Survivor pools will start back up with week 1 of the NFL season. With all the NFL teams available for use, you’d think week 1 would be the easiest week to pick the winners.
However, you’d be wrong.
It gets a bit easier to navigate the winners and losers toward week 3 and beyond, before the amount of teams at your disposal shrinks.
The beginning of the NFL season is difficult to predict. Even for teams with the best long-range chances to compete, the season’s start can be a difficult time to prognosticate because some teams take awhile to get going.
Take a look at last year’s first week. The Green Bay Packers lost by 20, the Tennessee Titans won by 16 on the road against Kansas City, the Miami Dolphins won by 13 against New England, and San Francisco beat the Cowboys on the road.
By week 2, the teams start resembling themselves a bit more, and by week 3, we should have a pretty good idea about what a team will be for the duration of the season, barring major injury issues.
For those who haven’t done survivor pools in the past, it’s straightforward on how it works. You pick one winner each week. When you use a team once, you can’t use them for the rest of the year.
There’s a bit of strategy at play, since you don’t want to just take the best teams in the league at the beginning, because by week 6, you may struggle to find a sure winner.
For week 1, here’s our picks for survival.
Best bet
Green Bay Packers
This week is really void of a sure-fire bet. We have confidence in Miami, but being on the road in week 1, can sometimes be a tough way to start for a team that isn’t a perennial top team.
We won’t risk losing out on the rest of the season with the Dolphins on the road. Instead, we’ll go with Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers against the Bears. The Packers have defeated the Bears nine of the last 10 meetings, and the Bears have so many injury problems with wide receivers, it would be a miracle if the average fan could name the starting wideouts for game one.
This is a rivalry game and it’s difficult to give away the Packers so early in the season. But you want to be sure to stay in this for the long haul, so taking the Packers in week 1 is your best bet to advance.
Sleeper pick
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
There won’t be many opportunities to take Tampa Bay, so week 1 would be the prime spot, especially with the match-up.
Tennessee and Tampa Bay slugged it out last year for the worst record in the NFL, and in that slugfest, came the top two rookie quarterbacks who will meet for the first time in the NFL on Sunday.
Taking the home team makes sense in this case, and the talent surrounding rookie quarterback Jameis Winston should be better than what surrounds Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota.
We’re a little scared of this pick, though, after last year’s opening game win for the Titans on the road against Kansas City. Is that a trend or just a coincidence? We can’t be sure, so we’re shying away from this pick despite its upside.
Be careful
Cincinnati Bengals
Usually picking against the Oakland Raiders is a sound strategy for finding the best survivor pick.
But this isn’t an ordinary Oakland team. There’s a lot of talent on both sides of the ball this year. And while it’s young talent with the potential of plenty of growing pains, there will situations where the Raiders will surprise the experts.
The Bengals have to travel to the West Coast for their first game and we’re not buying Cincinnati this season. Don’t be surprised if your survivor pool seems a bit more empty next week with the Bengals on upset alert in week 1.
