With only one week remaining until the season starts, it's time to introduce Year Two of the Stampede Blue Prediction Contest.  It is going to work about the same as last year, but I've added a couple things to encourage more participation, and give bragging rights to more people.  Here's the lowdown:

• Each week on Wednesday afternoon, I'll have the previous week's results, as well as the next week's site for picks.  This will give everyone plenty of time to get picks in.  Like last  year, I'll be using Google Docs for the picks.
  
• Last year it was only Against the Spread (ATS).  This year, I'm expanding it to both ATS and Straight Up (SU), and everyone is welcome to participate in both.  All you have to do is specify on the page which one you are picking, and I'll separate them out.  I'll give the results for both.  Just be aware though, that if your Straight Up picks are below anyone picking ATS, you'll probably be called out (all in fun of course).
• The reason I'm not using Yahoo! (or any other site for picks) is so that we can compare ourselves to the "Experts" around the Interwebs.  Last year I included writers from CBS, Yahoo!, USA Today, and ESPN.  Here's where I'm going to ask for some help.  If you see some "expert" with picks, either ATS or SU, enter them in.  It takes about 30 seconds, and it will help me out tremendously.
• I'll be including Home/Away and Favorite/Underdog, as well as a Coin Toss.  I'd also like to have a volunteer (who is going to be able to do this for the entire season) who owns Madden 10 to simulate the games each week and report back on those winners.
• Each week (except this one) I'll be using the lines from the CBS Experts pick site.  They don't have the lines up yet for Week 1.
• I'm going to work on a way to view your picks after you submit them, but right now it doesn't work.  I'll try my best to post the link to everyone's picks on Sunday after the early games start.

Last year's ATS winner was TouchdownMonkey, who got 140/256 games correct, so we'll see how well she does this year.  We also had 10 guys and gals who participated in all 17 weeks.  Let's try to double that this year. 

I'm about 98% sure I'm going to be away from a computer from this Friday morning until the afternoon of the 13th, so if you have any questions, ask them early, or else I won't see them.  Good Luck to everyone!

Link for Stampede Blue 2009 Prediction Contest - Week 1