There have been no changes from last year... unless we get up to 20 people playing, in which case I'll let you know the new winnings distribution. Please do take a minute to read them anyway. MONEY: $20 a head. I have money only from Dave right now. I'll be a bit of a stickler on this one -- if I don't have your $20 by Saturday, Sep. 20th (that's the day before Week 3), you're booted. Winnings will be winner take all, unless we get up to 20 or more people, in which case winnings will be divided among the top three finishers in something like a 70/20/10 fashion to be announced.

Send the money to me at *** --or just hand me the money if you're going to see me.

LINES: Every week, sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday (depending wholly on when I remember... usually it's Tuesday morning) I will log onto USA Today's lines site (http://covers.usatoday.com/data/odds.aspx#nfl). I have picked this site because they have multiple lines, so they'll more likely have something for us by Tuesday. I will take the first spread given on the RIGHT, but NOT the opening line (the one on the far left). If there's something wrong with the USA Today site and I can't access it, I'll look for Yahoo or ESPN. If there's internet trouble or something, I'll check the morning newspaper on Wednesday.

We're only going with the number I see when I log in to look on Tuesday morning (or Tuesday afternoon, or whenever I look first), and that won't change under any circumstances. So if, when I check on Tuesday, New England is favored by 17 over Miami, and then Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Bill Belichick, and the entire Patriots defense come down with botulism from food served at a team function on Wednesday, the line will remain 17 in our pool even as it changes (or is removed) in Vegas.

If any of this is unreadable or unclear, let me know and I'll give it another crack.

In the event that the USA Today site has a game with no line posted when I first look, I'll keep looking until Thursday. If a line is posted, before then, I will add it to the list with the first number I see. If there's no line by Thursday, that game is not in play.

Pick 'em games are also not in play.

If I haven't sent out lines by Tuesday evening, feel free to send me a friendly reminder via email. Occasionally, life will intervene and I'll stone-cold forget.

PICKS: Each week, you will select one and only one underdog. If that underdog wins outright, you win the number of points they were an underdog by. Do you swing for the fences with a prohibitive underdog? Or do you try to get 1-3 easier points per week? Your call.

DEADLINE: *YES, I DO ENFORCE THIS. The deadline for getting your pick in is midnight Pacific time on Saturday night/Sunday morning. There is a grace period -- if you have the pick in by the time I send the picks out on Sunday morning, you got away with your tardiness. But if I send the picks out and you desperately try to email in a pick afterwards, tough. It's an unfair advantage to make your pick after seeing everyone else's pick, so I do enforce this rule. So -- seriously, don't mess with the grace period. Do it by Saturday midnight.

If you're picking a Thursday or Saturday game, obviously, you have to pick that one before that game kicks off.

HOW TO SEND THE PICKS OUT: Please write a sentence or two in the body of your email before disclosing who your picks are. If your email simply says "San Francisco" in it, I see that in my Gmail preview bar. It's not fair for me to know who you're picking. So write a little bit of text (NOT spaces or returns!). Dave sends friendly greetings. Susan sends song lyrics, usually complaining about Kelsey. My brother sends the dirtiest limericks I have ever seen. But in doing so, they prevent me from seeing their picks until I make my own pick. I promise not to look at your selections until I have made mine. If I'm in the running late in the year, I may even have somebody else collect picks just so that those in the running with me can be relaxed and know I'm not peeking.

In the event you're having computer trouble, feel free to phone in your pick to me at ***. You can call before 11PM on Saturday or between 8:30 and 9:00 AM on Sunday with a computer-emergency phone pick.

WINNER: The competition will begin week one this year, and will stretch all the way through and including the weekend of the AFC and NFC Championship games. Whoever has the most points at the end is the winner (and second and third places will be determined then as well). In the event of a tie, well, I'm too lazy to invent a tiebreaker, so we'll just divide up the relevant winnings equally between tied players.

WHAT TO DO NOW: We should know a little bit about each other. Between now and Tuesday, you can either send me a biography of yourself, or give me permission to use a random Wikipedia page as your biography.

Additionally, if you want to invite anyone else in, I'll take anyone who has their money to me by the 20th, even if they've missed the first two weeks.