Most Super Bowl Pick'em Sheets Suck

Posted on February 7th, 2026.

Every year we have friends over for the Super Bowl, and every year I put together a little pick'em sheet for everyone to fill out. It's a fun way to keep people, regardless of their team alliances or football knowledge, engaged throughout the game.

A few years ago, I went looking online for inspiration or a template I could use. What I found was... not great. Actually, most of what's out there is pretty bad. And the more I looked, the more I realized that the people making these sheets are just copy/pasting the prop bet list from Fanduel. They're designing them like fantasy football stat projection contests instead of party games.

So I started putting together my own, and along the way I've developed some opinions about what makes a pick'em sheet actually fun versus what makes it a chore. Let me show you what I mean.

The Problem with Most Pick'em Sheets

Here's an actual question from a sheet I found for this year's Super Bowl:

"Who will have the most receiving yards?"
Options: Jackson Smith-Njigba / Stefon Diggs / Cooper Kupp / Kayshon Boutte / Other

This question has a few problems. First, you can't know the answer until you check the box score after the game. You're not going to be tracking receiving yards in your head while eating buffalo chicken dip. Second, it's basically a football knowledge test. If you don't know who these players are or how they've performed this season, you're just guessing randomly. And third, there's an "Other" option, which means even if you do your research, some tight end could come out of nowhere and invalidate everyone's pick.

Here's another one I saw:

"Over/Under 73.5 — Kenneth Walker III rushing yards"

Again, you need to be checking the stats during/after the game to resolve this. And 73.5 is such a weirdly specific number that it's clearly been pulled from some betting line, which is fine if you're gambling, but doesn't work well for a casual party game.

Or how about this gem:

"Super Bowl MVP"
Options: Drake Maye / Rhamondre Stevenson / Stefon Diggs / Sam Darnold / Jackson Smith-Njigba / Kenneth Walker III / Hunter Henry / Kayshon Boutte / Other

Eight options plus "Other." That's not a pick'em question, that's a multiple choice exam. The odds of randomly guessing right are terrible, which means the football nerds have a massive advantage over everyone else at the party.

One sheet I found had 45 questions, most of them player-specific stat over/unders. At that point you're not hosting a Super Bowl party, you're administering a standardized test.

What Actually Makes a Good Question

After years of refining my own sheets, I've landed on a few principles that I think make the difference between a fun party game and something more akin to a homework assignment.

Aim for 50/50 (or close to it)

The best questions are essentially coin flips. Not because randomness is fun, but because it levels the playing field. When a question is close to 50/50, the person who watches every NFL game has roughly the same odds as the person who just learned what a first down is.

"Will the coin toss be heads or tails?" is the perfect pick'em question. It's a true 50/50, everyone understands it, and no amount of football knowledge helps you.

Obviously you can't make every question literally a coin flip, but you can get close:

Compare these to "Who will have the most rushing yards?" with four options plus "Other." That's maybe a 20% chance of getting it right if you know nothing, versus the football fan who knows the snap counts and usage rates.

One more thing on this: make sure your options are exhaustive. Never include an "Other" option, and don't list choices that don't cover all possibilities. If you ask "What color will the Gatorade be: red, yellow, or blue?" and it ends up being orange, everyone loses and that's annoying. Either list every realistic option, or make it a fill-in-the-blank. The same goes for questions like "First turnover: fumble, interception, or turnover on downs?" That actually does cover everything, so you're good. But if you're not sure your options are exhaustive, just make it open-ended.

Make it easy to verify by watching

This is huge. The best questions resolve themselves obviously, in real time, just by watching the game.

"Will a quarterback score a rushing touchdown?" — You'll see it happen. The whole room will react.

"Will any kick hit the upright or crossbar?" — Everyone will know immediately when it happens.

"Will Bad Bunny wear sunglasses during the halftime show?" — Obvious as you watch his performance.

Now compare that to "Over/Under 231.5 Sam Darnold passing yards." You'd need to pause the party, pull up the ESPN app, and check the stats. By that point, half your guests are heading home or have completely forgotten they even filled out a sheet.

A good rule of thumb: if you have to look something up to know the answer, it's probably not a great question for a casual party sheet.

Spread the action throughout the game

One sheet I saw was almost entirely player stat over/unders: rushing yards, receiving yards, completions. None of that stuff resolves until you pull up the box score after the game is over. So for four hours, there's nothing to check, nothing to cheer for, and then suddenly you're supposed to care about the results when you're packing up leftover wings.

