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Week 3 NFL Survivor Pick Strategy: Vikings, Jaguars, Chiefs, Bears, Patriots

Week 3 NFL Survivor Pick Strategy: Vikings, Jaguars, Chiefs, Bears, Patriots

September 19, 2018 – by Tom Federico

NFL Week 3 Survivor Picks

In this post, we’ll analyze the pros and cons of NFL Week 3’s five most popular survivor picks: the Vikings, Jaguars, Chiefs, Bears and Patriots. We’ll also recap the impact of last week’s results on NFL survivor pools.

Although the Vikings loom large as the “obvious” Week 3 survivor pick, the safest team isn’t always your best option. To maximize your edge in survivor pools, you need to consider two other critical strategy factors: pick popularity and its future value.

For a more detailed explanation, see our blog post on winning survivor pool strategy.

Want expert Week 3 picks for your NFL Survivor Pool? Last season, TeamRankings subscribers reported over $1 million in NFL survivor pool prize winnings. Check out our NFL Survivor Picks product.

Last Week’s Survivor Pick Recap

Five of the six most popular survivor picks last week won, meaning around 87% of survivor entries nationwide lived to see another week. The biggest damage was inflicted by Washington (6% popularity) being upset by Indianapolis, with some residual damage from some minimally popular teams losing (the Jets, Steelers, Texans, and a few others).

As a result, about 42% of the public’s survivor entries from the beginning of the season are still alive entering Week 3.

TeamRankings Survivor Pick Performance

Overall, our premium subscribers continued to gain ground on their opponents last week. Almost all of the pick recommendations made by our customized NFL survivor pick advice won, with the help of a few timely late comebacks.

About 90% of the pick recommendations our system made to premium subscribers last week were on the Saints, Rams, or Broncos. Though the Rams were a very popular pick, which we often recommend avoiding, LAR had a very large safety edge over the next-best alternative (the Saints), which warranted the Rams remaining a top consideration.

Our final 10% of pick recommendations (a smattering of Chargers, 49ers, Steelers, Falcons and Bears) all won with the exception of Pittsburgh, which we recommended for 2% of subscriber entries.

We ended up taking a somewhat contrarian position on the Chargers last week (21% of public picks, only 6% of TeamRankings picks). LAC had a lot more future value than a team like Denver, and Denver was much less popular and only modestly more risky. Both the Broncos and Chargers won, but more of our subscribers now have the Chargers still available to use compared to the public, which gives an edge.

In the end, 98% of TeamRankings survivor pick recommendations won last week, vs. 87% of the public’s picks.

Week 3 NFL Survivor Pick Analysis

Now let’s get to some Week 3 survivor pick analysis. As usual, we’ll focus on the five most popular picks of the week — you’re probably considering at least one or two of them — and review some of the pros and cons of each.

IMPORTANT: This is NOT a list of our recommended picks for your pool. The teams highlighted below are the five most popular public picks this week, in order of popularity. In fact, we often recommend avoiding extremely popular teams, which can increase your expected winnings. If you want to see our recommended picks for your pool(s), you can subscribe to our NFL Survivor Pool Picks and get customized pick advice for each of your survivor entries.

Data referenced below was current as of Wednesday afternoon, and could change between posting time and kickoff time; our survivor picks product updates multiple times per day with the latest information. Also, we estimate survivor pick popularity based on picking trends data from popular survivor pool hosting sites.

Minnesota Vikings (vs. Buffalo): 63% popularity

Making a survivor pick decision this week centers around one primary question: Minnesota yes or no? The Vikings are a whopping 17-point favorite at home against Buffalo, and you rarely ever see such big favorites in the NFL. Furthermore, the second safest team this week, the LA Rams, are 7-point favorites. So Minnesota is by far the safest pick in survivor pools for Week 3. Not surprisingly, the Vikings are the most popular pick as well, by an overwhelming margin — 63% pick popularity (!!!) compared to 8% popularity for the Jaguars, the second most popular pick. Minnesota’s unusually high safety premium does help counter the downside of picking such an incredibly popular team, but if you are comfortable with the added risk, avoiding the Vikings has its benefits too. Future value is a primary concern here, and more specifically, both Week 6 (not very far away) and Week 9 could be prime spots to have the Vikings available. Minnesota could be the biggest favorite on the board in both weeks, and the majority of your opponents would have already burned them in Week 3. That’s an extremely attractive proposition, because you’d be making the safest pick while most of your opponents make different, significantly riskier picks.

