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Ready to Master NFL Survivor Pools and Stay One Step Ahead of the Competition?

Key Takeaways

  • Survivor Pool Basics: NFL Survivor Pools are elimination contests where participants pick one team to win each week but can’t reuse teams throughout the season. A single loss eliminates you.
  • Winning Strategies: Success requires strategic planning, like mapping out picks weeks in advance and avoiding popular or "chalk" selections to outlast large pools.
  • Key Selection Tactics: Picking teams with strong offenses against weak opponents, analyzing point spreads, and targeting home teams can improve your odds.
  • Common Pitfalls: Avoid new quarterbacks, road teams on short weeks, and divisional rivalries, which often lead to unpredictable outcomes.
  • Advanced Tools: Survivor Pool grids and weekly analysis help identify valuable matchups, ensuring picks are optimized across the season.

 

What Are NFL Survivor Pools: A Guide for How to Play

NFL Survivor Pools, also known as a knockout pool, are elimination-style sports betting contests where participants are required to select one NFL team to win each week, and aim to be the last one standing.

The catch? You can only use each team once throughout the season. If your chosen team wins, you advance to the next week. If they lose or tie, you’re eliminated from the pool. For instance, if a participant picked the New Orleans Saints to beat the Carolina Panthers in Week 1 on Sunday, the Saints would not be usable for the remaining 17 weeks of the year.

If the team you select loses, you are eliminated from the Survivor Pool contest. In Week 1 of the 2024 season, the Cincinnati Bengals were one of the most popular picks. After an upset loss to the New England Patriots, everyone who selected the Bengals was immediately eliminated from the season-long contest.

 

How to Win a Survivor Pool

If you're interested in our survivor picks for the upcoming week of the NFL season, click here.

The way to win an NFL survivor pool is to survive each week until there are no other entrants left standing.

Small survivor pools (under 100 entrants) typically end well before Week 18 of the NFL Season. However, large survivor pools (over 500 entrants) will frequently last through the final week of the NFL season.

If multiple teams all survive until the final week of the pool, then the prize pool is usually split amongst the surviving teams.

Small survivor pools (under 100 entrants) typically end well before Week 18 of the NFL Season. However, large survivor pools (over 500 entrants) will frequently last through the final week of the NFL season.

If multiple teams all survive until the final week of the pool, then the prize pool is usually split amongst the surviving teams.

 

How to Make Your NFL Survivor Picks Each Week

Making informed NFL survivor picks requires a combination of research, analysis, and strategy. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind:

The first step to choosing your NFL survivor pick for the week is to navigate the point spreads and see which teams are at least a touchdown favorite. If a team is favored by over a touchdown, their win probability will usually be around 65%, which are great odds that your pick will win that week.

The second step is to look for a team with a good offense. Even with a high win probability and a good offense though, the 2024 season has proven that no favorite is safe. Early in the 2024 season we saw several of the biggest favorites upset early in the year. However, generally these teams are the “safest picks.”

Another good tactic for picking your team each week is to pick on bad teams. In 2024, most survivor picks have come against bad teams like the Panthers, Raiders, Browns, Bears, and Giants. You can easily see which teams are bad NFL teams by looking at their point differentials. Teams that have given up a lot more points than they’ve scored are ripe for picking against.

If you can find the sweet spot of picking good offenses vs bad teams, then the matchup will frequently be heavily favored by at least a touchdown.

 

Survivor Pool Strategies

1) Consider the Weeks Ahead: Map out your potential picks for at least the next five weeks. If the biggest favorite for a given week of the season is playing more teams with weak records in the weeks ahead, it’s ok to wait on choosing that team. They provide good future value, especially if several of their remaining home games come against subpar franchises.

Saving teams favored in most of their matchups can save you from tough future weeks of close calls.

2) Don’t Simply Choose The Best Matchup Each Week - Avoid using the best pick every week in the first half of the season or you will struggle to survive week-by-week down the stretch.

3) 18 Weeks and 32 Teams - Some weeks you will want to use mediocre teams with great matchups, but don’t go overboard. There are only 18 weeks of the season compared to 32 teams, so you will only pick just over half of the league if you make it to the end.

4) Avoid the Chalk - By avoiding the popular picks each week, you can differentiate your selections and save top teams for later in the year. Additionally, when big upsets occasionally happen against the heavily favored teams, if you’ve avoided picking this team (the chalk) you will survive a large percentage of the pool being knocked out.

5) Wait on Good Teams - Mining for mid-level value picks in the early weeks while saving some of the league’s best teams for later in the year can save you from late-season elimination.

6) Beware of Injuries - Stay informed with RotoBaller’s NFL News on which key players could be out of action for each week’s games. A team not at full strength is obviously much more likely to suffer an upset in a given week.

7) Watch Team Trends - If a team starts slowly but finds new life following a bye, that’s a potential green flag for future value.

8) Target Home Teams - While matchups matter more than anything, picking the home team can be utilized as a tie-breaking rule for weekly picks. The Seattle Seahawks haven’t been a great team in a few years, but its home-field advantage is worth noting in these contests.

9) Avoid Away Divisional Matchups In Particular - Divisional matchups often bring the biggest upsets, as team familiarity becomes a factor. A team like the Houston Texans can reasonably be upset by an inferior AFC South foe despite being a near-touchdown favorite.

10) Avoid New Quarterbacks - Rookie quarterbacks making their first starts or backups coming in sets up for a letdown spot for most teams. Just see how much worse the Jaguars got when Mac Jones stepped in for Trevor Lawrence in 2024. At the same time, picking against a rookie quarterback can be a dice roll, since the opposing defense isn’t familiar with that quarterback.

11) Avoid Road Teams On A Short Week - After a hard-fought Sunday game, traveling for a Thursday Night Football contest is far from ideal. A road trip on a short week can cause even the NFL’s best teams to fall.

 

RotoBaller's Survivor Picks for 2024

 

Survivor Pool Picks Team Analysis - Buffalo Bills

The Buffalo Bills were projected to win 10.5 games at the start of the 2024 season. The Buffalo offense and defense saw a ton of change in the offseason, but quarterback Josh Allen and head coach Sean McDermott remained in place. That said, Survivor Pool participants should've been confident that they would use Buffalo at some point in the 2024 season, but finding which week to do it is key.

Buffalo began the year with matchups against the Arizona Cardinals and Miami Dolphins. In the preseason, those two were considered at least "good" teams, so avoiding the Bills in those spots made sense.

However, if you examined their matchups against the Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars over the next five weeks, you could see the Bills could be a strong play later in the year. Two matchups with the New England Patriots and one game against the New York Jets over the final three weeks of the year were also promising spots for the Bills.

Despite the team's Week 11 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, that was an easily avoidable matchup against the defending Super Bowl Champions. The Bills' Week 13, Week 14, and Week 15 matchups against the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams, and Detroit Lions following their bye are also unfavorable spots. As you can see, pinpointing a good week to pick one of the most popular teams is key.

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Utilizing Survivor Pool Grids To Find Future Value

Survivor Pool grids provide a color-coded overview of each team's full schedule with future game lines. These grids quickly show contestants who the biggest favorites are between the Thursday Night, Sunday, and Monday Night games for all slates.

Obviously, some teams quickly show that they are better than expected early in the year -- like the Minnesota Vikings, Washington Commanders, and Denver Broncos in 2024. That said, the survivor pool grid will change week-to-week after the preseason, and a team you were confident about for a given week could no longer be a good pick.

 

RotoBaller's Survivor Picks for 2023

 

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