Week 1 Survivor Picks Strategy & Advice (2024)

The Week 1 survivor picks for 2024 feature only one team favored by more than a touchdown, and some intriguing low future value options.

Joe Burrow and the Bengals will be the most popular survivor pick in Week 1 (Jeff Moreland/Icon Sportswire)

We have launched our NFL Survivor Picks product for 2024, along with this initial pick strategy and advice column for Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season.

In these weekly columns, we explore strategies to maximize your edge in NFL survivor pools, also known as knockout pools or eliminator pools. We also provide some of the rationale behind picks potentially recommended by our product.

We plan to periodically update this post until Sunday of Week 1 arrives, so check back by throughout the preseason. In the week leading directly into the first games, we will have daily updates on strategy, news, and other relevant info. Here’s what’s available now:

9/8: Week 1 Sunday AM Pick Overview
9/6: Friday Strategy Rundown: Seattle and Buffalo Up Top
9/5: Live Chat for Week 1 Underway
9/4: Strategy for a Week 1 Full of Risk
9/3: Survivor Week 1 Coach and QB Factors
9/1: Five Most Popular Survivor Picks of Week 1
8/31: Updating Line Moves for Week 1
8/1: Early Week 1 Survivor Outlook
FYI: Survivor Strategy Articles
FYI: About Our Survivor Pool Advice

Sunday 9/8

Week 1 Sunday AM Pick Overview

Before we get started with the overview, this is a quick reminder that we will be having a live chat from 11:45 to 12:30 a.m. ET as you get ready for the early afternoon Week 1 games.

Now, to where our pick recommendations stand as of Sunday at 8:30 a.m. ET, comparing public picking trends to the percentage of picks we’re recommending to PoolGenius subscribers (the “PoolGenius” column).

The last six columns in the table show how our recommended picks vary by subscriber pool format/rules. The table shows every team with at least 2% public popularity and/or is drawing at least one recommendation from PoolGenius to one of your pool entries.

Team	Public	PoolGenius	Standard	Strike	Rebuy	Multi-Pick	Playoffs
Seattle	11.5%	35.9%	33.8%	42.4%	42.8%	35.5%	45.3%
Buffalo	13.9%	28.4%	28.4%	26.6%	28.0%	28.6%	26.0%
Cincinnati	35.3%	17.7%	21.1%	17.5%	5.4%	14.0%	15.0%
Atlanta	1.8%	6.5%	5.2%	4.4%	9.5%	9.1%	3.3%
Detroit	1.9%	6.3%	7.9%	2.3%	0.7%	6.3%	1.4%
Chicago	4.0%	2.4%	2.2%	2.4%	2.2%	3.2%	3.5%
LA Chargers	1.9%	1.2%	0.7%	1.4%	2.8%	1.8%	1.3%
New Orleans	9.1%	0.8%	0.0%	0.6%	6.3%	0.8%	2.4%
San Francisco	3.7%	0.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
Tampa Bay	3.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.8%	2.2%	0.5%	1.5%
Minnesota	1.3%	0.1%	0.0%	1.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
Miami	2.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
Houston	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Entries can fall under more than one category. For example, a pool that requires multiple picks in future weeks and allows a strike would be separately included in the percentages for each.

We see that Seattle continues to be the most common recommendation, even higher in specialty pools like strike pools and multi-picks. Buffalo is still second.

These numbers are overall, for all pick recommendations generated at any time. In the last day, we’ve seen Detroit and Atlanta solidify as those alternate choices, while Cincinnati is sliding a bit (but still holding at 3rd overall) as the news continues to be less than ideal for their offense. Detroit has seen a line move up to -4.5, and it has one of the highest EVs, thanks to low popularity. Atlanta has only seen a slight line move, but that’s still enough to bump them up. Chicago, the Chargers, and New Orleans have all seen their rates drop in the last day compared to earlier in the week.