Jacksonville Jaguars (vs. Tennessee): 8% popularity

With uncertainty over the status of key players such as Tennessee QB Marcus Mariota and Jacksonville RB Leonard Fournette, a number of sports books have not posted a line on this game yet. Jacksonville is listed as a 6.5-point favorite at a few books, but monitor the injury situation and any line changes if you are considering taking Jacksonville. As of post time, Jacksonville was part of a cluster of five or six teams with win odds in the 65-70% range according to our models. Barring any data or odds changes, the Jags don’t really look any safer than other non-Vikings alternatives this week, but they are more popular than the teams listed below and they have significant future value as well. If you decide not to pick Minnesota, safety has a premium this week because the Vikings are so likely to win. Unless and until Jacksonville becomes the clear second-safest pick, we’d be careful here.

Kansas City Chiefs (vs. San Francisco): 7% popularity

Kansas City is a team that could end up having a very similar profile to Jacksonville, depending on where the betting odds for Jacksonville vs. Tennessee settle. In terms of differences, at post time the Chiefs (also a 6.5-point favorite) are slightly less likely to win according to our models (bad), but also less popular of a pick (good), and have slightly less future value (good). Again, watch to see where that Jacksonville line settles. If the Jags end up being somewhat more likely to win than KC, that added safety would likely make Jacksonville a better pick, despite burning more future value. If not, KC would probably be a slightly better pick than the Jaguars in most pools.

Chicago Bears (at Arizona): 5% popularity

As a 6-point road favorite, Chicago is in the same realm of safety as the safest non-Vikings picks this week, but the Bears have substantially less future value than the rest of those teams. Though a lot of survivor players try to never pick a road team, the flip side is that Chicago’s most likely future win, in Week 10 hosting Detroit, comes in a week with lots of other viable options, though you can’t discount Chicago’s Week 9 matchup at Buffalo (but that’s a road game too). If you trust the Vegas lines over conventional survivor wisdom, and are set on not picking Minnesota, the Bears deserve consideration.

New England Patriots (at Detroit): 4% popularity

Despite losing to Jacksonville last week, New England still has substantial future value, especially in larger pools, thanks in part to a slate of AFC East opponents that don’t look too scary. The Patriots should be solid favorites in a number of those division games, in addition to hosting Indianapolis in Week 5 and visiting Buffalo in Week 8, where New England still projects as the biggest favorite of the the week despite being on the road. (Yes, the Bills look that bad.) Both Vegas and our models have the Patriots, with a -6.5 point spread, as the third safest pick of Week 3, though it’s worth noting that our models are more optimistic about the Pats than the betting lines are. So the main question is whether the calculus makes sense here. You’d be going contrarian and not picking Minnesota, but simultaneously burning a team with high future value, when they may not even be the second-safest pick of the week.

In closing, it’s worth noting that given the dynamics of Week 3, some of the least popular picks of the week (and several teams not mentioned above) are worth considering. Our survivor picks product ranks all 32 teams for each of your pools.

Which Team Should You Pick In Survivor Week 3?

Your best NFL Week 3 survivor pick is the one that offers the ideal balance of safety, pick popularity, and future value for your specific pool. Every possible pick has an expected value associated with it, and it takes a lot of data and math to p out which pick will maximize your expected profits from your survivor pool

Why? Because factors like the size of your pool and its specific rules can make a big impact on your optimal Week 3 pick strategy. For example, the more entries your pool has, the more aggressive your picks need to be. In very large pools, you know going in that you’ll probably need to survive all 17 weeks to have any shot at prize money, so if there’s a very good option to pick a mediocre team early on, you should take it. In smaller pools, you should play it safer.

Similarly, if you’re in a “strike pool” that allows you to take one loss without being eliminated, then you don’t need to be quite as conservative with your picks, compared to playing in a traditional “one loss and you’re out” pool. Need to start making two picks per week later in the season? Then you’d better put a higher priority on saving better teams for later use, starting right at the beginning of the season.

The list of strategy implications goes on…

Get Our Week 3 Survivor Pick Recommendation

We built our Survivor Picks tools to do all of this analytical work for you. You answer a few questions about your survivor pool’s size and rules, and we provide customized pick recommendations based on the latest matchup data, Vegas odds and public picking trends.

The product even does a second layer of optimization if you are playing multiple survivor entries, recommending exactly how you should split a “portfolio” of survivor pool entries across one, two, or more teams. (Our product optimizes picks for up to 30 unique entries.)

The result? Last year, our subscribers reported winning over $1 million in survivor pool prize money.

Survivor pools are incredibly risky games, and it’s never easy to win. Even with the edge our advice gives you, in most years you won’t take home the prize. But in the long term, our subscribers are winning football pools around 2-3 times as often as expected, and that performance typically translates into fantastic financial returns.

You can find more information about our premium NFL products at the following pages: NFL Survivor Picks, Football Pick’em Picks, and NFL Betting Picks.

 

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