NFL Survivor picks for Week 15
It has gotten very real if you are still alive in your Survivor pool. The available number of reliable teams is dwindling, and two of the seemingly more reliable options in Week 14, the Packers and the Dolphins, both lost in heartbreaking fashion. The degree of difficulty for surviving and advancing gets harder the deeper you go, but when the teams that seem like the best options don’t make it through, it is a harsh reminder of how tough this kind of contest really is.
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I’ve spent the last few weeks of the article trying to focus on teams that I think entrants still have because the league’s elite and very good teams have mostly been used up by this point. I will do that again this week. As a reminder, my goal was to have my own “entry” here until it lost, which actually happened during Thanksgiving week with the Lions. After that, every team went back into the hopper, but I’ve remained cognizant of the fact that telling you to take San Francisco, Dallas, or Kansas City doesn’t really provide any help to those still alive.
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NFL Survivor Picks to Consider
Los Angeles Rams over Washington Commanders
For the purposes of this article “entry”, I used the Rams back in Week 6, so it feels wrong to use them as the pick here. That being said, if they are available to you, I think they are the best pick of the week.
Washington is coming off of the bye, but how engaged is this team? The white flag was waved when Montez Sweat and Chase Young were traded at the Trade Deadline. As admirable as Sam Howell’s season has been, he’s been sacked 58 times and has thrown 14 picks, many of them in the face of pressure. The Rams are in the bottom 10 in sacks and Pressure% this season, but I felt like they disrupted a lot of plays for the Ravens last week. They had two sacks and five QB hits and flushed Lamar Jackson a lot, but just failed to bring him down. Unless Howell somehow transitions into Lamar during the week, I think the Rams have success getting home.
To me, though, this handicap is all about the Rams offense. They have a much different dynamic with Kyren Williams back. Over the last three weeks, the Rams are third in EPA/play, fifth in Success Rate, third in Dropback EPA, and second in Rush EPA. Meanwhile, Washington has had far and away the worst defense in the NFL for weeks now. I can’t see a bye week helping that, as the personnel hasn’t changed.
Green Bay Packers over Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Packers let down a good number of Survivor players in Week 14, but they’re back at home in Week 15 against a Bucs bunch that seems to be barely hanging on. Tampa Bay has a share of first place in the NFC South, but just got outgained by 144 yards by the Falcons in their 29-25 win. They haven’t thrown for over 200 yards in three straight games and have been significantly outgained in three of the last four. The one game in that stretch where they outgained a team was against Carolina and the 75-yard catch and run from Mike Evans made all the difference.
The setback against the Giants certainly hurt Green Bay’s playoff chances, as they had five red-zone trips and scored only two touchdowns. They also had just 4.9 yards per play, but it felt as though Jordan Love was really coming around during the three-game winning streak, including the triumph over the Chiefs.
If you still have Green Bay available, they do play Carolina next week, but you have to weigh the risk-reward of playing for next week when everything is getting down to crunch time for this week.
Tennessee Titans over Houston Texans
This one might deserve an asterisk, since it feels contingent on C.J. Stroud being out. That said, even before getting hurt, Stroud wasn’t playing well and was really stymied by a good Jets defense. Furthermore, with both Tank Dell and Nico Collins out, the Texans don’t really have a lot of weapons for Stroud. I’d downgrade them even more if it’s Davis Mills throwing to a lackluster set of backs and receivers.
The Texans had a goal-to-go stand against the Broncos to preserve their win a couple of weeks ago, otherwise we’d be talking about a three-game losing streak. They also had a lot of issues with the Cardinals prior to the loss against the Jaguars. As evidenced by last night, Tennessee is still playing hard and these are still really important reps for Will Levis.
Tennessee owns the league’s top red-zone defense and Houston, despite having Stroud and a rising star in the coaching business in OC Bobby Slowik, ranks around the middle of the pack. This could be a sneaky pick with a team that most remaining entrants are likely to have.
Obviously the Dolphins, 49ers, and Chiefs are big favorites this week and you can use any one of them if you have them available.
NFL Survivor Pick for Week 15
Cincinnati Bengals over Minnesota Vikings
Against all odds, the Bengals with Jake Browning seem like a real option on Saturday against the Vikings. If you hadn’t used Cincinnati prior to Joe Burrow’s season-ending injury, it felt like there was no chance to use the Bengals moving forward. Alas, here we are, with Browning channeling his inner Burrow and a Vikings team with major QB questions coming to town.
As we all expected, the Bengals are sixth in EPA/play on offense with Browning these last two weeks and have scored 68 points. It didn’t look good against the Steelers for the offense, but Zac Taylor has reimagined the playbook and it has paid tremendous dividends. Browning is first in EPA+CPOE composite (expected points added + completion percentage over expected) these last two weeks and second to Brock Purdy in adjusted EPA/play.
Cincinnati will need every bit of that version of Browning this week against a Vikings defense that has really improved of late under Brian Flores, but the Bengals defense may catch a break this week. Cincinnati has been carved up through the air in more games than they haven’t, but Josh Dobbs was benched for Nick Mullens last week and the Vikings have stagnated on offense, including last week’s three-point effort against the Raiders.
Like I said, if you have the Rams, I think they’re the pick, but I haven’t used the Bengals yet and I think they’re more likely to be available for those still alive.
