NFL Survivor Pool Picks

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.

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.