Week 3 Survivor Pick Strategy: Packers, Patriots Worth The Price?

September 21, 2017 - by Tom Federico

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Green Bay and New England are drawing almost 60% of Week 3 survivor picks, with Pittsburgh and Miami also popular. Making a “safer” survivor pick this week comes with a price, though, since both the Packers and Patriots have high future value.

Let’s review how things stand in survivor pools nationwide, then get to the Week 3 survivor pick analysis.

Editor’s Note: Our customized survivor picks and premium analysis tools are part of our NFL Survivor Picks product.

Survivor Pick Recaps & Status

In the end, last week was a relative snoozer for survivor pools, as every team that drew a significant number of survivor picks won, except for one. Of course, that doesn’t mean the games themselves didn’t feature some high drama.

Almost All Public Picks Advanced
A huge percentage (48% in the end) of survivor entries picked Oakland in Week 2, and the Raiders pulled away from the Jets late to win easily. The next most popular public picks were Seattle (21%), Baltimore (11%), Arizona (7%), Tampa Bay (3%), Carolina (3%), and Cincinnati (1%). Out of all those teams, only the Bengals lost. With several teams underperforming preseason expectations after two games, it will be interesting to see if the “just pick against the Jets” strategy loses steam in the weeks ahead.

Survivor Week 2 Near Misses
Arizona (a 7-point favorite that was 7% picked) got quite lucky to beat Indianapolis, staging a late rally after being behind all game, missing a game winning field goal as time expired, then coming up with an interception in overtime. Seattle (13.5 point favorite, 21% picked) also got a serious scare from San Francisco, and needed a fourth quarter touchdown to win. Both Arizona and Seattle are now underdogs in Week 3.

Our Week 2 Survivor Picks
With such a high percentage of public picks on Oakland and viable alternatives available, the Week 2 survivor picks we recommended to TeamRankings customers generally avoided the Raiders. The result was a stressful Sunday, and a hit taken with the Cincinnati loss. Out of all the entry-by-entry pick recommendations we made to customers, about 37% were Seattle, 28% were Arizona, and 15% were Cincinnati. After those three teams, Pittsburgh (7%), Baltimore (6%), Tampa Bay (5%) and Oakland (2%) made up the lion’s share of our remaining picks.

TR Survivor Picks vs. The World
A total of 85% of our recommended Week 2 picks survived, which was better than expected based on the win odds of the teams. However, that performance still trailed the public, who got 99% of their picks right in Week 2, thanks in part to the heavy concentration on Oakland. The overall outcome here is not a big surprise, since we were making a contrarian bet against Oakland, and would have profited hugely in the case of a Jets upset. That didn’t happen, and we ended up a bit behind. We were lucky to not end up even more behind, though, based on the Seattle and Arizona scares. As a (slight) silver lining, almost all of our customers still have Oakland in their quiver now, and the Raiders could be a solid option in Week 5. It also may end up that Arizona and Seattle are worth much less in terms of future value than we thought at the beginning of the season.

Week 3 Survivor Pick Strategy

Our site exists (and remains almost entirely ad-free) because of the success we have had with premium products like our NFL Survivor Picks. We are the only site that customizes picks for your specific survivor pool, and over the long term our customers have won football pools more than twice as often as expected.

When it comes to pick strategy, the best Week 3 survivor picks for you depend not only on each team’s chance to win, but also on the characteristics of each pool you play in: the total number of entries still alive, the number of entires you still have alive, the rules/format. For example, if you need to make multiple picks per entry in later weeks, then you need to be more careful about burning good teams early in the season.

So you always need to be careful reading “generic” survivor advice. However, we’re happy to summarize some key data for evaluating your Week 3 survivor pick, to help demonstrate our data-driven, game theory oriented approach to pick strategy.

Week 3 Survivor Pick Analysis

Here are some important angles to keep in mind this week, focused on the teams that most people are picking. Just remember that breaking news, betting line movement, and shifts in pick popularity may have happened since this post was published, and altered the Week 3 landscape. If you want the latest numbers before you lock in your Week 3 survivor pick, we update our survivor picks and tools multiple times per day.

Green Bay (home vs. Cincinnati)
The Packers are currently the most popular Week 3 survivor pick, at 30% picked. Favored by 8.5, Green Bay is the second safest option this week, but they are still significantly riskier than New England. Green Bay’s Week 1 and Week 2 results haven’t been particularly impressive, and the close opening victory against Seattle lost a bit of luster after Seattle’s near-loss at home to San Francisco. It feels like the public might be overestimating Green Bay’s chances here, even against Cincinnati and their terrible start. On the plus side, the Packers have less future value than New England.

New England (home vs. Houston)
The Patriots are just slightly behind Green Bay in pick popularity at 28%, but with a -13.5 point spread, New England is the biggest favorite of Week 3 by a significant margin. That additional safety comes with a price, though, as you’re sacrificing a lot if you burn the Patriots this week. Their value as a potential pick in future weeks is very high, as we currently project the Patriots to have win odds of over 80% in no less than four more games this season. On top of that, a lot of opponents are picking New England this week, and won’t have them available for those future weeks.

Pittsburgh (at Chicago)
Pittsburgh is being picked by about 12% of survivor entries nationwide, on the heels of a 30% pick rate in Week 1 against Cleveland. Those numbers, combined with the high expectations for the Steelers this season, provide all you need to know to understand the big sacrifice involved in picking Pittsburgh this week. Along with New England, Pittsburgh is one of the two most valuable teams in the NFL to save for later use. But if you put extra priority on current week safety, as 7.5-point favorites the Steelers are the third safest pick behind Green Bay and New England.

Miami (at NY Jets)
Also being picked by 12% of survivor entries, 6-point favorite Miami is the riskiest choice of the four most popular picks this week. Miami’s preseason expectations weren’t great, and our models give the Dolphins around a 1-in-3 chance to lose this game. However, Miami has far less future value than Green Bay, New England, or Pittsburgh. The Dolphins host the Jets in Week 7, but outside of that game, Miami might not be a legitimate survivor pick option until Week 17. Especially in bigger survivor pools, where it’s expected that you’ll need to last the entire season to have a shot at winning, that’s a major consideration. Compared to the three teams above, the Dolphins are higher risk, higher reward.

Together, Green Bay, New England, Pittsburgh and Miami are drawing over 80% of survivor pool entry picks this week, while no other individual team is currently being picked by more than 3% of survivor entries.

If you’re willing to follow the numbers and play to win, there are a couple gems among those much less popular teams. Our NFL survivor pool picks product identifies them.

Week 3 Survivor Pick Portfolios

If you are playing in multiple survivor pools, playing multiple entries in a single survivor pool, or both, keep in mind that your research shouldn’t only involve finding the single “best pick” of the week.

You’re likely going to want to come up with a portfolio of multiple teams that you spread across all your entries, with the goal of maximizing your expected profit from playing in survivor pools this year. In other words, if you’ve got five survivor pool entries still alive, putting all five entries on the same team probably isn’t your best strategy.

One of the unique features of our NFL Survivor Picks product is that it figures out your optimal pick portfolio each week, and recommends the specific team to use for each of your still-alive survivor pool entries.

Until Next Week…

Enjoy another week of NFL football and good luck with your Week 3 survivor pick. If you found this post valuable, please consider subscribing to one of our premium products:

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