Week 7 NFL Survivor Pick Strategy: Colts, Rams, Chargers, Chiefs

October 18, 2018 - by Tom Federico

In the post, we’ll analyze some pros and cons of five of NFL Week 7’s most popular survivor picks, including the Colts, Rams, Chargers, Chiefs, and Falcons. We’ll also recap the impact of last week’s results on NFL survivor pools.

Although the LA Rams are the biggest favorite of Week 7 according to betting lines, keep in mind that the safest team isn’t always your best option. To maximize your edge in survivor pools, you need to consider other critical strategy factors like pick popularity and its future value. For a more detailed explanation, see our blog post on winning survivor pool strategy.

Note: Now that we’re getting more into the endgame strategy phase for many survivor pools, this will be our last NFL survivor pick analysis column of the 2018 season. To get our top picks and entry-by-entry recommendations for your pools for the rest of the season, please subscribe at the link in the box below.

Want expert Week 7 survivor picks customized for your pool? In five out of six weeks of the NFL season so far, our recommended picks have out-survived the public, and last season TeamRankings subscribers reported over $1 million in NFL survivor pool prize winnings.

To get our picks for your pools, check out our premium NFL Survivor Picks product.

Last Week’s Survivor Pick Recap

The five most popular survivor picks last week (the Vikings, Packers, Texans, Rams and Falcons) all won, although several of those teams had to survive a crazy last few minutes in their game. In total, nearly 95% of the public’s picks survived Week 6, while our TeamRankings subscriber pick recommendations did even better, with a 98.6% survival rate.

The major difference between our Week 6 recommendations to subscribers and the public’s picks was the percentage of picks on Houston versus Green Bay. Around 29% of the public’s picks were on Green Bay, but in our rankings, the Packers’ combination of win odds, pick popularity, and future value did not grade out very well compared to other options in most types of pools. Meanwhile, we recommended Houston at a much higher rate than the public’s picks.

That educated gamble almost paid off handsomely, after Houston won and then the 49ers almost upset Green Bay.

Week 7 NFL Survivor Pick Analysis

In Week 7, many of the fairly popular survivor pick choices have less than 70% win odds, so there could be some carnage this week.

The two safest choices of Week 7 are the Rams and the Colts, with the Rams being the safer pick of the two. The Colts are the slightly more popular pick (24% popularity vs. 21% for LAR as of Wednesday), which is bad, but Indianapolis also has far lower future value, which is good.

Our models project the Rams as having greater than 75% win odds in both Weeks 8 and 10, and for players in bigger pools expected to last the whole season, the Rams also have three favorable matchups to close out the end of the regular season. The Colts, on the other hand, only have one future game with greater than 60% win odds according to our models, Week 16 against the Giants.

After the Rams and Colts, there are four teams in the next tier of safety, all with fairly similar odds to win their games: the Chargers, Chiefs, Falcons and Jaguars. One thing that stands out here is that the Jaguars are at around 3% popularity nationwide right now, whereas the other three teams are all between 10% and 18% pick popularity.

After some recent line moves, the Chargers are the safest pick of this second tier, but they also have the most future value, along with the Chiefs. So if you don’t pick the Rams or Colts, then picking the Chiefs or Chargers is your next safest move, but it absolutely comes with a price. You’d be choosing to burn a team with solid future value during a week in which it isn’t even a particularly big favorite.

Get Our Week 7 Survivor Pick Recommendation

The teams mentioned above are the most popular picks this week, but that doesn’t mean one of them is the best pick for you. Your best NFL Week 7 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 figure out which pick will maximize your expected profits from your survivor pool(s).

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.

The result? Last year, our subscribers reported winning over $1 million in survivor pool prize money, and their share of winnings from survivor pools they entered was more than four times as much as expected.

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.