NFL Survivor Picks

There was a lot of early-season chaos in Survivor, but it has been pretty smooth sailing for a while now. Most favorites have held up and the size of the pool hasn’t really taken a big hit in quite some time. We’ve got some interesting candidates this week and will have a lot of strong candidates over the final three weeks with some really big favorites on the board.

We also have two 14-point favorites this week in the Bills and Packers. I will discuss both of them and the other considerations for this week. You may not have teams that accomplished left available, so I’ll include some teams that I believe are available to most Survivors left standing.

 

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(Leaving this in from last week) The question always comes up about hedging. When my partner Marc Goldberg (Spooky Express) and I got deeper into the season, we started trading and swapping pieces and parts of entries with our Circa Survivor competitors so that we had some equity in other people that had different teams than we did. That is definitely an option for you if you are in a contest that big or even in a smaller contest. Reach out to those still alive and see if some 10%, 15%, etc. swaps would interest them. That way, you don’t leave empty-handed for all of the hard work to this point.

If you don’t want to get others involved, you can play against your pick or on/against the available teams of others, but that can be a deep rabbit hole that can be very costly. It’s an option, but make sure you plan it out really well, as you would any option at this point.

It is still critically important to look at the team schedules the rest of the way and make sure that you are using the team in question at the most optimal time possible. The Survivor tools over at PoolGenius can help with that, and so can this week’s article.

Week 16 NFL Survivor Teams to Consider

Cincinnati Bengals (-8.5) over Cleveland Browns

Those who were knocked out early but are still reading this article out of morbid curiosity are probably having some scary flashbacks. It was the Bengals who knocked out this article “entry” in Week 1 and knocked out a large swath of the field in the first three weeks of the season.

But, the Bengals are among the biggest single-digit favorites on the board and draw Dorian Thompson-Robinson this week as the Browns attempt to see what they have in the potential backup. Nick Chubb’s season is over. It has been a long, ugly season for the Browns and many of the players just have to be ready for it to end.

Burrow is only 2-5 against the Browns as a starter, but this is not the same Browns team as the ones he’s lost to in the past…but I’m assuming we’ve said that before.

At this stage of the game, you don’t worry about saving anybody, but you wouldn’t want to use the Bengals against either the Broncos or Steelers, so it’s here or bust.

PoolGenius has the Bengals at 79% to win.

Buffalo Bills (-14) over New England Patriots

Full disclosure: I still have the Bills available with this article. I’m trying not to double up with any team, even though I was knocked out of the game a long time ago. The 15 picks so far have been: Bengals (L), Ravens (L), Browns (L), Jets (L), 49ers (L), Eagles (W), Commanders (W), Broncos (W), Saints (L), Chargers (W), Dolphins (W), Chiefs (W), Lions & Vikings (W), Steelers (W), and Cardinals (W). Not a great record to be sure, but I’d still be alive in a “Second Half Survivor” contest. Of course, I did not plan well for Christmas Week and only have the Texans, Seahawks, and Bears there.

The Bills are still interested in putting beatings on the Patriots after Tom Brady did that for nearly 20 years. Buffalo probably won’t catch Kansas City for the top seed in the AFC, but that carrot is still dangling. If nothing else, they’d love to stay No. 2 and be at home for at least two playoff rounds.

Buffalo is honestly a good play next week at home against the Jets, too. If you have Green Bay available this week, you have a choice. If the Chiefs win on Saturday and again on Wednesday, you run the risk of the Bills sitting some guys. The Steelers are a dog this week at Baltimore and then a home dog to Kansas City, assuming Patrick Mahomes is playing. The results may fall in such a way that the Bills err on the side of caution. It’s a tough call.

PoolGenius has the Bills at 88% to win this week.

Atlanta Falcons (-8.5) over New York Giants

Man, is this one scary? Most entries probably have Atlanta available. But, you’re putting a lot of equity and potential money on Michael Penix Jr. in his first career start. There is a very good chance that Penix sparks the Falcons to victory and he’s already a better QB than Drew Lock, who gets the call again for the G-Men with Tommy DeVito sitting. It might even be Tim Boyle as the backup.

To say that the Falcons are scuffling is an understatement. They snapped a four-game losing streak with a hideous 15-9 win over the Raiders and Desmond Ridder. The Saints loss was bad, but Younghoe Koo missed three field goals in that 20-17 defeat. The other three losses were to playoff teams – Broncos, Chargers, Vikings. The Giants are in the running for the No. 1 pick.

Atlanta’s other losses have been the Steelers, Chiefs, and Seahawks, who are all current division or co-division leaders. On the whole, the Falcons have held up against lesser teams or NFC South rivals. This one falls in the “lesser team” department. You can save the Falcons for Week 18 against the Panthers if you want, as they may be playing for something within the division and may at least be playing for something in terms of important reps for Penix.

45 of 50 remaining Circa Survivors have the Falcons left. Expect them to be a very popular team this week. PoolGenius has Atlanta at 78% to win.

Week 16 NFL Survivor Pick

Green Bay Packers (-14) over New Orleans Saints

I purposely chose not to use the Bills here because I don’t know how available they are. In Circa Survivor, 25 of 50 entries have the Packers left and I feel like half is a fair enough number to use them for the purposes of this article. By comparison, 16 have the Bills.

This is a pretty simple breakdown. Spencer Rattler is going up to play at Lambeau Field in late December. Sunday’s expected high is 28 with a wind chill in the low 20s. The Saints aren’t playing for anything other than pride and interim head coach Darren Rizzi, which has been a nice motivating factor to this point, but the Packers are a much better team than what they’ve faced recently and a team playing for something.

You could try to save Green Bay for Week 18 at home against the Bears, but it seems likely that Jordan Love won’t play in that game. Green Bay is up two games on the Seahawks for the final playoff spot and just won head-to-head last week. We’ve seen Malik Willis already this season and the Packers have played fine with him, but I don’t think I want hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars on him in Week 18.

Packers it is, as PoolGenius has them at 90% to win this week.

Follow the link for the rest of our NFL Week 16 content.

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