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December 14, 2011 - by David Hess
Now that we’re 14 weeks into the season, pickings are starting to get slim, so your selection will in large part be determined by which teams you have left. Luckily, if you’ve been taking our advice, you actually have a couple decent choices this week.
It’s a good thing, because chances are nearly everyone in your pool survived last week. The biggest upset was the Arizona Cardinals stopping the San Francisco 49ers at home, but that knocked out only around 1% of contestants. On the whole, 98% of your opponents probably came through with a win.
This week, there aren’t as many slam dunk picks, so hopefully we’ll see some eliminations.
[Welcome to the Week 15 installment of our series of Survivor advice columns, where we use a data-driven strategy to get an edge in NFL Survivor contests. This post includes analysis based on NFL predictions from our algorithmic Team Rankings models and other relevant data.
This discussion below is also meant to complement our Survivor Predictor tool, which provides a grid view of win odds predictions by week, from now until the end of the season. This presentation of prediction data will help you quickly grasp the current week’s best Survivor pick options, and will explain our logic in making our official pick.]
There is a small change to the table this week. Since there are only two future weeks left, we’ve scrapped the “Future Value” column in favor of listing remaining games where a team is favored by our power ratings. In addition, besides showing data for this week’s favorites, we’re also including teams with nice future opportunities, to help you plan out your path for the last three games.
| Team | Opponent | Line | TR Odds | Pick % | Week 16 | Week 17 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Green Bay | at Kansas City | -14.0 | 80% | 14.1% | CHI 80% | DET 80% | PICKED |
| Atlanta | vs Jacksonville | -11.0 | 82% | 9.7% | TB 84% | ||
| NY Giants | vs Washington | -7.0 | 81% | 5.9% | DAL 59% | PICKED | |
| New Orleans | at Minnesota | -7.0 | 74% | 24.3% | ATL 65% | CAR 80% | PICKED |
| Arizona | vs Cleveland | -7.0 | 73% | 6.6% | SEA 54% | ||
| Dallas | at Tampa Bay | -7.0 | 69% | 2.3% | PHI 54% | PICKED | |
| Houston | vs Carolina | -6.5 | 74% | 3.5% | @IND 85% | TEN 73% | PICKED |
| Tennessee | at Indianapolis | -6.5 | 67% | 24.1% | JAC 66% | ||
| New England | at Denver | -6.0 | 70% | 0.4% | MIA 74% | BUF 84% | PICKED |
| Cincinnati | at St Louis | -6.0 | 67% | 6.4% | ARI 63% | PICKED | |
| Chicago | vs Seattle | -3.5 | 64% | 0.5% | @MIN 62% | ||
| Philadelphia | vs NY Jets | -3.0 | 59% | 0.0% | WAS 70% | ||
| San Francisco | vs Pittsburgh | -2.5 | 46% | 0.1% | @SEA 58% | @STL 79% | PICKED; prelim Odds |
| Miami | at Buffalo | -1.5 | 62% | 0.1% | prelim Odds | ||
| Baltimore | at San Diego | -1.5 | 54% | 0.3% | CLE 81% | @CIN 60% | PICKED |
| Detroit | at Oakland | -1.0 | 54% | 0.4% | SD 54% | PICKED | |
| at San Diego | Baltimore | 1.5 | 46% | 0.1% | @OAK 57% | PICKED | |
| at Buffalo | Miami | 1.5 | 38% | 0.4% | prelim Odds | ||
| Pittsburgh | at San Francisco | 2.5 | 54% | 0.2% | STL 88% | @CLE 77% | PICKED; prelim Odds |
| vs NY Jets | Philadelphia | 3.0 | 41% | 0.2% | NYG 66% | @MIA 56% | PICKED |
| at Denver | New England | 6.0 | 30% | 0.1% | @BUF 66% | KC 70% | |
| vs Carolina | Houston | 6.5 | 26% | 0.0% | TB 71% | ||
| vs Washington | NY Giants | 7.0 | 19% | 0.0% | MIN 56% | ||
| vs Jacksonville | Atlanta | 11.0 | 18% | 0.0% | IND 76% | ||
| at Kansas City | Green Bay | 14.0 | 20% | 0.0% | OAK 53% |
Teams We Already Picked: Houston Texans (WIN), Pittsburgh Steelers (WIN), San Diego Chargers (WIN), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (WIN), New England Patriots (WIN), Cincinnati Bengals (WIN), New Orleans Saints (WIN), New York Giants (WIN), Dallas Cowboys* (WIN), Green Bay Packers (WIN), Detroit Lions (WIN), New York Jets (WIN), San Francisco 49ers (WIN), Baltimore Ravens (WIN)
*Our original official pick in Week 9 was the Oakland Raiders. However, we issued a an update to the post well in advance of Sunday morning that suggested readers switch to Dallas. Because Oakland lost while Dallas won, we feel that this series will be more useful going forward if we assume Dallas was our official pick.
