Survivor: Surviving Week 1

This article is part of our Survivor series.

Survivor Rules and Basic Strategy

Almost every year I start this column off with a paragraph explaining why I'm terrified of Week 1. While it's bad enough for the average person to plunk down his money for a meager 60 minutes of misery, it's far worse for the guy whose job it is to advise others. My anxiety about the week isn't simply rooted in my own financial well-being - I have the destiny of perhaps thousands (certainly dozens, at least) depending on my pick.

But this year I'm not feeling it. I don't mean I'm not feeling enthusiastic about the column or that I don't have a feel for the slate. I mean I'm not feeling the anxiety and dread like I usually do. Maybe it'll take effect in the third quarter when the team I picked throws a game-sealing pick-six, but I'll deal with that then. The coward dies 1000 deaths, the brave man only one.

What's changed to make me so cavalier about this momentous decision? It's a combination of a two things: I had a good year against the spread in 2014 and (knock on wood, it's not over yet) am having the best baseball season of my life. The common thread for both is I've been lucky as hell. That and I stopped giving a **** about anything but my own observations and impressions. I'm aware of some key metrics, and I'm aware that other people sometimes get it right, while I get it wrong. But I'm not setting out to be perfect and error free. I'm just self-reliantly giving it my best shot.

The other factor is this slate is so difficult with the top team at less than 75 percent, per the Vegas odds, everyone's at risk. When there is no safe haven, you don't need to agonize as much - any of these Week 1 teams not only can lose, but has a substantial chance of doing so. It's as if a giant meteor threatened to wipe out life on earth. It's hard to get too worked up about that - we're all screwed if it happens. It's much more frightening if the plane you're in starts descending nose first. We're in the meteor situation, not the airplane one. And I, for one, welcome it.

A couple notes on strategy for those of you who haven't read this column before. There are but two main considerations in making your pick: (1) How likely is that team to win; and (2) If it does win, how many other people are likely to be alive with you?

The point of survivor isn't merely to win each week; it's to win while others lose. It does you no good to be alive in Week 12 if everyone else in your pool is also alive. Your initial investment hasn't grown one bit in that case. The key is to grow your investment, and the only way to do that is for others to lose theirs. The easiest way for that to happen is when a big favorite gets upset, a ton of people have that favorite, and you've picked another team that was riskier at the time. If it weren't riskier at the time, then people would have picked your team rather than the big favorite with which they lost.

To illustrate how taking the risker team is often the right call, I'll give you an extreme example. Let's say you're in a 100-person survivor pool with a $10 buy-in. Winner gets $1,000. And let's say you knew the other 99 people were taking the Packers. And let's further stipulate that you had used every other team except the Bears and Packers. Which should you take? If you take the Packers you have (per Vegas) a 75-percent chance of being alive in Week 2. If you take the Bears you have a 25 percent chance of being alive. So take Green Bay, right? Wrong.

If the Packers win, you along with the 99 other people will all be alive in Week 2. You therefore have a 1 in 100 chance of winning the $1,000, and your equity in the pool is still the $10 for which you bought in (1/100th of $1,000 = $10.) Because everyone has the same team, it actually doesn't matter whether the Bears or Packers win in that case.

But what happens if you take the Bears? If the Packers win, you lose, and your equity in the pool is $0. But if the Bears win, you win the entire pool then and there. You equity is $1,000! Would you rather have a 100 percent chance of $10 or 25 percent of $1000? The latter is worth 25 times more, and you would reap that gain in expected return by choosing the 6.5-point underdog.

An extreme situation like that is unlikely to come up in your pools, and you'll never know exactly how many people are on each team. But by using the "polling data" for all the pools at Officefootballpools.com, we get a sense of which teams are most owned. (I use that site rather than Yahoo or ESPN because the latter two are more likely to have non-serious free contests that add too much noise.) And if you can estimate how many people are on each team, you can estimate the likely "payout" in equity you'll get for each of the various teams you're considering.

One last note. I don't believe in saving teams for later except in rare circumstances which aren't worth going into here. The problem with saving teams is threefold: (1) If you save good teams, you're often not alive to use them; (2) Teams change so much during the year that the team you're saving often gets much worse, e.g., in 2013 Aaron Rodgers got hurt, and the Packers were bad in the second half; and (3) My biggest gains have often come in weeks where I had used up the obvious choice, was forced to play a lesser one, and the obvious team got upset. In other words, even if the team you're saving remains good, and their opponent that week remains bad, the number of people using that team might make them worth fading anyway.

Okay - that out of the way - let's take a look at this week's slate:

I won't dive deep into the math here because no team is heavily owned. If you were to go strictly by Vegas and ownership levels the Patriots would be the pick because they have the same odds as the Packers, but are slightly less owned. The other lesser owned teams are too risky to make up for the slight bump in equity you'd get if they won while one of the bigger favorites lost.

My Picks

1. Green Bay Packers

It's close between the Packers and Patriots, but I give Green Bay the nod because I don't think John Fox (who's not a great coach) will have that team sharp enough to slow down/keep up with Aaron Rodgers. If Alshon Jeffery's out, I'd feel even more strongly about it. I give the Packers a 79 percent chance to win this game.

2. New England Patriots

I'm not buying into the hype about Tom Brady being more motivated after having his suspension for cheating lifted - when has Brady ever lacked 100-percent motivation? The bigger reason I like New England is Pittsburgh is missing Pro Bowl center Maurkice Pouncey and star running back Le'Veon Bell. Their offense won't be close to 100 percent. And their defense has been bad for two seasons now, so Brady should move the ball at will, extra motivation or not. I give the Patriots a 76 percent chance to win this game.

Notable Omissions:

Dallas Cowboys: - The Cowboys' offense should put up points, but the Giants are too dangerous offensively to trust Dallas' average-at-best defense.

Seattle Seahawks: - The Rams always give Seattle trouble, and St. Louis should be better this year now that they potentially have an NFL quarterback rather than Sam Bradford's backups.

Denver Broncos: - I think they'll win in the Mile High air, but the Ravens had the Super Bowl champion Patriots down 14 twice in New England during the divisional playoffs last year, i.e., I wouldn't mess with them with these other choices on the board.

Miami Dolphins: - I'd consider them more strongly if Robert Griffin were under center, but the Dolphins defense should beat up Kirk Cousins too. The issue is trusting Ryan Tannehill on the road.

Cincinnati Bengals: I expect them to crush the Raiders, but it's an eastern-time-zone team with an average QB travelling to the West Coast.

New York Jets: The Browns look like a joke right now, but they're stout on the line of scrimmage, and the Jets offense is still a work in progress with a new journeyman quarterback.

For more survivor discussion, check out the weekly East Coast Offense podcast (Will be posted Wednesday night.)