Week 1 Expectations

First, you may notice that when you generate all your picks, you now get a portfolio summary of all the teams you picked and your odds of getting a certain number of entries through this week with those pick distributions. This will help you visualize the range of outcomes with those specific picks.

This is our summary of some of the data related to pick recommendations as of this morning:

At PoolGenius odds estimates (generally lower on some of the favorites), the public average survival is 67%, and our subscriber average is 69%.
At market odds, the public average survival is 70%, and our subscriber average is 71%.
The public is also using more future value on average thanks to the high rate on the Bengals, while ours is a little lower thanks to being heavier on Seattle, among other picks.

That’s a good position to start the year, with slightly higher overall win odds (thanks to the public’s picks with lower win odds), but also, less average future value is being used. And now we wait for the game results in a potentially wild Week 1 full of risky options.

Friday 9/6

Friday Strategy Rundown: Seattle and Buffalo Up Top

The strategy for Week 1 is dictated by a difficult week right out of the gate, with lots of questions and few clear options.

Seattle is the One Smash

For most pools, Seattle is the best pick on the board by the numbers. They have the 3rd-highest win odds, and 3rd-highest popularity, while having far less future value than some other top options. It looks like a good week to use them.

The primary concern here is just how much we lean into Seattle because they do have some higher variance factors. They have a new head coach in Mike MacDonald, and the Broncos are starting a rookie QB in Bo Nix. The market is down on Denver, going into year two with Sean Payton as head coach, with Nix instead of Russell Wilson at QB. But what if the collective wisdom is just wrong on Denver? Given the higher variance bands around Seattle and Denver, we think the best strategy is to use Seattle as a key pick, but if playing a portfolio, diversify off that pick enough so no single result ruins your week.

If you are a swashbuckling risk-taker and want to roll, though, Seattle presents the best argument for doing that.

Buffalo Makes Strategic Sense

Buffalo is our next most common recommendation, and that is true even though our models are down on their win odds (68%) relative to market odds (73%). That’s because they have a good blend of solid EV, not a huge amount of future value with a difficult schedule, and not too much popularity in a risky week. We do not currently project them above 70% win odds until Week 7 (Tennessee) and then not again after that until facing the Patriots twice in the last three games. So using them up is not cost-prohibitive.

Pairing Buffalo and Seattle as the key picks also makes strategic sense. Both allow you to play against both:

The most popular individual pick, Cincinnati; and
all the riskier picks at below 65% win odds, who collectively make up about one-third of all picks this week.

Cincinnati: Safest Pick and Hedge on Other Outcomes

Cincinnati is the safest pick this week, relatively, even though our model win odds (74%) are lower than the market (79%). There’s something to be said for that in a week when so many picks will be on a team with 60% to 65% chances of winning.

You’ll likely see the Bengals graded higher in the smallest pools, and not as much in larger ones, where their popularity combined with future value make them more of a team to save.

That said, you could still see some Bengals in your portfolio, and you should think of that as a bit of a hedge play in a risky week. What if everything goes wrong elsewhere, and there are a bunch of upsets? We almost saw this last year when the popular teams favored by a touchdown or more both won in Week 1 and then most of the next tier of teams lost.

Right now, overall, Cincinnati is being recommended at about half the public pick rate, to around 19% of entries.

Detroit and the Chargers are Currently Showing Up as Other Options

As for all the rest, we have seen some line movement on Detroit, where they are now a 4-point favorite, and given their low popularity, that has moved them up based on the good EV, even though you sacrifice a little more future value.

The Chargers are also showing up as a positive EV play, at modest to low future value. They are currently just ahead of a host of other options, like Chicago, Atlanta, and Tampa Bay.

New Orleans is close, and is a consideration for future value savings in large multi-pick pools, but is grading down because of our lower model win odds, combined with higher relative popularity lowering their EV.

One team you probably won’t see unless the odds rise dramatically is San Francisco. They have a really good EV this week. They are also our highest future value team, and will have a lot of other weeks with better win odds and higher EV.

