Strategy
NFL Week 4 Pick'em: 15 Games and a 9:30 AM Kickoff
Read this post in: Português
NFL Week 4 runs Thursday 1 October through Monday 5 October. Sixteen games, and fifteen still to pick once Thursday night is done.
It is also still the only thing on most pools’ boards. Liga MX does not play again until 9 October, LaLiga returns the same day and the Premier League on 10 October. For the next week and a half, the NFL is carrying mixed pools by itself.
There is one wrinkle in this week that Week 3 did not have, and it is worth reading before you set your deadline.
The complete Week 4 card
Times are Eastern, taken from our own schedule data.
Thursday, 1 October
| Time (ET) | Away | Home |
|---|---|---|
| 8:15 PM | Pittsburgh Steelers | Cleveland Browns |
Sunday, 4 October
| Time (ET) | Away | Home |
|---|---|---|
| 9:30 AM | Indianapolis Colts | Washington Commanders |
| 1:00 PM | New England Patriots | Buffalo Bills |
| 1:00 PM | New York Jets | Chicago Bears |
| 1:00 PM | Jacksonville Jaguars | Cincinnati Bengals |
| 1:00 PM | Arizona Cardinals | New York Giants |
| 1:00 PM | Los Angeles Rams | Philadelphia Eagles |
| 1:00 PM | Green Bay Packers | Tampa Bay Buccaneers |
| 1:00 PM | Tennessee Titans | Baltimore Ravens |
| 1:00 PM | Dallas Cowboys | Houston Texans |
| 4:05 PM | Miami Dolphins | Minnesota Vikings |
| 4:25 PM | Kansas City Chiefs | Las Vegas Raiders |
| 4:25 PM | Denver Broncos | San Francisco 49ers |
| 4:25 PM | Los Angeles Chargers | Seattle Seahawks |
| 8:20 PM | Detroit Lions | Carolina Panthers |
Monday, 5 October
| Time (ET) | Away | Home |
|---|---|---|
| 8:15 PM | Atlanta Falcons | New Orleans Saints |
The Thursday opener is confirmed on the NFL’s own Week 4 schedule page.
The 9:30 AM game is the whole story
Week 3 was simple to run: nine games kicked off together at 1:00 PM Sunday and the pool mostly resolved in one block. Week 4 is not shaped like that.
Sunday starts at 9:30 in the morning Eastern, three and a half hours before the main window. That is the London game, Colts at Commanders, and the kickoff is set by the clock in England rather than by the American TV windows. If your group is on the West Coast, it starts at 6:30 AM.
Three things follow from it.
- A Sunday-morning deadline is no longer safe. Plenty of pools tell people “get your picks in Sunday before the games.” This week that instruction silently kills one game for anyone who reads it literally and files at 11 AM.
- The 1:00 PM block is eight games, not nine. Still the center of the week, but slightly less decisive than last week, with more of the card landing across the afternoon and evening.
- The week has a long tail again. Sunday night and Monday night both carry a game, so the standings are not final until late Monday.
We went through the trade-offs of each deadline style in when should pick’em pool picks lock. The short version has not changed: per-game locking handles a week like this one without anybody having to remember an odd kickoff time.
Two rules to settle before Thursday
1. Write down what happens to the early game. Either per-game locks handle it for you, or your single deadline has to move ahead of 9:30 AM Sunday. Pick one and publish it. What does not work is a deadline written for last week’s shape.
2. Decide the Monday tiebreak now. Falcons at Saints closes the week, and in a tight table it is the game that flips the standings after most people have stopped watching. If you score margin or exact scores, that last card is disproportionately powerful. That is fine, as long as the group agreed to it before Thursday rather than on Monday afternoon.
If you are building the pool from scratch, the walkthrough is in how to run an NFL pick’em pool with friends. Last week’s card and how it played out are in the Week 3 guide.
A rhythm for the fifteen
Instead of filling the whole card in one sitting on Sunday morning:
- Thursday: the opener on its own, and nothing else.
- Before Sunday: the 9:30 AM game, because it is the one that gets lost.
- Sunday morning: the eight-game 1:00 PM block, where the week is decided.
- Sunday afternoon: the four games at 4:05 and 4:25.
- Sunday night and Monday: the last two as separate calls.
Week 4 occupies five calendar days. Tracking that by hand means chasing results, recomputing margins and answering the same question in the group chat four times.
Frequently asked questions
How many NFL Week 4 games are left after Thursday?
Fifteen. Sixteen games in the week, one of them Thursday night.
When does NFL Week 4 start and end?
It starts Thursday 1 October at 8:15 PM ET and ends Monday 5 October with an 8:15 PM ET game.
Why is there a 9:30 AM game?
It is the London game, Colts at Commanders, scheduled for an afternoon kickoff in England. For a pool it matters in one way only: it starts before most people file their picks.
Should every pick lock at the same time?
It is simpler to administer and harder on the group. Per-game locking keeps each matchup open until its own kickoff and never voids a card because someone missed Thursday.
Set the lock rule before Thursday night. Download Quini, create your Week 4 pool, invite the group, and let the schedule, the deadlines and the live standings run themselves. Free to play, no money involved.