Getting Started and Choosing a Pool Type

Only Pools is for private NFL prediction Pools. Every Pool has one Pool Season, one Pool type, one shared Pool Ruleset, and its own membership.

Use My Pools as your home base. It shows every Pool you belong to, your standing and pick status, and the next action available to you. Archived Pools are hidden by default; choose Show archived when you need one.

Choose a Pool type

Only Pools supports two formats:

• Survivor — choose one NFL team each included week. A win keeps you Alive. A loss, tie, or missing required pick eliminates you. You cannot use the same team twice in one Pool.
• Confidence — predict the winner of every required game, then assign each game a unique confidence value. Correct picks earn their assigned value. Weekly and Season Standings track the results.

The Pool type cannot change after creation. If you are deciding which one to run, choose Survivor for one consequential choice each week and Confidence for a full Pick Sheet with weekly point totals.

If you run a Pool

1. Open My Pools and choose Create Pool.
2. Select Survivor or Confidence and a Pick Lock mode. Competition always starts at Week 1.
3. Open the Pool’s Pool section to create and share its Pool Invite.
4. Use the same section to manage Members, Admins, ownership, archival, and the Pool Audit.
5. Make your own picks from Board just like every other Participant.

Start with Create a Pool and Reuse a Template, then read Invite People and Join a Pool.

If you play in a Pool

1. Open the Pool Invite supplied by its Owner or Admin.
2. Sign in with a verified email address and phone number.
3. Review the contact-visibility disclosure and choose Accept invite.
4. Open Board and make your pick. Changes save automatically.
5. Open Standings to follow official results and ranks.

Read Use the Week Board, then continue with Make Survivor Picks or Make Confidence Picks.

Find your way around

Inside a Pool, navigation has three sections:

• Board is where you move between available Pool Weeks and make picks.
• Standings shows official weekly or season results appropriate to the Pool type.
• Pool shows Members, roles, invitations, administrative actions, reports, and audit events.

On a smaller screen these appear as navigation chips. On a larger screen they appear in the Pool sidebar. Help returns you to these guides without changing anything in your Pool.

Important terms

Only Pools uses Pool Owner, Pool Admin, and Pool Member for roles. Everyone competing is a Participant. A Pick Lock is the irreversible point after which a pick cannot be submitted or changed. A Verified Result is an official result that can affect standings; a projected result is informational only.

The Pool Rules and Lifecycle reference explains the complete user-facing vocabulary.