Finally, you may see 1-2 of these types of teams show up in your portfolio. It’s probably not a good strategy, though, to pick too many of them. They all carry a decent amount of Week 1 risk, and you are just increasing your chances of losing entries by spreading them across all the riskier options this week.

Thursday 9/5

Live Chat

We have a live chat ahead of tonight’s Chiefs-Ravens opener, from 2 pm to 2:45 pm ET.

Feel free to stop in and ask any questions you may have.

We will have another one at the same link at 11:45 am ET on Sunday.

Wednesday 9/4

Strategy for a Week 1 Full of Risk

In the article linked yesterday, we noted how much risk this week has. Here’s an overview of how this week compares to a typical Week 1:

1 team favored by 7 or more points (2.9 on average in Week 1 over the last decade)
3 teams favored by more than 4 points (6.0 on average in Week 1 over last decade)

So, the matchup makers did us no favors to start the year.

You can basically divide this week up into some tiers:

Cincinnati: Biggest Favorite, but quite popular, and with future value (37% of all picks)
Buffalo and Seattle: Next tier of win odds, both around 70% in market win odds and moderate popularity (24% of all picks, combined)
A bunch of teams as 3-4 point favorites: various future value profiles here, but all riskier than a typical survivor pick, at 60-65% win odds (29% of all picks)
Everyone else: even riskier teams, small favorites, none individually popular, but about 10% of all picks

Seattle and Buffalo

That Seattle and Buffalo duo is showing up as our most common recommendation right now. They give the benefit of having relatively higher win odds than the average Week 1 pick, good EVs, and allow you to play against both the single most popular pick and also against [waves hand in the direction of all the other picks making up close to 40% of entries].

Seattle is a very good survivor pick, not a ton of future value, positive EV, relative high win odds given the week dynamics. The risk there is that it’s Week 1, and we’ve never seen this version of Seattle with a new head coach or Denver with a new rookie QB. If it was several weeks from now, and the results had confirmed Denver was near the bottom of the NFL as expected, and Seattle was in the league average range they currently project, then Seattle would be a great survivor pick at these same numbers. The Week 1 environment and uncertainty should give us a little more humility in projecting how confident we are that any particular pick this week is a good or bad one.

Meanwhile, our models are much lower on the Bills than the market. Our research does show that Week 1 dogs like the Cardinals, with a QB situation where the starter had missed a chunk of the previous year, tend to be undervalued by the market. But even at our lower-than-market projected win odds, Buffalo is still an above-average survivor pick this week. That’s in part thanks to not having the massive future value we have typically seen with the Bills, as they face a pretty tough 2024 schedule and also don’t get the Patriots until two of the final three weeks of the season. It’s also partly due to the same dynamics we highlighted, where a lot of the pool will either be concentrated on the Bengals or spread across many riskier options, making the Bills a good alternative to both sets of options.

The Other Options

The next question, if you are playing several entries and will be using more than two teams, is whether you also add some Cincinnati or some other teams that are smaller favorites. The answer to that may be pool-dependent. Cincinnati is a relatively better option in small pools, where their future value is less important and where safety is a bigger factor. Where the Cincinnati odds end up this week could also be a factor in win odds, which could shift based on Ja’Marr Chase news either way.

In really large pools, where your starting odds of cashing are very small, embracing more risk to get through without using Cincinnati now makes a lot more sense. Right now, Chicago seems to be the highest grade of those other riskier options, given their positioning between (a) a group of higher future value teams and (b) a group of riskier or lower EV teams. But this is an area where we could see some shifting through the week. Atlanta or the Chargers going up slightly in win odds, for example, or Chicago down, could shift the grades enough in these types of picks.

Tuesday 9/3

Survivor Week 1 Coach and QB Factors

We wrote a detailed research article on Week 1 and Head Coach and Quarterback factors for survivor. Here’s a quick summary:

The TL;DR version of our research is this. The relatively most predictable Week 1 games are those where both teams have the same coach as the year before, and where both starting quarterbacks were also the starter the year before and played all or most of the season.

