NFL Survivor Pool: Week 1

The NFL season is almost upon us and we have an awesome tilt for the opener with the defending champion Los Angeles Rams taking on the Buffalo Bills. The Rams, who bring back most of their team are not even favored, which is a little bit wild. You gotta love it. 

I know I will be watching that game, and getting down too, but I am going to use this space to share some thoughts about NFL Survivor Pools, one of the simplest forms of satisfying your NFL betting itch this season. 

Now there are some modifications out there, but basically what you are trying to do is pick one outright winner per week, with the only handicap being you can't take the same team more than once. Whoever stays "alive" the longest, wins. (If that was not enough of an explanation I am sure there are thousands out there.)

Week 1 is always interesting because we have the whole board to choose from. All of the teams are in action and we have not used any teams yet. That makes it both easy and hard at the same time. You want to choose a team that feels kind of like a sure thing but at the same time is not so good that it feels like you are "burning" them too soon. 

Week 1 Survivor Pick

Tennessee Titans (over the New York Giants)

The reasoning behind Tennessee starts with the fact that they are playing the Giants, one of the worst teams in the league. New York has a new head coach this season and even though Brian Daboll might be an offensive genius quarterback Daniel Jones is not Josh Allen. This is not just a fade of the Giants though as Tennessee has been very good in the regular season where their ground-heavy attack featuring RB Derrick Henry has led to a lot of wins. They might not be dynamic enough at quarterback to be more than a regular season winner (see early exit as top seed a year ago) but that is exactly what we are looking for here, a regular-season win. They are at home too and favored by 5.5 so a win is definitely expected. 

Long Term Survivor Outlook: I know some people might think you should wait on Tennessee because they definitely have some very easy division games against Houston and Jacksonville coming this season. That is totally true, but they don't have one of those until the end of October @Houston and don't host either of those teams until December. Some patience in a Survivor Pool can payoff but there are limits. If you don't use them in Week 1 you might not really like them again until that Houston game. 

Happy Hunting! (and stay tuned)

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Matt Wiesenfeld has been handicapping games and espousing sports wisdom online for more than a decade, writing thousands of articles to help bettors understand and play the market. Matt loves to bet on, write about, and engage on MLB, the NFL, NBA, college football, and college basketball.