A better approach is to design your sheet so answers reveal themselves throughout the broadcast:

Pre-game: Coin toss, national anthem length, what the singer is wearing

First quarter: Touchback on opening kick, first score (TD or FG), first team to call timeout

First half: Will the broadcast show the Golden Gate Bridge? Will they replay a famous moment from the teams' history?

Halftime: Performer questions: outfit, songs, special guests

Second half: 2-point conversion, defensive touchdown, longest field goal distance

End of game: Gatorade color, MVP, final score tiebreaker

When you spread it out like this, there are natural moments throughout the party to check results, compare scores, and give people something to root for beyond just the final outcome.

Avoid questions with too many options

Two options is ideal. Three is fine. Four is pushing it. Eight options plus "Other" is absurd.

When you give people too many choices, you're diluting their odds of being right even if they make a smart pick. And with an "Other" option, you're essentially telling them that their informed choice might not even matter.

If you want to do a fill-in-the-blank question (like "Name a player who will score a touchdown"), that's fine. Make it worth more points to compensate for the difficulty. But listing out eight specific players and asking people to pick one? That's not fun, that's frustrating.

Don't require football expertise to have a chance

This is really the core of it. If your sheet is designed so that the person who follows the NFL closely will crush everyone else, you haven't made a party game, you've made a trivia contest.

The whole point is that your friend who's there for the halftime show and the seven-layer dip should have a legitimate shot at winning. That happens when your questions are balanced, observable, and don't reward obscure football knowledge.

Some of my favorite questions are ones that feel like they might reward expertise but actually don't:

A Few Other Things I've Learned

Be careful with over/unders. I mostly avoid them because they tend to require stat-checking, but I make a few exceptions. Total points scored is a classic, everyone gets it. Jersey number of the first touchdown scorer works because you can literally see the number on the screen when it happens. And national anthem length is probably the most famous weird Super Bowl prop bet, so I include it but keep the number simple: over/under 2 minutes. Not some oddly specific number like 118.5 seconds, just 2 minutes, which anyone can wrap their head around. That one has actually become a fun ritual at my party. I put a big timer on an iPad in front of the TV, and when the anthem starts, I hit go. Everyone gathers around watching the clock while they listen, and it's a nice way to kick things off and get people invested in the sheet right from the start.

Wording matters. Ambiguous questions cause confusion. "Will Bad Bunny perform in English?" sounds simple until someone filling out the sheet asks, "Wait, does it count if he just says 'Let's go, San Francisco!' between songs? What about a song that's mostly Spanish but has one English word?" You want people to understand exactly what they're picking and how you'll score it. Be specific: "Will Bad Bunny wear sunglasses at any point during his performance?" Either he does or he doesn't, no confusion.

Have fun with it. Some questions earn their place because they're funny, not because they're perfectly balanced. This year I included "Will Bad Bunny show nipple during the halftime show?" a cheeky callback to the Janet Jackson incident. It gets a laugh when people read the sheet, and that's worth something.

Name your questions. "The Doink Special: Will any kick hit the upright or crossbar?" is more memorable than just asking the question straight. Little touches like this make the sheet feel like an event, not a form.

How I structure points. The two classic questions, game winner and total points over/under, are worth 3 points each. They're the main event. Everything else is 1 point. I also like to include a few fill-in-the-blank questions worth 2 points to break up the yes/no monotony and let people get creative. The key with those is picking things that don't require football knowledge, "What color liquid will be poured on the winning coach?" works great. "Name a player who will score a touchdown" doesn't, because anyone who doesn't follow the NFL is stuck staring at a blank line.

Putting It All Together

Here's my sheet for this year's game:

Download my 2026 pick'em sheet →

You'll notice it's mostly yes/no questions and two-option picks. There are a few fill-in-the-blanks worth extra points. The questions are spread from pre-game through the final whistle. And while some questions reference specific players or scenarios, none of them require you to know snap counts or target shares to have a reasonable opinion.

The person at your party who couldn't name either starting quarterback should have a fighting chance against your friend who runs a dynasty fantasy league. That's the goal.

So before you grab some template off the internet with 45 player prop over/unders, consider whether you're making a party game or a pop quiz. Your guests will thank you.

Feel free to steal my sheet, tweak it, or make your own from scratch using these principles. The important thing is that everyone at your party, football junkie or not, has fun and feels like they're part of the action.

Calvin playing football