That makes some intuitive sense, as those two positions are key drivers are value in the NFL. When we have already seen the same team do it with the same coach/QB combo, there’s a little more comfort in projecting outcomes.

As we introduce more changes at coach, quarterback, or both, for both the favored team and the underdog team, the outcomes become more volatile, with far more game results finishing a lot further from the game spread.

In survivor pools, especially when taking larger favorites, we typically would prefer less volatility and uncertainty, because more uncertainty marginally increases the odds of an upset.

To read the rest of the details click here.

Sunday 9/1

Five Most Popular Survivor Picks of Week 1

The smell of Week 1 is in the air as we hit Labor Day weekend, and we are continuing to get pick popularity data rolling in as football fans flock to make their picks. Here is how the Week 1 survivor landscape is shaping up (you get a bonus 6th team since there is a tie for 5th right now):

Cincinnati Bengals (vs. New England Patriots)

Spread: -8.5
Our Win Odds: 75%
Popularity: 36%

Pros: The Bengals are the week’s biggest favorite and in a very tough Week 1 with many risky options, that matters.

Cons: The Bengals have fairly high future value, making them a relatively worse pick in large pools, and the popularity continues to climb (it was in the low 30s a few weeks ago with early numbers). Also, we still don’t know if star WR Ja’Marr Chase will play, as he has been holding out for a new contract. The line has dropped slightly over the last week due to those concerns.

Buffalo Bills (vs. Arizona Cardinals)

Spread: -6
Our Win Odds: 67%
Popularity: 14%

Pros: The Bills are the second-biggest favorite, though only at -6. Buffalo’s future value isn’t as high as it has been for them in past seasons, as their schedule appears to be difficult, and they don’t get the Patriots until the season’s final three weeks.

Cons: Buffalo still has more future value than other options this week. Our models are a bit down on the Bills relative to the market in this one, and some of our Week 1 research shows Arizona as a dangerous dog. The popularity is high enough, with only moderate win odds for a survivor favorite, to make the EV merely about average.

New Orleans Saints (vs. Carolina Panthers)

Spread: -4
Our Win Odds: 61%
Popularity: 9%

Pros: Pretty much no future value. A Week 7 game vs. Denver is the only other week we currently project the Saints for greater than 60% win odds.

Cons: This line has moved against the Saints since opening at -5. Our models are also leaning toward the Panthers’ side against the spread. The popularity is high for a team favored by only 4 points.

Seattle Seahawks (vs. Denver Broncos)

Spread: -5.5
Our Win Odds: 69%
Popularity: 8%

Pros: Low Future Value. The spread has favored Seattle since opening at -4.5/-5. There is good EV since the win odds are as high or higher than some popular options near them, combined with public concentration on Cincinnati.

Cons: A new coach, Mike MacDonald, taking over for Pete Carroll and going against a rookie quarterback, Bo Nix, creates some uncertainty for Week 1. These factors could mean the market is wrong about the positive impact of Seattle’s changes or how bad Denver is expected to be in 2024 (they are near the bottom in win total Over/Under).

San Francisco 49ers (vs. New York Jets)

Spread: -4.0
Our Win Odds: 65%
Popularity: 5%

Pros: They are favored and at home in this matchup.

Cons: They have the highest Future Value on the board by far. Also, they have mediocre win odds. Their entire starting offensive group hasn’t practiced together because of holdouts and injuries in the preseason.

Chicago Bears (vs. Tennessee Titans)

Spread: -4.0
Our Win Odds: 64%
Popularity: 5%

Pros: Future value lower than some other options in Week 1.

Cons: Caleb Williams’ first game as a starter and teams favored in Week 1 with rookie quarterbacks have relatively poor performance (in limited sample size, 1-3 straight up, with the most recent being Trevor Lawrence as a rookie). It is likely a high-variance game due to various factors, including the Titans starting second-year quarterback Levis and having a new coach.

