NFL Survivor Pool Picks

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 1
by Matt Severance - 9/6/2017

Is it me, or does it feel like this will be an easy season to compete in a Survivor Pool? Obviously, there are always bad teams in the NFL. But in 2017, the New York Jets, Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers appear in full tank mode (my Bears will stink again, too, but not quite in Jets/Browns/Niners category). We all know there's "no crying in baseball," but Commissioner Roger Goodell says there's "no tanking in football," either. He's 100 percent wrong.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 1
by Trevor Whenham - 9/4/2017

The best way to add some fun, challenge, and chance for profit to a football season is through betting on sides and totals - pure and straightforward. A close second, though, is through survivor pools. These pools, which require you to pick just one team that is going to win each week, are deceptively difficult, strategically compelling, and are a much more of a real world application, for my tastes anyway, than fantasy football. Our goal this week, and every week for the next few months, is to break down the games to find the best and most compelling survivor pools plays and to help you avoid the plays that don't make a lot of sense.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 17
by Matt Severance - 12/28/2016

Well here we are, the final week of the NFL's regular season. Here's hoping you are still kicking in your Survivor Pool competitions or have won it already. I am alive in one of my three, which perhaps makes up for losing in the semifinals of both fantasy football leagues (freaking Doug Martin and Melvin Gordon). And I need a really good week in my main Confidence Pool to make up the 20 points I'm behind the season leader. Huh, I can't figure out why my wife complains I'm not all that attentive to her needs during football season. Guess I'm a little preoccupied. Love you honey, we'll do something after March Madness!

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 17
by Trevor Whenham - 12/28/2016

And so it draws to a close - another regular season of NFL action. From a Survivor Pools perspective it has mostly been a successful one. Things were tough for the first three weeks or so, but since then we have mostly seen outcomes that have made sense - the best teams have, for the most part, beaten the worst team when they have met up. We have a few teams to thank this year - squads like the Browns, Bears, Niners and Rams were all both really bad and pleasingly consistent.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 16
by Matt Severance - 12/21/2016

I say this every year in Week 16 but will again: does your league allow you to simply split the pool at this point if it's just you and one or two other competitors going in the Survivor Pool? I generally lean toward taking the sure money over the uncertainty of nothing. That said, I also look at what teams I have remaining and if I feel very confident about Weeks 16 & 17 then I'll take my chances. My only caveat would be that I hate Survivor Pools in Week 17 because half the teams are thinking about offseason golf plans.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 16
by Trevor Whenham - 12/20/2016

We are in the second-to-last week of the long NFL season. By now you are almost certainly no longer alive in your Survivor Pool - or if you are you are the winner. Unless you are in a pool that was a second, third, fourth or fifth chance - but you don't need to admit that. Even though thoughts of Survivor Pools aren't as urgent as they were earlier in the season, it's still worthwhile looking at the schedule of games from a Survivor Pool perspective.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 15
by Matt Severance - 12/14/2016

There have been more than a few years that I've waited to Christmas shop until I potentially won my Survivor Pool and had those extra dollars lying around. Of course I also used to go to malls to shop and I'm honestly not even sure those still exist? If you can't get it online and delivered in two days, it might as well be fictional in my mind.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 15
by Trevor Whenham - 12/12/2016

Again last week the games that stood out as Survivor Pool plays turned out as expected. This year has turned into a gift for aficionados of these pools with plenty of bad teams that are incapable of playing well and which haven't even been throwing in an upset or two along the way. Thanks to the generosity of the Rams, Niners and Bears - though sadly not the Browns this time as we will discuss - the smooth sailing should continue through Week 15. Here's how I see the week playing out from a Survivor Pool perspective:

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 14
by Matt Severance - 12/7/2016

I'm starting to feel like Leonard in the terrific Christopher Nolan movie "Memento." In that I see things in the NFL that I must have just forgotten. Like, how are the Detroit Lions on pace to win their division? What year is this? They haven't done that since 1993. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are good? Huh? The Oakland Raiders are too? Is this the 2002 NFL season?

