NFL Survivor Pool Picks

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.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 12
by Trevor Whenham - 11/21/2017

This is going to be the last week of the season that we take a look at survivor pools. And it has gotten to the point where it is very tough for people who are still alive to come up with a pick that works. It wouldn't be that way, of course, if you could pick any team you wanted. But since we can only pick any given team once during the season, we have some real challenges. There are four teams this week that feel like virtual locks - or as close to that as we get in the league these days.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 11
by Matt Severance - 11/15/2017

Maybe I've been going about this Survivor Pool thing all wrong the past two years? I actually know a few people who simply pick against the Cleveland Browns each week, and you can't argue with the results. OK, first off, you can't go against the Factory of Sadness every single week because the Browns obviously play AFC North rivals Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Baltimore twice each season. But if you can find another team those three weeks, then you have been golden.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 11
by Trevor Whenham - 11/14/2017

Well, here we are much closer to the end of the NFL survivor pools season than the beginning. We'll see how things shape up this week, but my guess is that next week will be the last week for our predictions for this year. Last week was another pretty straightforward week in a pretty straightforward season. We looked at three teams that were all pickable.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 10
by Matt Severance - 11/8/2017

I'm officially done listening to NFL scouts and the likes of Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay when it comes to the draft. Just about no one liked the Los Angeles Rams trading up to No. 1 overall to take Cal quarterback Jared Goff in 2016. Even fewer were high on the Philadelphia Eagles trading up to No. 2 overall that year to take North Dakota State QB Carson Wentz.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 10
by Trevor Whenham - 11/8/2017

Last week required a quick change in plans. From where I was sitting Houston was the strong and obvious choice for last week. But then the crushing Deshaun Watson injury struck. The team had to overcome two massive hurdles - losing their most important player just when he was really finding his stride and having to deal with the realities of Tom Savage being your quarterback. That is too much to ask of any team, and we obviously couldn't trust Houston anymore - even against a team as deeply flawed as Indianapolis. We had to scramble late. Hopefully this week things turn out in a more straightforward manner - we've had more than enough major injuries already this year

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 9
by Matt Severance - 11/1/2017

I doubt there were many players knocked out of your Survivor Pool competitions in Week 8 because everyone that was supposed to win largely did. OK, the Bucs laid an egg at home vs. Carolina, but Tampa entered that on a three-game skid and with an injured quarterback, so hopefully you knew better than to take that team. The Jets pushed the Falcons in a monsoon but Atlanta escaped. The Browns led the Vikings at the half in London ... but then remembered they were the Browns. That was our last London/9:30 a.m. ET game of the season.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 9
by Trevor Whenham - 10/30/2017

That was a really bizarre week of survivor pools action. I am still alive in three different pools. Heading into last week there were a total of 93 people still alive in those pools. Now? Still 93. Never have I seen a week without any eliminations - at least not until the very end of pools. It wasn't much of a fluke, either. There were several games that were playable, and all of them turned out just as they were supposed to. And what is particularly interesting is that there are three or four games this week that seem just as straightforward, so we could again go through a week with few eliminations.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 8
by Matt Severance - 10/25/2017

Week 7 was unquestionably the least interesting week of the year thus far in the NFL, both with the on-field product and likely in any of your Survivor Pool competitions. If you followed my game-by-game recommendations fully, then you probably won a Confidence Pool or two as well because I only got one of the 15 wrong: Carolina winning in Chicago. Yep, my Bears pulled yet another upset despite essentially using an offensive scheme that Papa Bear George Halas would be proud of.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 8
by Trevor Whenham - 10/24/2017

I don't know about you, but in my survivor pools this week there wasn't a whole lot of people who lost. Kansas City was a surprise loser, but most people had picked them already. Between Tennessee, Seattle and Dallas there were relatively straightforward picks to be had that turned out as expected. So, we are basically where we were last week - getting closer to the end of the pools, but waiting for a game or two that really breaks things open. Nervous times, because if you are still alive in a pool I can guarantee you are thinking you can win it.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 7
by Matt Severance - 10/18/2017

It seems like every week there's at least one double-digit favorite losing. Week 6 was no exception. I would have bet almost anything that Denver would have handled the visiting Giants last Sunday night. Not so much because the Broncos are all that good, but they were off a bye and New York was missing about half its team due to injury, including every receiver you have heard of. So, of course, New York won 23-10. Orleans Darkwa rushed for 117 yards on the NFL's best run defense?!?!?!? Orleans Darkwa sounds like some lower-level Star Wars Jedi. And, yeah, go ahead and pick him up this week, but he's not your fantasy FB savior.

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 7
by Trevor Whenham - 10/16/2017

There was probably some movement in your survivor pool last week if you are still alive. Denver was the most popular pick last week in the Yahoo pools, and Atlanta was the third most popular. According to their numbers, nearly half of all remaining players were eliminated - though the percentages in my pools was a little less than that. So now we are really into the nitty gritty of things. It's time to buckle down and to keep making great survivor pool picks. Here's how this week breaks down. Unfortunately, it's a very tough week - perhaps the toughest we have seen so far. That will just make it more satisfying when we are right. There are two games that stand out above the rest, one popular pick I just hate, and one I am not crazy about:

NFL Survivor Pool Picks and Advice: Week 6
by Matt Severance - 10/11/2017

Week 4: Idiot for picking Atlanta as my No. 1 Survivor Pool choice. Week 5: Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius for warning my readers NOT to take the Pittsburgh Steelers at home against the Jacksonville Jaguars because they were almost too obvious and thus likely to be the pick of many of your competitors. My reasoning: "The Jags have played way better away from northeast Florida than at home in 2017. Pittsburgh perhaps will be overvalued a bit after last week's win at crappy Baltimore."

NFL Survivor Pools Strategy Advice and Predictions: Week 6
by Trevor Whenham - 10/10/2017

The Philadelphia Eagles did everything we could have hoped last week. They were the clear and obvious pick for survivor pool action in Week 5, and they beat Arizona almost laughably easily. If only it were so easy every week. We are at the time of the season in survivor pools when things really get interesting. For people who are paying attention and understand how these pools work, getting to this point is manageable most years unless something crazy happens. But with each passing week the competition gets tougher, the pool of good teams gets smaller, and our job gets more difficult.