Halftime with Hailey

You can bet on it. Every September I’m that annoying person asking you if you want to join my NFL pool. To me, it’s just routine every year, and I can’t imagine going the season without doing my research each week. And it’s nice to have a reason to follow a sport so closely.

I’m always surprised when a lot of people say no to me. They don’t want to join my pool. They give me excuses about not having enough time, or they tell me they don’t follow the NFL.

You might even be in the same boat. So maybe you don’t know anything about the NFL, but I think joining a pool and being competitive with your friends is an awesome opportunity to learn about a sport.

Honestly, I didn’t know much about football until my family decided to create our own pool with just the four of us.

Don’t get me wrong. I have always enjoyed watching football. I’ve been a Seattle Seahawks fan for as long as I can remember, but joining the pool made me interested in other things that were going on in the league. I wasn’t just making blind picks anymore—I was researching and paying attention to other games. I even won that first year.

We didn’t put money on it—it was purely for bragging rights, but for my Type A personality, that was enough. I was hooked, and I’ve never looked back.

For our pool, we like to make sure it’s inclusive. We don’t make picks against the spread, and we don’t have to pick scores or anything complicated like that. All we do is pick straight winners. You don’t need to know anything about football to guess who you think might win a game. One year my mom made picks according to which team she thought had the better team co- lours.

Admittedly, I didn’t have the best season this year. I’m not a profession- al, but none of the other people in my pool are either, and that’s what makes it fun.

Each year I have at least one person who decides to join the pool even if they don’t know that much about the league. And each year, it’s that person who has the most fun during the season. They discover that the NFL is wildly unpredictable and that levels the playing field.

So if you want to learn more about the NFL, have a little fun, or compete for year-long bragging rights, say yes to that annoying person next September.

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