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It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Pick the team you think will win each NFL game over the course of the season, get more right than anyone else, and you're the winner. Easy, right? Well … in fact, it is. Just sign up with your ESPN username, and click on the teams you want. Voila! You're in the game. Playing this game is as easy as pie. Winning, on the other hand, is a different story. Let's say you know absolutely nothing about the game of football and decide to flip a coin to determine the winner. Using this method, you have a 50 percent chance of getting more than half the games wrong in a single 16-game week.

So what does it take to increase your chances at picking the winners? Certainly, a little bit of knowledge is a good thing. Picking the good teams to win their games generally is a good idea. Not every season is going to see a New England run the regular-season table, but identifying the haves and have-nots early on is vital to getting a jump on the competition. Here are a couple of other general tips on what information you should make yourself aware of in order to better your chances and raise your success-rate to better than that of some schmo relying only on the head of George Washington for advice.

Tip 1: Check the spread, even if you're not playing with it. Those big casinos in Las Vegas didn't get rich by being wrong more than they're right. They know what they are doing. If you're not sure which team to pick to win a game, check the spread. If you see one team is a double-digit favorite, there's probably a very good reason for it. That doesn't mean there can't be an upset, but the odds are certainly against it.

Tip 2: When in doubt, go with the home team. In order to win this whole shebang, you're going to want to win a lot more than 57 percent of your games, which is what you'd have gotten last season if you went for the home team each and every game of the season. However, if a game seems too close to call, the odds are in your favor if you go with the team playing on familiar turf.

Tip 3: Wait until the last minute. While you certainly don't want to cut things too close and miss the weekly deadline for entering your picks, you also don't want to make them too early in the week. Players get injured all the time in the NFL, and a vast majority of the time, you don't know for sure if a key player is going to suit up or not until just before kickoff. Patience is definitely a virtue in these cases.

Tip 4: Look out the window. Weather is also a key factor that you shouldn't ignore. If a team usually likes to run the ball, and there's going to be a monsoon that looks to make footing impossible, then that team is going to be losing its strength. If strong hurricane-force winds are forecast for a team that needs to throw the deep bomb to be successful, odds are they're going to struggle. Just make sure when you're watching the Weather Channel that the team you're suddenly concerned about isn't actually playing inside a dome, rendering the weather moot.

Tip 5: Listen to the ESPN experts. Information is important, and knowing that a certain defensive scheme always gives a certain quarterback trouble or that a certain player always seems to step up his game against this week's opponent is incredibly valuable in figuring out which teams to pick. The more informed you make yourself about football in general, the better your ability to make an educated decision on which team will win each game.

Tip 6: Don't listen to the ESPN experts. Huh? Let me explain. While I fully endorse listening to the likes of John Clayton and Chris Mortensen and learning all you can from them, when it comes to picking the winners of games, you should always go with your gut. Even the best of NFL analysts can't predict the future, and you're better off taking their very good information and running through your own evaluation process and coming to your own conclusions about what it all means to a team's chances of winning. Switching your pick because "the Swami says" isn't a good enough reason.

Tip 7: Watch the games. The best way to know which teams you like and which ones you don't is to watch as many games as possible. Don't take someone else's word for it that Team X looked horrible against the run. See for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

Most importantly, don't stress over it. Making these picks may give you a reason to tune into that Detroit-Atlanta snoozefest of a game your local affiliate is carrying, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if you pick the winner of that game or not … at least, as long as you get the enough of the other 15 right to beat all of your friends. Right?

A.J. Mass is a fantasy football, baseball and college basketball analyst for ESPN.com. You can e-mail him here.