Week 1 Survivor is always the hardest Survivor, for the simple reason we don't know anything. Oh, you think you know who's good and who's already preparing for next year's draft, but you don't.
In 2022, five of the six most popular Week 1 Survivor picks lost. In 2023, three of six lost (and two had to pull out wins late). Last season, more than 40 percent of the pickers in my pool were eliminated Week 1.
Last year's lesson was to make your Week 1 pick with conviction — something I didn't do with the Bengals. I had a nagging feeling about the Bengals all week but never got around to changing the pick. If you have a feeling about a team, pay attention to it. It's called intuition, and if you're playing Survivor and reading this column, that means you are really into the NFL, which means you know something about football, i.e., you have intuition. The hard part is that our intuition is not always correct (if it was we'd be fortune tellers), but in Week 1 when there is so little to go by, relying on intuition is as good as anything else, perhaps better.
Whomever you pick, be confident with it. If you lose, at least you didn't go out knowing you should have picked another team.
A few notes before we get to the picks.
Our strategy is guided by these Survivor principles:
1. Survivor is not just about winning as long as possible
Week 1 Survivor is always the hardest Survivor, for the simple reason we don't know anything. Oh, you think you know who's good and who's already preparing for next year's draft, but you don't.
In 2022, five of the six most popular Week 1 Survivor picks lost. In 2023, three of six lost (and two had to pull out wins late). Last season, more than 40 percent of the pickers in my pool were eliminated Week 1.
Last year's lesson was to make your Week 1 pick with conviction — something I didn't do with the Bengals. I had a nagging feeling about the Bengals all week but never got around to changing the pick. If you have a feeling about a team, pay attention to it. It's called intuition, and if you're playing Survivor and reading this column, that means you are really into the NFL, which means you know something about football, i.e., you have intuition. The hard part is that our intuition is not always correct (if it was we'd be fortune tellers), but in Week 1 when there is so little to go by, relying on intuition is as good as anything else, perhaps better.
Whomever you pick, be confident with it. If you lose, at least you didn't go out knowing you should have picked another team.
A few notes before we get to the picks.
Our strategy is guided by these Survivor principles:
1. Survivor is not just about winning as long as possible — it's about surviving awhile everyone else does not. As such, our strategy seeks to explain not just how likely a team is to win but how much that win is worth to you. Those unfamiliar with our strategy should start by reading here and here.
2. Saving teams for later in the season is a fool's errand. A) We have no idea what the NFL will look like in a month or two — teams don't stay the same week to week, let alone all year. B) You're likely to be eliminated before you even get use that saved pick. C) If you save a team for the week it faces the worst team in the league, guess what? The majority of your pool is probably using that team too. In that case, the smart play is no longer the team you saved, the smart play is a pot-odds pick — taking the next-best team with the hope that everyone goes down with the most popular pick.
One more thing. Office Football Pools seems to no longer list site-wide ownership percentages. (If it still does and I'm just not finding it, please let me know in the comments.) So, this year I will use Yahoo's ownership numbers. I'm guessing there is more noise in Yahoo's numbers, but it should still serve our purposes.
Ownership percentages below come from Yahoo. The Vegas Moneyline is the average of the matchup's two moneylines. Vegas odds are the percentage chance a team has at winning. Expected Loss is a team's percent-taken multiplied by its chance of losing.
| TEAM | OPPONENT | %TAKEN | VEGAS ML | VEGAS ODDS | EXPECTED LOSS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRONCOS | Titans | 32.3% | 355 | 78.0% | 7.11 |
| Cardinals | SAINTS | 15.0% | 270 | 73.0% | 4.05 |
| COMMANDERS | Giants | 14.7% | 250 | 71.4% | 4.19 |
| EAGLES | Cowboys | 13.3% | 400 | 80.0% | 2.66 |
| Bengals | BROWNS | 9.1% | 225 | 69.2% | 2.81 |
| Steelers | JETS | 2.7% | 137.5 | 57.9% | 1.12 |
| JAGUARS | Panthers | 2.5% | 172.5 | 63.3% | 0.91 |
| PATRIOTS | Raiders | 1.3% | 127.5 | 56.0% | 0.58 |
| Dolphins | COLTS | 1.3% | 110 | 52.4% | 0.62 |
| Buccaneers | FALCONS | 1.3% | 129 | 56.3% | 0.57 |
| Chiefs* | Chargers | 1.2% | 160 | 61.5% | 0.46 |
| Vikings | BEARS | 1.0% | 110 | 52.4% | 0.49 |
| 49ers | SEAHAWKS | 0.5% | 125 | 55.6% | 0.23 |
| RAMS | Texans | 0.5% | 147.5 | 59.6% | 0.19 |
| Lions | PACKERS | 0.4% | 129 | 56.3% | 0.18 |
| BILLS | Ravens | 0.2% | 115 | 53.5% | 0.11 |
Home teams in CAPS
*Chiefs vs. Chargers at Sao Paulo, Brazil
There is no pot-odds play this week, but let's run through the exercise for the newcomers.
