Cheesestradamus Week -4: Packers @ Browns

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment you've all been waiting for. The 2011 season kicks off on Saturday night as the Packers travel to Cleveland for the preseason opener against the Browns. But that doesn't excite you as much as the premiere of Acme Packing Company's weekly prediction contest, Cheesestradamus!

Frequent readers of Brew Crew Ball will notice some similarities to their contest, "Prognostikeggers," which in turn was inspired by a contest at the Florida Marlins' blog, Fish Stripes. With the blessing of 'Keggers commissioner, -JP-, I have borrowed some of the basic concepts, and we'll tweak them as necessary during the preseason in order to make it translate well to the 16-game schedule of the NFL. Suggestions, complaints, and other comments will be appreciated as we work through the kinks over the next four games.

Here's what to expect. Each week you'll make 8 predictions. These will consist of the score for both the Packers and their opponent, a few predictions about the Packers' top performers in the game, and a bonus prediction of your choice.

Click here to submit your predictions for Preseason Week 1 - Packers @ Browns

Click here to check everyone's predictions for this week

More details about the contest to come after the jump.

Each prediction you make will be worth up to 3 points, giving a maximum possible total of 24 points per week. Picking a team's score exactly right will net you the maximum of 3 points, if you're within a point you'll earn 2, and if you're off by two you'll get a single point. Each of the other predictions will award exactly 3 points for correct answers (unless otherwise specified).

Prognostikeggers players will notice that I'm not offering different point levels for bonus predictions of varying probability. All I ask is that your bonus prediction would be likely to occur in no more than 1/3 of games. I'll be using players' career histories, recent games and trends, and other information to judge whether or not a prediction is acceptable. If you ever have a question about whether a bonus prediction qualifies, feel free to ask in the comments or email me, and I'll be happy to look into it.

Again, for the preseason we'll be ironing out the details and issues with the contest before it really takes hold for the season opener against the Saints. I expect that I'll have each week's Cheesestradamus post a few days ahead of time - I'm expecting to post them on Thursday evenings so everyone has a few days to get their predictions in. I'll also do a recap post the day after the game, after I get to analyze all the results and tally up the points. At this time, the posts will fall under the "Miscellaneous" category at the left in case a post gets bumped from the front page and you need to find it. EDIT: Brandon has graciously amused me by creating a "Cheesestradamus" category, so it'll be even easier to keep track of the posts!

In the meantime, submit your predictions for Saturday, leave some feedback if you have some, and let's enjoy some FOOTBALL!