NFL Survivor Pool Picks
NFL Survivor and Confidence Pool Picks and Advice: Week 8
by Matt Severance - 10/24/2018
In this space every week, I always remind those of you in Survivor and Confidence Pools to wait until the last possible second to make your picks. You never know what can happen. For example, a couple of weeks ago the Dolphins scratched Ryan Tannehill, completely out of nowhere, on Sunday morning before hosting the Bears (stupid Brock Osweiler!). The past Sunday, the Chargers and Titans played with a 9:30 a.m. ET kickoff from Wembley Stadium in London.
NFL Survivor and Confidence Pool Picks and Advice: Week 7
by Matt Severance - 10/17/2018
Week 7 is the first week your Survivor/Confidence choices really take their first hit because it's the first week four teams are on the bye. Two you might use in a given week for your Survivor choice or at No. 16 in a Confidence Pool in Green Bay and Pittsburgh, and two that really don't matter in Seattle and Oakland. Ah, Jon Gruden. Should have stayed in the Monday night booth … although even Gruden was better than Jason Witten.
NFL Survivor and Confidence Pool Picks and Advice: Week 6
by Matt Severance - 10/10/2018
Now that we are hitting mid-October shortly, it's important for those of you in Survivor and Confidence Pools to start checking weather reports in those cold-weather cities that don't have domes (the Lions and Vikings shouldn't be playing indoors while the Bears and Packers play out in the elements in the NFC North, but that's an argument for another day).
NFL Survivor Pool Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 6
by Trevor Whenham - 10/10/2018
It's only the sixth week of the NFL season, yet from a survivor pool perspective it feels like the season is about nine years long already. It has been an absolutely brutal season for pool players so far, and it doesn't get a lot easier this week. In fact, this is the toughest weekend we have had so far as we head into the week - the two weeks that were really brutal seemed really straightforward heading into the action.
NFL Survivor and Confidence Pool Picks and Advice: Week 5
by Matt Severance - 10/3/2018
We had three more overtime games in Week 3: Texans-Colts, Eagles-Titans and Browns-Raiders. And, I have to say, those were incredibly entertaining. It's almost like NFL coaches now are doing all they can to avoid a tie. New Colts Frank Reich did that against Houston, and it absolutely imploded in his face. He was being a little too aggressive. Meanwhile, Titans first-year coach Mike Vrabel made almost as ballsy a call at the end of OT and it led to a win - my guess being the first NFL walkoff win ever on a touchdown pass to a receiver from my alma mater.
NFL Survivor Pool Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 5
by Trevor Whenham - 10/2/2018
A pattern has emerged so far this NFL season when it comes to survivor pools. In even-numbered weeks things have been so straightforward that a monkey could make the picks. All you had to do was pick the best teams against the worst teams - the biggest point spreads, in other words - and you were all set. But in odd-numbered weeks there has been total carnage. Up has been down, black has been white, and nothing has made any sense at all. In both cases multiple clearly logical and perfectly sensible picks have not worked out at all.
NFL Survivor and Confidence Pool Picks and Advice: Week 4
by Matt Severance - 9/26/2018
I half listened to my gut last week on the Minnesota Vikings, who were 17-point home favorites over the Buffalo Bills. I did list the Vikings as my No. 1 Survivor and Confidence choice but wrote: "sometimes when there's such an obvious choice it can be wise to avoid said team just in case a massive upset wipes everyone out. I do worry slightly about the Vikings looking ahead to next week's game vs. the Rams and probably would take the points here, but I see no earthly way where Buffalo can win this game."
NFL Survivor Pool Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 4
by Trevor Whenham - 9/25/2018
Let's just get this out of the way early - if you are still alive in your survivor pool in Week 4 of the season then you are a wizard. And not a cute, Harry Potter-type wizard. The dangerous kind that has powers that are not good for society. I have been doing this for a lot of years now, and I have never seen a season like this for survivor pools. The first week was carnage with loss by New Orleans and, to a lesser extent, Pittsburgh's tie.
NFL Survivor and Confidence Pool Picks and Advice: Week 3
by Matt Severance - 9/19/2018
Perhaps those who run Survivor & Confidence Pools need to change their rules in the wake of the NFL last season shortening overtime sessions from 15 minutes to 10. Already this year, we have had one tie each week - and those are losses in both types of pools. It's the first time since 1971 there have been sister-kissers each of the first two weeks.