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 14
by Trevor Whenham - 12/6/2016

We've settled into a comfortable pattern the last few weeks in terms of Survivor Pools. There have been enough games out there that are straightforward that picks are out there to be found, and the games we have picked have mostly turned out as expected. Surprises and chaos are the enemies of Survivor Pool players, and for the most part both have been absent at the top end of games over the last few weeks.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 13
by Matt Severance - 11/30/2016

Not sure I can remember a week around the NFL like Week 12. Favorites crushed it, winning 14 of the 16 games. Thus there were incredibly high scores in my Confidence Pool -- hey, I want to brag because I won it -- with the only favorites losing being Seattle in Tampa Bay and Philadelphia at home to Green Bay. Just so happens I had the Bucs and Packers; my lone miss was Houston over San Diego.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 13
by Trevor Whenham - 11/29/2016

I don't want to overstate things, but I am pretty sure that there has never been an easier Week 12 in the history of the NFL for Survivor Pool enthusiasts than the one we were just lucky enough to experience. There were four games that jumped out as so obvious they were almost embarrassing, and all four turned out just like they were supposed to. No drama. No stress. If it was always this easy to pick winners - any week of the season - then no one would play Survivor Pools because there would be no challenge.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 12
by Matt Severance - 11/23/2016

Tampa Bay's 19-17 upset win in Kansas City might have had some implications in your Survivor Pool as well. But I warned you on that one, writing this last week: "The Chiefs had one of their most unlikely regular-season wins in years at Carolina, so this could be a major trap game against an unfamiliar opponent out-of-conference." Too bad I didn't take my own advice, but I only had the Chiefs middle-of-the-pack on the Confidence pick because I was a tad worried.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 12
by Trevor Whenham - 11/22/2016

This week feels like a bit of a gift on the Survivor Pools front. It doesn't take a whole lot of intense insight and tireless research to find the four games this week that are the most playable. They all kind of jump of the page and smack you on the face. One of the teams is almost certainly not available to you, but there is a good chance that at least one of the other three teams are available to you. If they are then you should jump right in and jump on them. It doesn't matter which one of them you take if you have options - they are all equally likely to come through. Without further ado:

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 11
by Matt Severance - 11/16/2016

NFL television ratings had been a big topic of discussion thus far this season because they had been markedly down across the board. The league kept saying it was because of the uptick in people watching cable news television with all of the election madness. And that's probably true to a limited point.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 11
by Trevor Whenham - 11/14/2016

The tragedy of Survivor Pools this year is that things have gotten relatively easy once we have gotten deep enough into the season that most people are already out of their pools. For the second week in the row we were able to identify a reasonably large number of games that were playable, and all of them finished up as we needed them to. On paper, at least, we should have another week like that this week. There are four games that seem quite playable, and at least one of them features a team that likely hasn't been a pick up to this point. It's another interesting and hopefully fruitful week of Survivor Pool action. Let's jump right in:

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 10
by Matt Severance - 11/9/2016

This will be an election-free column. And perhaps my last before moving to Costa Rica! Sigh. If you want clear proof of why I don't think you should put all your eggs into the Monday night basket in terms of a Survivor Pool, I give you the Week 9 game between the Seahawks and Bills in Seattle.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 10
by Trevor Whenham - 11/8/2016

Last week was a dream week for Survivor Pool players. Dallas, Kansas City and New Orleans were all logical and very playable teams, and all did what they were supposed to do without massive amounts of drama involved. It was ideal - especially this late in the season. The later we get into the season, the more we value weeks with a larger number of viable, lower-risk plays. Let's hope that the Survivor Pool gods are as kind to us this week. Here are the most logical picks this week:

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 9
by Matt Severance - 11/2/2016

When will these NFL coaches stop playing for the chip-shot field goal in overtime of a tie game and go for the touchdown? Playing conservative bit Seattle's Pete Carroll and Arizona's Bruce Arians in a 6-6 tie in Week 7, and the same scenario by Washington's Jay Gruden led to a 27-27 tie last Sunday in London against Cincinnati. At least the "football" fans in London are accustomed to draws.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 9
by Trevor Whenham - 11/1/2016

It was a week of serious carnage in the world of Survivor Pools last week. The most popular pick by a wide margin last week was the Vikings over the Bears - well over half of all remaining players took Minnesota and suffered as a result. The Vikings offense is suddenly nonexistent, and their defense isn't as sharp as it once was - if it was then the Bears wouldn't have been able to score enough to win.