Paulie’s Guide to NFL Survivor Pools

@FriedEggPaulie introduces you to NFL Survivor pools and guides you through the strategies you need to succeed.

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Let’s admit it, who doesn’t want to make a ton of money in a sports pool off of only a small investment? We see March Madness bracket contests all over the place, where people are turning $50 into $5,000. NFL Survivor pools are the second largest pools behind March Madness. In this winner take all format, you can have the chance to win a lot based on only a small investment. I’m here to walk you through my Survival Pool process and provide you with some tips to help you have a better chance of capturing that $$$$$.

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Survivor Pool Basics

• You pick one team a week, and if they lose you are eliminated.
• If your team wins, you move on to the next week. However, you can’t use that same team again.
• This process repeats itself until there is 1 entry left, and that person wins the whole pot.

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Tips to Succeed

• Know your competition
  •  Are you in an office pool with people who don’t follow football that much?
  •  Are you in a pool with a bunch of football diehards?
• Know the size of your pool
  • If you are in a small pool, you can play more conservative on your picks.
  • If you are in a very large pool, it may pay off to be aggressive in some of your picks
• Do your research ahead of time
  • Every year before the season starts, I look at the schedule of all 17 weeks and identify potential spots to use teams. This gives me an edge on most competitors.

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Trap to Avoid

• Picking teams while on the road and/or in divisional games.
  • Yes, we might use these sometimes, but these are the typical trap spots where everything looks good on paper and they get upset. We see a few teams lose games in spots like this when we everyone thinks they are “locks”

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My Survivor Pool Strategy

Before the Season

I sit down before every NFL season and spend some time doing some Survival Pool prep. I go through all 17 weeks of the regular season schedule and chart out potential teams to use each week. This helps immensely for a few reasons:

• I can identify in advance weeks that will be difficult to pick.
• I can identify the best spots to use each team.
  • How many times have you used a team in Week 2 only to wish in Week 9 that you still could use them because the matchup is so good that week?
• I can set a strategy to make sure that I can have multiple solid teams to choose from each week.

Below, you will find a table that I make every year which lists potential teams to use by week. Boxes that are highlighted represent what I believe is the most valuable week to use that team. This is not an exhaustive list as there may be additional teams I will consider as injuries arise or as team performance varies from expected. Also, be aware that in week 17 you may see starters sit for some of the top teams so not choices are shown for that week yet.

During the Season

• Each week I will take a look at my 17-week grid to help make my selection.
  • I want to make sure that I pick a team with a particularly good chance to win but also leave myself enough flexibility in the future.
  • Early in the year this is pretty easy as I’m not really concerned about ownership of teams too much here.
  • If you are lucky enough to survive past week 5, then things can get a bit more complicated.
    •  There are less people alive in the pool and less teams for each person to choose especially with there being weeks where at least 4 teams are on bye.
• How to approach your picks from Week 6 onward:
  • As a reminder, our goal is to WIN the whole pool…. finishing 6th gets us nothing. So, at this point in the pool, it pays to play a bit contrarian or as some people say “aggressive”.
    • By this I mean, I’m going to look at my table once again but also take into consideration the teams that have already been chosen by the other remaining entries in the pool.
    • I want to identify the top 1 or 2 likely picks for the week and potentially avoid those games. Yes, I realize I will be picking a team with most likely a smaller chance to win then the 1 or 2 most popular plays. But this strategy can pay off huge if one of the popular picks loses. Here is an example:
      • Team A is favored by 10 points at home versus Team B and Team A has been used so far by only a few of the remaining entries.
      • Team C meanwhile is a 6 point favorite at home versus Team D but doesn’t project to be used as much because a lot of people have already used them, and people are always attracted to the biggest favorites of the week.
      • In this case, I would rather take Team C because they may be only 5% owned while Team A may be 40%. If Team A somehow loses, 40% of the pool has been eliminated and your chance to win has massively increased.
  • Apply this same thought process for each of the remaining weeks to give yourself the best chance to hit the jackpot!!!