NFL Survivor Pool Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 3
by Trevor Whenham - 9/19/2018
The first week of survivor pools action this year was absolute carnage. There isn't a pool out there that didn't lose at least half of the participants in the wreckage. But the second week was straightforward and simple - or at least as simple as these things can get. And this week is either going to be the easiest week anyone has ever imagined or it is going to basically end all the pools. There is only one game that most people will be drawn to, and it seems like a lock - but so did New Orleans in Week 1, and that wound up being a disaster.
NFL Survivor and Confidence Pool Picks and Advice: Week 2
by Matt Severance - 9/12/2018
We almost had the most Survivor Pool-wrecking Week 1 that I can remember. Let me start with the fact that my top choice, the Baltimore Ravens, was never threatened in trashing the quarterback-horrid Buffalo Bills 47-3 in Week 1. However, I know that several people in my competitions had the New Orleans Saints as their Survivor choice. Newbies tend to just pick the team that's the biggest favorite, and that was the Saints in Week 1. They were gashed by Ryan Fitzmagic and the Bucs, 48-40.
NFL Survivor Pool Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 2
by Trevor Whenham - 9/11/2018
The opening week of the 2018 NFL season was a perfect illustration of why second chance pools exist. A whole lot of people - myself included in a few pools - saw their survivor pool hopes go down in flames in the unlikely hands of Ryan Fitzpatrick. It wasn't just New Orleans that let people down, though - although about a third of all pool players picked the Saints. Detroit was the third-most-common pick against the Jets, and they didn't even show up for their game.
NFL Survivor and Confidence Pool Picks and Advice: Week 1
by Matt Severance - 9/5/2018
I'll actually be curious to see whether the popularity of both Survivor and Confidence Pools continue to grow now that it's basically legal to bet on the NFL in the United States - although only a few states have moved forward since that landmark Supreme Court decision. I'd expect at least half of them to have legalized gambling up and running by this time next year. Simply too much money involved not to, whether your state leans left or right. Offshore books still offer better benefits in many ways, though.
NFL Survivor Pool Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 1
by Trevor Whenham - 9/5/2018
It's time for another season of NFL survivor pools. Or eliminators. Or suicide pools. Or whatever you call them. Call them what you want, but the basic rules are the same - you pick a single team that is going to win each week, and if you are right you keep going and pick again the next week, but if your team loses you are done. And you can pick each team only once per season. For the entire season, or at least for as long as it makes sense, we'll break down the week's action, look at the games that could be a sound pick, and which ones to avoid.
NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 17
by Matt Severance - 12/27/2017
What can I say? It's been an unusual year in the NFL! Stars suffered season-ending injuries each week, it seemed. The New York Jets, whom I thought would go 2-14, proved better than the Giants, Bucs, Bears (no real shock there), Colts and Texans! The top five seeds currently in the NFC all missed the postseason last year. The AFC hasn't been quite as wild as the Patriots, Steelers and Chiefs all repeated as division champions, but the other three playoff teams will all be new - right now we only know that one of those three is Jacksonville.
NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 16
by Matt Severance - 12/20/2017
I usually recap the previous week's action around the NFL and try to pinpoint which games might have had a major affect on your Survivor Pool competition. I'm in a handful of them, and my last one ended last week. It was a very chalk Week 15 with favorites dominating, so not much to recap - the only stunner in my mind was the Rams not so much winning in Seattle but doing so 42-7. That, my friends, was officially a changing of the guard game in the NFC West.
NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 15
by Matt Severance - 12/13/2017
The NFL protects quarterbacks these days like they are fine china. You can't hit them low, you can't hit them high and you can't hit them even a second late. It's barely football, but the league needs its superstars to boost sagging ratings (that's a cord-cutter thing, nothing will change that).
NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 14
by Matt Severance - 12/6/2017
The "heyday" of my football life so far when it comes to the NFL is questionably those Chicago Bears teams from about 1984-88 when they had the most ferocious defense in the league and were perennial Super Bowl contenders - I still can't believe only the '85 Bears won it all. I mention this because growing up big hits were what you remember most in the NFL. They were prevalent in video games, weekly highlights, etc. It was football!
NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 13
by Matt Severance - 11/29/2017
A sign you have an athletic director who doesn't have a clue what the hell he's doing: not taking the pulse of your fan base, state officials or boosters before hiring an unpopular head coach. A sign you have an NFL coach who knows exactly what the hell he's doing: a team that consistently wins in the final month of the regular season (including early January when the schedule drips into the next year).
NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 12
by Matt Severance - 11/22/2017
Major League Baseball trumpets its parity, and it should because just about anyone can win a World Series these days. The Astros and Cubs, the past two champions, were each wretched just a few years ago. The small-market Royals won it all in 2015. The NBA doesn't bother with claims of parity - it's star-driven league and only the teams with the most stars win titles.
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