Saturday 8/31

Updating Line Moves for Week 1

Since we posted our early outlook, we have seen some notable line moves, and a lot of them have involved the spreads getting even shorter. Here are some of the notable ones for survivor purposes.

Cincinnati (from -9 to -8.5): the biggest factor here in any line drop is the Ja’Marr Chase holdout and whether he will play in Week 1.

San Francisco (from -5.5 to -3.5): lots of injuries and key holdouts by Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams are contributing here. With so many question marks for San Francisco, this looks even more like an AVOID spot, especially given their future value.

New Orleans (from -5 to -4): the Saints will be in play as a survivor option, but the market has moved against their win odds through the preseason, with some more optimism on Carolina’s new coaching regime, with former Bucs and Seahawks OC Dave Canales now in charge of the offense.

Buffalo (from -6.5 to -6): we laid out some reasons for optimism in Arizona and question marks for Week 1 in Buffalo, and the line has shifted slightly down also. This one doesn’t look like it will get to a touchdown without major injury news.

Chicago (from -4.5 to -4): this game is also in play, but has seen a tightening up of the line. As of right now, it looks like WR DeAndre Hopkins will be able to play for Tennessee, after suffering an injury early in camp.

Seattle (from -4.5 to -5.5): this is the exception where the line has gone up. Denver named Bo Nix the starter, and Seattle will be in its first game post-Carroll era, with Mike MacDonald taking over. If only we could figure out what a fool believes, we could go the opposite way in this one.

Thursday 8/1

Early Week 1 Survivor Outlook

Week 1 point spreads are out for all games, so we are going to break down some very preliminary survivor thoughts as we enter August. We also have very limited public popularity info, and that will certainly change as we approach the season. (Few people have thought about who they are taking yet in Week 1, and most aren’t as obsessed as us about thinking about this stuff.)

As of right now, only one team is favored by at least a touchdown, and there are only four teams favored by 5 or more points in Week 1. The Week 1 options are always somewhat limited, as we are less confident in who is good and bad without a game being played. It looks pretty tough, though, this year, compared to even recent Week 1 survivor situations.

Cincinnati (-9) vs. New England

The Bengals are the biggest favorite and projected most popular team in Week 1, as they take on a New England team coached by someone not named Bill Belichick for the first time since 1999. The quality of a Cincinnati pick will be dictated by just how popular they get and how concentrated the public is on taking the Bengals, if they are nervous about other options.

Buffalo (-6.5) vs. Arizona

The Bills are again a playoff contender and are the next biggest favorite when they host Arizona. But this Arizona team could be a live underdog. They were far more competitive toward the end of the year last year after QB Kyler Murray returned from a knee injury suffered late in the 2022 season. They’ve added WR Marvin Harrison, Jr. to the offense, while Buffalo has a major facelift on offense, with WR Stefon Diggs and WR Gabe Davis both gone, replaced by some combination of rookie Keon Coleman, veteran Curtis Samuel, and the expected emergence of players like 2nd-year TE Dalton Kincaid.

On the other hand, Buffalo doesn’t have quite the future value of recent years, where they have usually been among the most valuable. They don’t currently show up among our Top 5 options for 2024 in future value, and will be in consideration here.

San Francisco (-5.5) vs. NY Jets

The defending NFC Champion is the third-biggest favorite of Week 1, as they take on the Jets in Aaron Rodgers’ debut, part deux, after he suffered a season-ending injury just minutes into last season’s opener. The 49ers will have relatively better options in the future, and do rank among our top future value teams, but it’s a tough week so they are in play.

New Orleans (-5) vs. Carolina

Carolina was the team to pick against in Survivor last year, as they finished with a 2-15 record. New Orleans draws them to start this year, and the Saints don’t have much future value, as this looks like it could be one of their best relative spots. The Panthers will hope that Year 2 is different with Bryce Young at QB and bringing in QB whisperer Dave Canales (OC for Geno Smith in 2022 and Baker Mayfield in 2023), so there’s also a little more uncertainty on this situation and whether the Panthers can go from awful to somewhat competent.

