It was a mostly quiet Week 4, with somewhere around 10% of the remaining NFL survivor pool field falling due to losses from some lightly utilized teams like the Bills. For the most part, we didn't gain a ton of equity regardless of who we picked, with both top options — the Vikings and Ravens — moving on.
That means no major adjustment to our strategy is required entering Week 5, as the goal(s) remain the same in terms of prioritizing making it all 18 weeks and/or maximizing leverage.
That brings us to our NFL Survivor Pool Week 5 picks.
The concept is simple: Pick one team that wins an NFL game every week. No spreads or totals, just winners.
Once you use that team, they're done — creating an element of strategy and long-term planning that makes these contests deceptively difficult.
Fortunately, we've continued our partnership with our friends at PoolGenius to make things easier. They've built slate-leading tools to help conquer a variety of pool contests, including survivor.
My favorite feature of the site is the ability to customize for your individual pool type. Factors like contest size and payout structure are huge in survivor contests, as smaller fields generally don't have any entries that make it all 18 weeks.
To give a glimpse of how that works, throughout the season, I'll be providing their top option for small (less than 100) and large (1,000+) entry pools. I'm also including an alternate/contrarian option for those of us playing multiple entries in a single pool, as a means of diversifying when appropriate.
Besides that, they track pick selection data to help figure out contrarian options. This is helpful in larger pools since we're trying to optimize for expected value more than just odds of winning.
Finally, they use projected future spreads to assign a future value to each team — which includes considering the scarcity of strong options on certain weeks. This is crucial, as we don't want to burn the best teams when there are other strong options that week.
To get their full data, you'll need to sign up for the site. It's well worth it, though, and it also includes tools for taking down the increasingly popular pick'em contests that feature massive prize pools.
NFL Survivor Pool Picks — Week 5
| Get Survivor Picks Now |
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| NFL Survivor Picks from PoolGenius |
| Season Discounts via Action Network |
Large Field: Cincinnati Bengals
PoolGenius is recommending a different team as the absolute top choice this week, and I'll get into why I prefer them in smaller-field pools in a second. For larger field contests, my favorite option is the Bengals.
Cincinnati is one of three teams with 75% or higher implied win probability this week, and there's not much of a difference among those three teams. Crucially, the Bengals are projecting for considerably lower usage than the Cowboys (who are approaching 40%) despite virtually identical win odds.
While the Bengals technically have slightly higher overall future value, using the Optimal Path tool on Pool Genius shows a virtually identical chance of surviving the whole season using either Dallas or Cincinnati this week.
To put that another way, Dallas being a 60% favorite on a week where Cincinnati is an underdog technically boosts the Cowboys' future value, but you aren't going to use either of those teams that week anyway.
Thus, with future value and current week safety both essentially a toss-up, the tiebreaker for large-field contests is popularity. That's a big boost to the Bengals, with potential leverage generated both this week — in case of a Cowboys upset loss — and whichever future week you use the Cowboys.
That goes double in pools where the Thanksgiving/Black Friday slate is treated as its own week, since Dallas has a home game in that "mini week." You might not use them, but having more options in that tricky spot is important regardless.
Small Field: Houston Texans
The Texans have virtually identical current-week win odds and projected usage as the Bengals, but there's an important reason I prefer them in small-field contests.
Once again, that comes down to the logic that we probably aren't expecting to go all 18 weeks in smaller pools.
Houston plays the Titans in Tennessee this week, as a moderate favorite. In the final week of the season — Week 18 — the Texans host the Titans.
Assuming you assign a value greater than 0 to home-field advantage, by definition the Texans are a better play in Week 18, and there's probably not any spots between now and then you want to roster them.
Thus, going with the Bengals in large-field contests where Week 18 matters leaves you with one of the best final week options, while going with the Texans in smaller field contests gives you slightly more safety and leverage, without much risk of burning a team you'll miss having later.
That's a pretty good deal all around, even if you don't end up using Houston in the season's final week.
