score for the week's last game (usually Monday Night Football) — closest guess among the tied players wins. A tied player who never submitted a guess loses the tiebreak to any tied player who did; if none of the tied players guessed, the prize splits evenly.
  8. 8. Season standings & payouts. Season rank is total points across the whole season. Buy-in, weekly prize, and season payout amounts are set by the commissioner and shown on the Standings page — the app tracks who's paid in and who's been paid, but doesn't process any money itself; that happens directly between players.
  9. 9. Payment method & contact info. All buy-ins and payouts this season are handled through Zelle, arranged directly between you and the commissioner — the app never touches, stores, or moves any money; it only tracks who's marked as paid. Your account email is how the commissioner (and the app's own notifications) reach you about picks, results, and getting paid. Keep it accurate and actually check it: if the commissioner can't reach you because your email is wrong or unused, that can delay or jeopardize you getting paid, and that's on you to keep current, not on the pool.
  10. 10. Fair play. One account per person. Don't share your picks with other pool members before a game locks, and don't run multiple accounts to influence the tiebreaker or standings.
  11. 11. Changes. The commissioner may update these rules between seasons — the current version always lives at this page.