Seattle (-4.5) vs. Denver

The Seahawks host a Denver team that now has the lowest win total for 2024. As of the start of August, we still don’t know if the QB starter for Denver in Week 1 will be rookie Bo Nix, journeyman Jarrett Stidham, or Jets’ bust Zach Wilson.

This is one of the better spots to consider Seattle, as they don’t project as a big favorite in many future weeks right now.

Chicago (-4.5) vs. Tennessee

There is a lot of optimism around the Chicago Bears after they drafted Caleb Williams first overall, and brought in both veteran WR Keenan Allen and rookie first-round pick Rome Odunze. Tennessee has a new coach in Brian Callahan, and is expected to look a lot different than the ground-and-pound Mike Vrabel era, and has also moved on from RB Derrick Henry. There are a lot of uncertainty variables in this one, and if Chicago approaches their projections, they will also have some higher-value weeks in the future.

Other Low Future Value Considerations

The following teams are toward the riskier end as Week 1 favorites but at least have low future value and may be in play as alternate picks: LA Chargers (-3.5) vs. Las Vegas, Tampa Bay (-4) vs. Washington.

If you want to see what the numbers say for your pool as we approach Week 1, go set it up in our NFL Survivor Picks product and get our customized pick recommendations.

FYI

Survivor Strategy Articles

If you’re serious about winning more survivor pools, it pays to learn the strategies that give you a long-term edge.

You can start with our free survivor strategy articles, which explain a number of the concepts we apply to our customized Survivor pick recommendations:

We also have written a survivor strategy e-book that goes more in-depth into a lot of key topics for Survivor, which you can download for free here.

FYI

About Our Survivor Pool Advice

We break down the pros and cons of various Survivor pick options in this column, but none of our advice is ever absolute.

Why can’t we just tell you the “best” survivor pick of the week? Because there is no universal “best pick” for all NFL survivor pools.

The best weekly pick for your pool depends on a variety of factors, including the number of entries still alive and your pool’s rules. For example:

Bigger survivor pools reward more risk-taking.
The more entries in your pool, the lower the chance you have to win it. These types of pools typically go deeper into the season, require more picks, and necessitate digging deeper into the teams by taking on more risk. As a result, your best strategy for bigger pools generally demands more of a focus on avoiding the most popular picks to try to benefit when the popular crowd pick falls flat.
Non-standard rules change optimal pick strategy.
If your pool requires double picks late in the season, or if it’s a strike pool (i.e. your first incorrect pick doesn’t eliminate you), you don’t want to use the exact same pick strategy that you’d use in a standard-rules survivor pool. Those rule variations significantly influence decision factors, such as whether you should be more inclined to save a good team for later vs. use it now.

And then there’s all this stuff:

What if you’ve already picked the team (or teams) that some article says is the best pick this week?
What if the point spread for that “best pick” has gotten several points worse since the article was published?
How should you spread your picks across multiple teams if you’re playing more than one entry?

Technology to the rescue

We believe we’re the only site with algorithms that evaluate all key strategy factors in survivor pools. We provide customized Survivor pick recommendations that are updated multiple times a day.

The result? Since 2017, our subscribers have reported over $6.0 million in survivor pool winnings using our data-driven picks and tools.

If you want to see all the picks we recommend for your pool, use our NFL Survivor Picks product.

Why we write this column

We know our subscribers want to understand the reasoning behind picks, especially when they go against the grain. This weekly article gives us a chance to explain the “why” behind our approach. It also allows us to detail unique situations as they arise.

This column can also help educate our readers about Survivor pool strategy. We highlight tactics proven to result in more survivor pool wins over the long term and point out common pitfalls to avoid.

We hope you enjoy reading, and we encourage you to check out more of our survivor pool strategy articles.