Green Bay at Kansas City — We can pretty much cut and paste the same write up every week for the Packers. They are a very safe pick, with the highest immediate value this week, but if you by some chance haven’t used them yet, there could definitely be some value in saving them for one of the last two weeks. Whether this is the best pick for you depends on what your alternatives are for this week and in future weeks, but as a generic statement, the Packers look like the best pick of the week, by a slim margin. Unfortunately, we’ve already used them.
Atlanta vs Jacksonville — Despite being the second biggest Vegas favorite and the top rated pick by our models, Atlanta is only the fourth most popular team this week. That makes them basically on par with the Packers as the best choice to maximize your immediate value. However, they do have a nice matchup in Week 17 (vs TB), which could be a reason to save them. Again, this will come down to weighing your alternatives this week versus your alternatives in future weeks, but the Falcons are a very good choice.
NY Giants vs Washington — We’ve dropped into the second tier here, in terms of win odds and the betting line, but our models do see the Giants as the safest pick among the ~1 TD favorites, by a solid margin. New York is also not very popular (6%) and has little future value. That makes the Giants the clear best choice among the single-digit favorites.
New Orleans at Minnesota — The Saints are a bit riskier pick than the Giants, plus they have much more future value, with favorable matchups both of the last two weeks. But the most important factor is that they are the most popular pick this week, at 24%. It’s so late in the season that we can’t call this a STAY AWAY, since you may have no better alternatives. But the Saints are not a good pick, as you’ll want to root for a Vikings upset to knock out a fourth of your pool.
Arizona vs Cleveland — Arizona is about as safe as New Orleans, but is far less popular, and has far less future value. In fact, the Cardinals are very similar to the Giants in both categories. The main difference is that our models give Arizona only 73% win odds, compared to 81% for the Giants. So the Cardinals aren’t the best of the tier, but they are a solid choice.
Dallas at Tampa Bay — See Arizona, as the Cowboys are extremely similar. Dallas is a tiny bit less likely to win, but is also a bit less popular, which basically cancels out. This is another solid choice, if you need to save a safer team.
Houston vs Carolina — The Texans are similar to Dallas and Arizona, with one big exception: they get to play the Colts next week. They are among the safest choices next week, so if you have other reasonable options, it may be a good idea to save Houston.
Tennessee at Indianapolis — The Titans are basically tied with the Saints as the most popular choice this week (24%), despite being only 6.5-point favorites. Not only that, but our models peg them as the most likely to be upset out of the eight teams with lines between -6 and -7. Ugh. They are still preferable to any of the small favorites (PHI, SF, CHI), but just barely.
New England at Denver — This may be the Patriots’ toughest remaining game, which is always a red flag. Plus, they are a slight step down in terms of safety, compared to the above teams. However, absolutely nobody is picking them, so they’re preferable to New Orleans or Tennessee, or the small favorites, but that’s it.
Cincinnati at St Louis — The Bengals are about as safe as New England. They are more popular (6%), which is a negative. But this is canceled out by their lack of future value. Again, Cincy is preferable to the Saints or Titans, or the small faves.
Other Teams — We realize that sometimes your hand is forced due to previous picks, but if possible we would definitely advise staying away from any team not listed. There is a big increase in the risk factor once you get past the Bengals.
There are really only two choice for us this week: Atlanta or Arizona. We’ve used all the other teams listed above, except for Tennessee which is about as close as you can get to a STAY AWAY this late in the season.
We expect many of you are in the same boat, choosing between a safer pick this week (ATL), or a riskier pick (ARI) that lets you save that safe pick for one of the last two weeks.
We’re going to walk through how we decided on Atlanta, as a pattern for how you can make your choice. Though your specific teams may vary, the general approach to your decision should be the same.
The Falcons are the safer pick this week, with win odds of 82% compared to 73% for the Cardinals. But if we use Atlanta, we can’t pick them against Tampa Bay in Week 17, when our power ratings give them 84% odds. Our best alternative that week appears to be Jacksonville, with 76% win odds against Indianapolis.
The drop this week from 82% to 73% (9%) is larger than the drop in Week 17 from 84% to 76% (8%), but 9% vs 8% is not really a significant difference. In cases like this where neither option is far better, we prefer to make the safe pick now, for several reasons:
Of course, as always feel free to ask questions about your specific situation in the comments section.
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