Week 7 NFL Survivor Picks, Strategy: Back the 49ers, Chiefs & Raiders
Via Ezra Shaw/Getty Images. Pictured: George Kittle #85 of the San Francisco 49ers celebrates after a touchdown catch during the third quarter against the Dallas Cowboys at Levi’s Stadium on October 08, 2023 in Santa Clara, California.
The survivor concept is simple: Pick one team to win an NFL game every week. No spreads or totals – just winners. Once you use that team, you can't use them again – creating an element of strategy and long-term planning that makes these contests deceptively difficult.
Fortunately, this year we're partnering 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.
Despite two previously unbeaten teams dropping their first games of the season, it was a relatively calm week in survivor for Week 6.
The Eagles and 49ers combined to eliminate about 11% of the field, with the four most popular options — including all three of our recommendations — moving on. Hopefully you avoided those landmines and keep it rolling into the middle third of the NFL season.
My favorite feature of the site is the ability to customize for your pool type. Factors such as contest size and payout structure are a huge factor in survivor contests as smaller fields generally don't have any entries that survive all 18 weeks.
To give a glimpse of how that works, I'll be providing Pool Genius' top option for small (fewer than 50) and large (1,000+) pools.
Besides that, Pool Genius tracks 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 the odds of winning.
Finally, Pool Genius uses 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 the full data, you'll need to sign up for the site. It's well worth it, though, and also includes tools for taking down the increasingly popular pick'em contests that feature massive prize pools.
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Large Field: San Francisco 49ers
After their surprising upset against the Browns in Week 6, the 49ers are in a classic bounce-back spot in Week 7. They're on the road in Minnesota as seven-point favorites on Monday Night Football, taking on a 2-4 Vikings team that's without their best player in star wide receiver Justin Jefferson.
Pools of this size are still somewhat likely to last all 18 weeks of the NFL season. The DraftKings $10 pool I've based this section on still has over 7,000 entrants left. While that's less than 20% of the initial field, it's a large enough number that there's value in being contrarian. The 49ers upset loss last week should keep their utilization fairly low this week, with just 5% of the public looking their way as of Tuesday.
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There is a caveat, however.
First, San Francisco could be without its two top offensive weapons in Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel. They're a far deeper team than Minnesota at the skill positions, but losing multiple players would still be a challenge.
Second, they're also one of the best teams in future value, so it's risky to burn them now.
However, the extra day between games should help both McCaffrey and Samuel's chances of playing, as neither are considered to have long-term injuries.
Additionally, most of the 49ers' future value is near the end of the season, where in theory we should be able to find other teams worthy of using instead.
Still, keep an eye on the injury status of McCaffrey and Samuel. If it looks probable that at least one of the two suits up Monday, the pick should be fine, but I'd consider other options if both look like they are on the wrong side of questionable by the weekend. The drawback of this game being on Monday is that we'd have to pivot before getting any firm news — but that's another factor keeping the 49ers' popularity down.
Small Field: Chiefs or Raiders
Last week, we came up with the Chiefs and Dolphins as the top picks for smaller pools. Obviously, if you used the Chiefs in Week 6, they aren't an option this week.
However, if you went with Miami last week, it's time to pull the trigger on Kansas City. Pools of this size are likely near or at single-digit entries remaining and are unlikely to see Thanksgiving, much less Week 18. That means we're mostly optimizing for safety, and Kansas City is among the best of the teams remaining, depending on your earlier selections.
While the Chiefs have a ton of long term value, there's a good chance these pools wrap before you'd reasonably use them again. If your entry hasn't used the Bills or 49ers, they're both solid choices for similar reasons as well.
However, if you have used all three of those powerhouses, Las Vegas is a very interesting choice. The Raiders are less safe of a pick than the chalky Seahawks, but this is a great week to eliminate most of the competition if the Seahawks get upset.
The Raiders have about as good of a matchup as they'll ever have against a Bears team that's 1-5 and is now likely without starting quarterback Justin Fields.
Early in the week Las Vegas is favored by just three points, but that number could grow if Fields is ruled out. While the Seahawks are eight-point favorites, they're likely to be the overwhelmingly chalky choice in pools like this. Even if both teams advance, the leverage of having Seattle as an option in a few weeks is worth the risk from an EV standpoint according to Pool Genius.
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