The Five Most Valuable Teams in 2024 NFL Survivor Pools

As we look ahead to the 2024 NFL Survivor schedule, here are five teams that are likely to be quite valuable in your pools.

The 2024 NFL Season will probably feature some surprises that will pop up for your Survivor Pool consideration. Other teams will collapse and become popular “pick against” teams. Still, the NFL is not entirely unpredictable. We can generally identify the top and bottom teams in the league and be right more often than not.

Last year, for example, five of the top six teams in preseason win totals made the playoffs. The two Super Bowl participants, Kansas City and San Francisco, were each in the top three. Only Cincinnati, with QB Joe Burrow having multiple injuries, significantly underperformed.

Meanwhile, of the seven teams that finished the year with six or fewer wins, six had a preseason win total expectation of a losing record. Only the Chargers (again, with a QB injury for Justin Herbert) finished near the bottom of the NFL while being expected to have a winning record.

This article will outline the five most valuable teams for Survivor Pools in 2024 as they appear before the season begins. Since you can only use these teams once, you will likely face difficult “save or use” decisions on these teams.

Our NFL Survivor Pool Picks 2024 product will be released on August 1st. This industry-leading tool adjusts to changes in team quality throughout the season and provides customized advice each week. In this article, we look at the teams with the highest value as we approach the start of the preseason.

#1 Kansas City Chiefs

Number of Weeks as Projected Top Favorite: 4
Number of Weeks Projected for 75%+ win odds: 5
Number of Weeks in Top 5 in Weekly Projected Win Odds & 65%+ Win Odds: 8

The Chiefs face a demanding schedule early in 2024, starting with home games against Baltimore and Cincinnati and road games at Atlanta and the Chargers, where they will be favored, but not heavily.

The first spot you might be tempted to use them is in Week 5, at home against New Orleans.

However, you might want to save them for the middle of the season, when they could be a pivotal team. Between Weeks 8 and 14, the only game we do not currently project Kansas City over 70% in win odds is the trip to Buffalo (Week 11). We project them as the most considerable favorite in three different weeks in this span:

• Week 10 (vs. Denver)
• Week 12 (at Carolina)
• Week 13 (vs. Las Vegas)

So, it’s fair to say that deciding when to use Kansas City could be a critical decision point in some of these weeks when options are starting to run thin.

#2 San Francisco 49ers

Number of Weeks as Projected Top Favorite: 2
Number of Weeks Projected for 75%+ win odds: 3
Number of Weeks in Top 5 in Weekly Projected Win Odds & 65%+ Win Odds: 8

Unlike Kansas City, San Francisco has a lot of favorable survivor matchups in September. They look like a survivor pick option in four of the first five weeks, including in Week 4 when they host New England and project as the biggest favorite.

If you can save them past that stretch, they also project as an interesting value option in a “tougher-than-typical” Week 11 when they host Seattle and could also be a meager popularity value play in Weeks 14 (vs. Chicago) and 15 (vs. LA Rams).

#3 Baltimore Ravens

Number of Weeks as Projected Top Favorite: 4
Number of Weeks Projected for 75%+ win odds: 4
Number of Weeks in Top 5 in Weekly Projected Win Odds & 65%+ Win Odds: 6

The Baltimore Ravens match Kansas City with four separate weeks, where we currently project them as the biggest favorite.

The Ravens’ key spots are more evenly spread out across the 2024 schedule:

• Week 2 (vs. Las Vegas)
• Week 6 (vs. Washington)
• Week 9 (vs. Denver)
• Week 15 (at NY Giants)

The decision on how early you want to use Baltimore could depend on factors such as your pool size, rules, and contest length.

#4 Cincinnati Bengals

Number of Weeks as Projected Top Favorite: 3
Number of Weeks Projected for 75%+ win odds: 5
Number of Weeks in Top 5 in Weekly Projected Win Odds & 65%+ Win Odds: 7

The Bengals start Week 1 as the biggest favorite (-9) vs. New England, and the only team favored by more than a touchdown should be the popular pick. They also have two other weeks right away where they will be among the best options (Week 3 vs. Washington and Week 4 at Carolina).

Cincinnati is likely to be among the most used teams in the first four weeks, but that should, in turn, make them a high-value choice later in the year if you can save them. They still have three other spots where we project them with over 70% win odds.

One notable spot is Week 9, which looks like a difficult week. The three projected big favorites are Cincinnati vs. Las Vegas, Baltimore vs. Denver, and Kansas City vs. Tampa Bay. But after that, we don’t have any team projected for over 62% win odds. Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Kansas City are all highlighted here as top future value teams, meaning many opponents may have used them all by Week 9.

If everyone picks a riskier option like Tennessee vs. New England, having Cincinnati available could provide a significant edge.

#5 Detroit Lions

Number of Weeks as Projected Top Favorite: 1
Number of Weeks Projected for 75%+ win odds: 1
Number of Weeks in Top 5 in Weekly Projected Win Odds & 65%+ Win Odds: 6

There’s a significant drop-off from the top four in future value to the No. 5 Detroit Lions, who narrowly get it over teams like Miami, Buffalo, and Dallas.

Detroit’s most apparent spot looks like Week 8 (vs. Tennessee) when we project them as the week’s biggest favorite. However, they could also be a reasonable contrarian option in several other weeks, where you could use them when they are near the top in win odds and facilitate saving the four most valuable teams for different weeks.

Using the PoolGenius Schedule Advantage in 2024

While the quality of teams and the outlook of the upcoming schedule can and will change throughout the season, making the best decisions at each point, based on the information available, will help you in your quest for survivor glory.

In addition to providing customized pick recommendations for each survivor entry, our NFL Survivor Pool Picks 2024 product has several tools and features that allow you to keep up with the latest outlook. These include updating future value ratings for each team with each new week of results, a Season Planner tool that allows you to explore the projections for each upcoming week and select scenarios, and an Optimal Path tool which generates the best path forward (and four alternatives), based on which teams your entry has used to date.

Check it out upon its release in the coming days.