It's that time of year again when hope springs anew and the football-loving public collectively says, "This year I'll go all the way." I'm, of course, referring to survivor pools, a type of contest that sounds easy — until you're doing it.
That brings us to our NFL survivor pool Week 1 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 Pool Genius 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 factors in survivor contests, as smaller fields generally don't have any entries 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. 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 Week 1 Picks
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Large Field: Denver Broncos
It feels like there's a "trap team" in NFL Week 1 survivor contests every year, and sometimes the only important thing is avoiding them. The best way to do that in Week 1 is with the Broncos, whose -380 moneyline odds trail only the Eagles — and even then just slightly.
More importantly, the Broncos have far less future value than Philadelphia, especially in pools that require an extra Week 13 pick (more on that later), so burning them in Week 1 of big contests isn't a huge deal. We're expecting to have to survive all 18 weeks in contests of this size, so it's important to play for the long haul.
Based on the Season Planner tool at Pool Genius, Denver's likeliest win of the entire season is its Week 1 matchup with the Titans. This makes sense — Denver is at home and taking on a rookie QB in Cam Ward. The time to pick on the Titans is now, as there's a good chance they make consistent improvements throughout the season.
The downside is Denver is also the most popular Week 1 team by a fairly wide margin, though in Week 1 picks tend to be spread out more widely since every entry has all 32 rosters as an option.
While I'd prefer to be a bit more contrarian in pools of this size, the second most popular option (Cardinals) feels much riskier, so there's still a solid opportunity to eliminate a good chunk of the field while moving on.
Small Field: Philadelphia Eagles
One of my favorite features of the Pool Genius suite of tools is the "Optimal Path" calculator. Not because I plan on following it to a tee — so much can change between now and even the start of October. I appreciate it because it shows how unlikely it is to survive an entire season, even with the best laid plans.
That's especially relevant in smaller field contests like you might play in with a group of friends or coworkers. Optimizing for odds of survival gives about a 0.6% chance of lasting all 18 weeks, meaning pools under about 165 entrants are favored to end before the season concludes.
That's relevant here because the Eagles have a ton of value down the line, so if you think you need to make it all 18 weeks, the best plan is probably to save them for later. However, we're optimizing for a field size of 100 or less here, which, statistically speaking, should end around Week 15 — and that's assuming everyone plays optimally.
With that in mind, I'm happy to burn the Eagles early in their home matchup against Dallas on Thursday Night Football. As 8.5-point favorites, they have the best odds of winning, and give you some leverage over the more popular picks (Denver and Arizona) that aren't quite as safe.
If one of those teams fall, the Eagles' strategy will look especially smart, as a large number of entries will be eliminated, and your pool could wrap up even sooner.
One caveat: some pools this year are going with the unique twist of treating the combined Thanksgiving/Black Friday slate as its own week, requiring an additional pick for those four games.
If your pool uses those rules, I'd avoid burning Philadelphia early — even smaller pools are reasonably likely to last 13 weeks, and the Eagles look like the safest option on the smaller slate that week.
