Several pool types can be configured to generate auto picks when a player doesn't get their picks in by the league deadline or before a game starts. The Autopick feature is currently supported for the following NFL Pool types:

Autopicks are generated soon after the start of the first game after the league deadline. For play money and pickem pools where the deadline is after a certain number of games for that week (such as a Sunday deadline with a Thursday game), an autopick will be generated for each pre-deadline game once the game starts. It may take up to 10 minutes after the start of the game for the autopicks to generate for those who missed getting a pick in before the game. As an example, consider a league with a deadline of Sunday at 2pm MST. A player who forgets to submit his picks by the start of the Thursday night game will have an autopick generated for that game soon after it starts. If they fail to get picks in before 11am on Sunday, an autopick will be generated for each of the 11am games. If still no picks submitted by the 2pm deadline, once the 2pm games start the player will have autopicks generated for the remainder of the games for that week.

The manager can configure the autopick to be random, the biggest favorite, the biggest underdog, or the home team (last home team for survivor and margin pools). The manager can also configure whether or not players are allowed to configure their autopicks to be either random, random, the biggest favorite, the biggest underdog, or the home team. 

The 'AutoPicks Allowed' option specifies the number of weeks a player can have autopicks generated. For example, if this is set to 1, and a player in a pickem league fails to pick the Thursday night game but gets all his other picks in, he will not receive any future autopicks. Its no different than if he missed picking all the games for that week. The 'AutoPicks Allowed' is not the actual number of picks, but instead the number of allowed weeks to receive autopick(s).