The concept behind a Survivor pool is easy. Winning one is not. There are different schools of thought and different strategies that come along with trying to be the last man or woman standing in these types of contests and you have to find the blend that works best for you.
For the purposes of this article, we’ll look at the most common rules of Survivor, but you always want to be aware of any wrinkles so you can plan accordingly.
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“Plan” is the operative word here. A lot of people go into these pools not paying attention to anything other than what is directly in front of them that week and that can be a kiss of death in this format.
What is a Survivor contest?
The most traditional form of Survivor (also known as Last Man Standing) is an NFL pool in which the contestants simply have to pick a team that wins outright every week. The catch is that you cannot pick a team twice. If you pick the Indianapolis Colts in Week 1, you cannot pick them again. If you pick a team that loses, you are out.
Popular variations include against the spread (ATS) Survivor, in which the team you pick has to cover the spread every week, or some people opt to play in one where you can only pick against the same team once. These two really heighten the degree of difficulty.
Because of the simplicity of a Survivor contest, these can have really large fields, often leading to split prizes. The goal is to go 18-0, or at least as far as you need to in order to outlast everybody else.
“The 1-0 Strategy”
Some contestants are simply focused only on the upcoming week. They’ll take one of the biggest favorites on the board and look to move on. This can be a viable strategy since there will always be a team playing a bad team. There will almost always be a line of more than a touchdown and a team that is at least 70% likely to win.
The downside of this strategy is that you may be strapped for teams as the season goes along. Taking all of the heavy favorites early in the season may take away most of the good teams. Playing it safe can put you in a bind later on.
Let’s say you make it to Week 9. There are six teams on byes, so you’re already restricted to taking one of the 26 remaining teams. The Bengals look to be the only big home favorite facing the Panthers. What if you don’t have Cincinnati available? Then you’re left possibly taking a team like the Vikings against the Commanders on the road or taking your chances with the Dolphins at Soldier Field against the Bears.
“The 18-0 Strategy”
That’s why many contestants will try to put together a blueprint of the possible picks for every week in advance of the season to try and save teams. By being organized and prepared, you can plan ahead to save the teams that you need to save for the weeks that you want to use them. This is especially important if your contest has wrinkles like the Thanksgiving or Christmas “weeks” that the Circa Survivor has.
Having tunnel vision in one week may leave you with a lot of unpalatable options later in the season. However, you may not make it to the deeper part of the season if you have it all planned out and try to hold teams back for future weeks. That can be the downside of this approach.
Plans can also change. If you hold back Cincinnati for Week 9 and Joe Burrow is out for that game, can you really take the Bengals in that situation? If you had your eggs in one team’s basket, and those eggs have since cracked, you can leave yourself in a really tight spot that throws off your plans.
Taking risks
When the entire world is going to be on a team, do you try to go against the grain a little bit and pick a different team? Upsets happen all the time in the NFL. Granted, we don’t see a lot of double-digit favorites get picked off during the season, but it does happen. In both 2019 and 2020, we saw 17.5-point underdogs win. We saw a 16-point favorite win last season in the Jaguars over the Bills.
The Rams are nearly a two-touchdown favorite against the Falcons in Week 2. They are also almost a double-digit favorite against the Seahawks in Week 13 when one game is -6.5 and every other game is -4.5 or lower on the lookahead lines. Weighing the risk-reward of saving the Rams for a much tougher week versus getting what appears to be an easy Week 2 win is a decision that has to be made.
The bonus is that the Rams could somehow lose and wipe out a large percentage of entrants before the season even really gets going. The silver lining, assuming you pick a different team that wins, is that you’ve saved one of the NFL’s better teams for later in the year.
What’s the best strategy?
To me, you have to have a blend of everything. You have to be aware of the importance of picking a winner that week, but of also having good options throughout the duration of the season. Maybe you do want to avoid a team that 60% of the field is picking if you have strong convictions about another team, but you don’t want to take too big of a risk if you don’t have to.
You want to be prepared and detailed with your preseason blueprint, but you also want to have multiple options each week. Drawing a hard line that Cincinnati has to be the pick in Week 9 isn’t a sound strategy either. You have to be confident, but also flexible because things happen in the NFL that can derail a team.
Many people say you shouldn’t take divisional road favorites or road favorites in primetime games. I believe you shouldn’t cross off any team because of a subjective angle like that. Many say you should never take a small favorite. If you like a matchup and feel like a team will take care of business, they should be on your shortlist for consideration. I don’t think restricting yourself in any way is part of a good strategy.
Lastly, if you have multiple entries, you likely want to vary the picks up a bit. Certainly you can make a case for taking a two-touchdown favorite across all entries, but if that team loses, all of your entries are out. If it’s a tough week, you can spread your entries across a few different picks in hopes of keeping one or more of them alive. Don’t overexpose yourself on one team and run the risk of getting eliminated across the board.
Best of luck in your Survivor/Last Man Standing pools this season!