In Survivor, you have to consider not only your team's chances of winning, but also how many of your competitors are likely to use that team. If you fade a popular team and that team loses, you will gain more "pool equity." The pot odds help tell us how much a win is worth to us.
Let's compare the risk and reward ratios for picking the Cardinals instead of the Broncos this week.
A Broncos win/Cardinals loss is .78 (Broncos Vegas Odds of winning) multiplied by .27 (Cardinals' Vegas Odds of losing), which is 21.1 percent. A Cardinals win/Broncos loss is .73*.22 = 16.1 percent.
That means the risk ratio is 21.1/16.1 = 1.3.
For the reward ratio, we'll use a hypothetical $10 buy-in, 100-person pool. If the Broncos win/Cardinals lose, 15 people are out on the Cardinals plus another 15 non-Cardinals owners projected to lose, for 30 total losers. 100-39 = 70 remaining owners, $1,000/70 = $14.28
If the Cardinals win/Broncos lose, it's 32 out on the Broncos, plus 15 more, for 47 total losers. 100-47 = 53, $1,000/53 = $18.86.
The ratio of $18.86/$14.28 = 1.3.
So, the risk and the reward for taking the Cardinals instead of the Broncos is both the same, i.e., you don't gain anything by taking the team less likely to win (according to Vegas). When the reward outweighs the risk, we have ourselves a pot-odds play.
Picks below are in order of preference.
My Picks
Philadelphia Eagles
The Eagles kick off the NFL season Thursday against the Cowboys. Defending Super Bowl champs have an excellent track record the last 20 years in this game, with seemingly extra energy flowing through the home stadium as the city, crowd and team celebrate their world title. On top of that, the Eagles are one of the league's best teams on both sides of the ball. The Cowboys, meanwhile, are reeling after the Micah Parsons trade, and are significantly worse defensively without one of the league's best pass rushers. Offensively, the Cowboys are one-dimensional until the running games proves it's any better than last season's abomination. The only reason pickers are staying away from the Eagles this week is to save them for future weeks. As noted above, that's not advised.
Denver Broncos
I don't like the Broncos this year as much as the crowd seems too, and I'm not a Bo Nix fan (read his season outlook), but an excellent defense vs. a rookie quarterback in Cam Ward on the road is a pretty good matchup.
Arizona Cardinals
The best thing going for the Cardinals is the Saints' QB situation. The Saints are running second-year QB Spencer Rattler out there after he beat out rookie Tyler Shough. The Cardinals aren't world-beaters, but the Saints have one quality receiver, an aging running back, a QB who threw more interceptions (5) than TDs (4) last season and what looks to be a bad defense. New coach Kellen Moore might help, as perhaps will being at home, but it still looks ugly.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals are in almost as good a situation as the Cardinals when it comes to opponent's quarterback. Joe Flacco is a serviceable veteran, but he's only that. But rivalry games have been known to get hairy, and the Browns are at home. It's not a gimme. And, don't forget, the Bengals defecated down their leg Week 1 last season against the Patriots.
NOTABLE OMISSION:
Washington Commanders
Washington seems a little overvalued. Are we really sure Jayden Daniels is going to pick up where he left off? That's what everyone thought about C.J. Stroud last year too. The Commanders signed Javon Kinlaw, but did they otherwise get better on defense? The Giants will at least have a competent quarterback this year and one of the best pass rushes in the league. Washington doesn't scream "pick me!" in Survivor to me.
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