It is only Week 2 of the NFL season and hopefully nobody reading this is already out of their survivor pools.
Last week we had a few close calls that could have shaken up the outlook of your pool. Seattle managed to hold off Cincinnati with a 21-20 win, giving Seahawks backers a sigh of relief.
Seattle ended up as the most popular pick last week at 27%. If you faded it, you were hoping for the Bengals upset, but fell just short.
The most popular pick that lost was the Browns at around 6% of entries. There were also a smattering of entrants knocked out that took the Bears, Jets, Lions and Broncos that were eliminated.
Week 2 NFL Survivor Pool Picks
There may be weeks where we are forced to take a team that is around a field-goal favorite, but Week 1 wasn't one of them.
The game that is having major implications on this week's selection was Baltimore at Miami. The Ravens manhandled the Dolphins and now Lamar Jackson may be the MVP and Miami is the worst team that mankind has ever seen.
Twitter has spoken. These are facts now.
Or they could just be overreactions to one week of football. Here are the projected win percentages for every remaining game of the season.
Editor's note: The Browns' win percentage against the Jets was updated from 51% following news that Sam Darnold will not play due to illness.
There are four teams with a projected win percentage of 70% or more and I'll add in Carolina, which just missed the threshold, as a Thursday night option.
Here are some key statistics for Week 2.
Nearly 40% of picks are taking the Patriots as they are approaching record territory as the largest road favorites ever. New England is obviously the most likely team to win this week. The key decision is whether or not to go ahead and burn it early.
Just looking ahead to Week 6, the Patriots (-19) are the largest projected favorites of the week when they face the Giants at home on a short week. Even if I don't end up using them that particular week, I can't justify using them this early in large pools that I expect to go all 17 weeks.
Another 20% of picks are taking the Ravens (-13) as big favorites against Arizona. My model isn't as high on them as the current betting market.
Also, 16% of entrants took the Ravens in Week 1, meaning we can expect 40-50% of entrants remaining to not have Baltimore for the rest of the season. That would make it a good pivot in later weeks.
The Pick: Houston Texans
In my single-entry contests, I'm going with the Texans at home against the Jaguars. Gardner Minshew looked impressive in his debut, which puts doubt into a pick, but I have to trust the numbers here.
If you are playing the long game, you are going to need Patriots in later weeks and if the Ravens end up being as good as advertised, we'll probably need them later on as well.
The Chiefs are an interesting contrarian play, but have better options down the road. If you are reading prior to Thursday, I think you can use Carolina in one of your multi-entries, but that's about as much as I would utilize it.
If you have any specific questions about your pool, feel free to contact me on Twitter @BetLabsTravis.
