In the non spread league you just pick winners straight up.
In a spread league it's a little different. For example, this Thursday night's opener is the Pittsburgh Steelers
and Tennessee Titans.
Yahoo lists the matchup like this:
Favorite Underdog Final
Pittsburgh vs Tennessee 6.0
The Final
is the actual spread of the game. It means that Pittsburgh is favored to win this game by 6 points. If you choose Pittsburgh, your pick is considered correct only if Pittsburgh wins by more
than the spread. In this case, they'd need to win by more than 6 points. If they win by less than 6 points or lose the game outright, your pick would be wrong.
If you choose Tennessee then your pick would be correct under two conditions:
- if Tennessee beats Pittsburgh outright OR
- if Tennessee loses by less than 6 points.
If Pittsburgh wins by 6 points (exactly the spread) it's considered a push and nobody gets any points.
Does that clear it up?
I generally enjoy the spread format more because it makes certain games much more difficult to pick. For example, New Orleans is the favorite over Detroit by 13 points in week 1. In a non-spread league, most likely everyone except the most die-hard Detroit fan will pick New Orleans. Games like this end up being a wash because the entire group picks the same team. Everyone either gets a point or gets nothing and that does little to change the standings.
However, in a spread league it makes New Orleans vs Detroit a difficult pick. We all know New Orleans is probably gonna win, but the question now becomes "are they good enough to win by 14 points or more?" That's a tough call there.