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With the 2024-25 NFL schedule kicking off soon, it’s time to look at survivor pools and examine a few potential strategies for winning one this coming season.
Survivor pools are fascinating because they seem extremely easy on the surface, but in reality they require strategy (and plenty of luck) that goes into making it all 18 weeks.
For those who are unfamiliar, a survivor pool requires contestants to correctly pick one NFL team to win its game that week, similar to a moneyline bet. The catch is that you can’t repeat any teams throughout the season, so you’ll need at least 18 different winning teams (some contests, like the one at Circa Sports, have 20 weeks – one for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas) to make it through the whole season unscathed.
If there is more than one person at the end of the season who survives, then the remaining contestants split the prize money equally.
As Derek Stevens, CEO and owner of Circa Sports in Las Vegas, said recently: “The reason I think Circa Survivor has come onto the scene with such explosiveness is that it’s a uniquely simple, easy to understand contest. Circa Survivor is an exceptionally strategic contest, yet on the surface it seems easy. There’s also been a blend of pros and first-timers who have won.”
Here are five strategies that can help you win your NFL survivor pool this season.
Find a Few Bad Teams to Target Early
There won’t always be the equivalent of a free bingo square every week throughout the NFL season, but there are going to be some very bad teams. Some will be easy to spot before the season starts, while others will simply be worse than expected or become plagued by injuries.
For example, the Carolina Panthers went 2-15 in 2023 and lost to 13 different teams, so you would have gone far by simply picking them to lose most weeks.
Online sportsbooks typically offer a futures market for the fewest regular-season wins for the upcoming season, which can be a good starting point when researching which teams to pick against early. The New England Patriots (+320 at DraftKings) are the favorites in that market, along with the Denver Broncos (+550), Carolina Panthers (+650) and Tennessee Titans (+800).
Early in the season, it’s generally wise to pick against the teams that you (and the betting markets) think will be bad. Don’t get cute and save these teams for later in the season when you may already be eliminated.
Utilize Free Info From Betting Lines
This seems like a simple one, but you’d be surprised how many casual survivor players don’t look at betting lines when plotting out which teams to pick.
Early on in the season when many options are available to you, there is no reason to pick an underdog. DraftKings and other NFL betting sites already have lines out for all 18 weeks of the season, so you can see which games teams are big favorites in and start mapping out your picks.
As of writing, the San Francisco 49ers are favored in all 17 of their games this season, so there will be plenty of opportunities to use them. You’ll want to look over the schedule and pick out a few weeks that make sense.
Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Bengals are 9.5-point home favorites in Week 1 against the New England Patriots. Not only is that the biggest spread of any Week 1 game, but it’s also the most points the Bengals are favored by all season. With Joe Burrow’s injury last year causing Cincinnati to miss the playoffs, the Bengals won’t want to mess around with an inferior team.
This will undoubtedly be a popular Week 1 pick, but it’s important to remember that you can’t be too worried about Weeks 2-18 until you survive Week 1.
Be Open to Change
Part of the beauty of a survivor contest is that each week is its own challenge. While you need your team to win to advance, you can also gain an edge by picking less popular teams to win.
It’s a good idea to examine the schedule ahead of time and figure out which team(s) you would ideally pick each week. However, you must also keep an open mind, as a lot can change over the course of 18 weeks. The NFL is a war of attrition, so teams will ebb and flow throughout the campaign as their rosters evolve. By December, a team might look considerably different than the one that started the season in September.
For example, the 2023 Philadelphia Eagles started 10-1 before their injury-riddled defense collapsed down the stretch, causing them to lose five of their final six games. On the other hand, teams like the Houston Texans and Green Bay Packers surged late in the year as their young quarterbacks hit their stride.
You never know how a season is going to unfold, so be prepared to roll with the punches.
Adapt to Size and Skill of Your Pool
All survivor pools are not created equal, both in terms of size and the ability of participants. The Circa Survivor Pool, which costs $1,000 per entry and has a maximum of 10 entries per person, attracts some of the best bettors around. A pool like that is much more difficult to win and requires more research and strategy. You’ll need to zig when other players zag and outsmart the competition.
On the other hand, a survivor pool of your college buddies or co-workers may be larger but will probably have some people who aren’t as sharp. Hopefully, you know more about football than Mitch from accounting.
Therefore, you can probably take some of the safer options (read: bigger favorites) during the first few weeks of the season and see how many people advance. In a bigger pool, you’ll likely need to take more chances because the winner will likely survive much longer into the season, if not all 18 weeks.
Keep Track of Rookie QBs
Every season is different with the quality and quantity of rookie quarterbacks starting in the NFL. While No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams and No. 2 overall pick Jayden Daniels look like the presumptive starters in Chicago and Washington to begin the season, other first-round QBs like Drake Maye, J.J. McCarthy, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix all have different timetables.
Rookie QBs usually struggle early on, and there could be some opportunities to pick against teams starting these first-rounders as the season progresses. It’s also worthwhile to see when bye weeks are for certain teams, as it’s usually easier to break in a rookie with two weeks to prepare rather than one.
Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
