Week 5 took out another 30%+ of the field in NFL Survivor Contests with the Cowboys losing on Thursday Night Football to the Buccaneers — and if ties count as a loss, another 5% or so dropped thanks to the Commanders–Giants game.
That means we're down close to 10% of the original field in most contests, making any remaining entries very valuable. For transparency, the entry I'm generating these picks from on Poole Genius has used, in order: Raiders, 49ers, Chiefs, Vikings, Texans.
Rather than break down picks based on contest size, this week I'm separating options around whether your pool requires an extra pick for the Thanksgiving/Black Friday slate in Week 12. That rule set, popularized by the massive Circa Survivor contest, makes a huge difference in terms of who you should pick this week, though I'll discuss the implications of field size as well.
That brings us to our NFL Survivor Pool Week 6 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 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, to diversify 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 6
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| NFL Survivor Picks from PoolGenius |
| Season Discounts via Action Network |
Standard Contests: Los Angeles Rams
The Rams are the clear best option this week as massive favorites against the Cardinals. Yes, the Rams will be popular and they also have solid future value, but given the state of most pools, prioritizing just moving on is by far the best option.
Injuries, trades, and other issues mean we may be able to find strong teams down the line even if we burn what appear to be the best options now. Plus, smaller pools could easily wrap up well before that matters, and the Rams' best spots are heavily front-loaded. Their four strongest spots this season are all in the next six weeks.
The issue with using the Rams in contests with the double-pick in Week 12 is that they're by far the strongest team in the mini-slate that stretches from Wednesday to Friday that week.
The next best option on that slate are the Cowboys, who are nearly 10% lower than the Rams in that slate. I'm pretty locked in on saving Los Angeles for that slate in contests where it's relevant, barring any major (QB) injuries to one of the other teams on the slate.
The flip side of this argument is that the field is likely thinking similarly, so the Rams will be more contrarian this week in those contests. I'm not sure how valuable that is — it's only relevant if the other teams used by the field end up losing, as they'll be left with the stronger remaining team (Rams) down the line.
You aren't really getting the "double contrarian" boost you occasionally get, since your opponents end up in a better theoretical spot moving forward.
All of that considered, the Rams are an obvious choice unless you need to save them for Thanksgiving, with the only possible other reason to fade being diversifying across a large portfolio.
Two-Pick Thanksgiving Contests: Indianapolis Colts
Of the teams I have remaining, the Colts rank fourth in Week 6 win odds, well behind the Rams but in a fairly tight group that includes the Bills and Patriots. Both of those teams have considerably more future value than Indy, which makes giving up a couple of percentage points of win probability this week not a major issue.
The possible exception is in smaller field contests, since the Patriots' best future spot is Week 18, and as we know, that likely won't be relevant if your field is under 50 or so entries left.
The nice thing is that those other teams, or at least New England, will take some of the popularity from the Colts this week. That's massive if they lose, obviously, but even if both teams win, you're in a much better position than entries that advanced by using one of the Rams or Patriots. The only other spot we'd really consider the Colts is Week 10, but there are a few teams with similar look-ahead lines then anyway.
Using the Colts boils down to taking on some current-week risk in exchange for a ton of future equity. In an endeavor like survivor pools where you almost certainly aren't going to win anyway, it's a risk worth taking — especially if it means saving the Rams for Thanksgiving in contests where that's relevant.
Last season, most pools using that rule set were almost completely wiped out by the Thanksgiving slate, so we want to be in as strong a position as possible to survive it this year.
