Week 11 Survivor Pick Strategy & Advice (2022)

Week 11 of the 2022 NFL season in survivor pools has Baltimore as the most popular pick, and many decisions to be made besides the Ravens.

Lamar Jackson and the Ravens lead the way in Week 11 survivors (Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire)

We have made it to Week 11 of the 2022 NFL season, when the temperatures are turning colder but the survivor stakes are heating up. This week, Baltimore returns to the forefront in survivor, along with a lot of other top contenders.

In these weekly columns, we explore strategies to maximize your edge in NFL survivor pools, also known as knockout pools or eliminator pools. We also provide some of the rationale behind picks potentially recommended by our product.

We plan to periodically update this post until Sunday of Week 11 arrives, and we will also be posting video updates throughout the week as well, so check our articles section for those. Here’s what’s available now:

NCAA Bracket Picks

March Madness Picks

Brackets - Survivor - Betting

Learn MoreGet Picks Now


Five Most Popular Week 11 Survivor Picks

Here are the most popular teams early on for Week 11 of the 2022 NFL season:

  • Baltimore Ravens (43%) vs. Carolina Panthers
  • Buffalo Bills (17%) vs. Cleveland Brownsigh
  • New York Giants (7%) vs. Houston Texans
  • San Francisco 49ers (6%) vs. Arizona Cardinals (in Mexico City)
  • New England Patriots (5%) vs. New York Jets

Here are some notes on each of these teams:

Baltimore Ravens

  • Pros: highest win odds of week, less future value than Buffalo
  • Cons: most popular pick, and high popularity reduces EV; still has decent future value

Buffalo Bills

  • Pros: EV advantage over Baltimore, second-highest favorite of week
  • Cons: high future value, other unpopular options with better EV

New York Giants

  • Pros: low future value, not overly popular
  • Cons: riskier than other options

San Francisco 49ers

  • Pros: win odds close to Buffalo, high EV because of lower popularity
  • Cons: mostly used in pools, good future value, and Arizona QB Kyler Murray’s status could impact line

New England Patriots

  • Pros: low future value, not overly popular
  • Cons: riskier than other options and lower EV than Giants

Tuesday 11/15

Week 10 Survivor Recap

Week 10 did not go our way, to put it lightly. The two most popular picks won, while several contrarian picks lost.

TeamOpponentPopularityResult
New York GiantsHouston35%W,24-16
Kansas CityJacksonville29%W,27-17
San FranciscoLA Chargers12%W,22-16
MiamiCleveland5%W,39-17
Las VegasIndianapolis5%L,25-20
PhiladelphiaWashington4%L,32-21
ChicagoDetroit3%L,31-30
TennesseeDenver3%W,17-10
DallasGreen Bay2%L,31-28
AtlantaCarolina1%L,25-15

Based on our public pick data, about 84% of the public survived Week 10. That means 16% were eliminated, in large part because of Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

Meanwhile, our most common picks were Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. That means only 42% of PoolGenius entries advanced, half of the public rate.

The Las Vegas game was a pot-odds risk that didn’t work out. It was put at risk right away when the Colts inserted Matt Ryan as the starting QB over Sam Ehlinger, which happened after the early-afternoon games had already started.

Meanwhile, the Eagles lost their first game of the year in a big upset as the biggest favorite of the week. They had several key turnovers and penalties that went against them.

Overall Season Summary

After nine weeks, less than 1.5% of all public entries are still alive (assuming no strikes and standard rules). Many smaller pools are done, and some larger pools are at much lower number of entries left.

About 3% of PoolGenius subscriber entries that started Week 1 are still alive. That still leaves our subscriber base advancing about two times more often so far than the public. Our entries took the biggest hit in large, multi-pick pools, where the Raiders and Eagles were heaviest.


FYI

Survivor Strategy Articles

If you’re serious about winning more survivor pools, it pays to learn the strategies that give you a long-term edge.

You can start with our free survivor strategy articles, which explain a number of the concepts we apply to our customized survivor pick recommendations:


FYI

About Our Survivor Pool Advice

We break down the pros and cons of various survivor pick options in this column, but none of our advice is ever absolute.

Why can’t we just tell you the “best” survivor pick of the week? Because there is no universal “best pick” for all NFL survivor pools.

The best weekly pick for your pool depends on a variety of factors, including the number of entries still alive and your pool’s rules. For example:

  • Bigger survivor pools reward more risk-taking.
    The more entries in your pool, the lower the chance you have to win it. In addition, you have a fixed number of weeks to send hundreds (or even thousands, in really big pools) of opponents to slaughter while you survive unscathed. As a result, your best strategy for bigger pools generally demands more of a focus on avoiding the most popular picks.
  • Non-standard rules change optimal pick strategy.
    If your pool requires double picks late in the season, or if it’s a strike pool (i.e. your first incorrect pick doesn’t eliminate you), you don’t want to use the exact same pick strategy that you’d use in a standard-rules survivor pool. Those rule variations significantly influence decision factors, such as whether you should be more inclined to save a good team for later vs. use it now.

And then there’s all this stuff:

  • What if you’ve already picked the team (or teams) that some article says is the best pick this week?
  • What if the point spread for that “best pick” has gotten several points worse since the article was published?
  • How should you spread your picks across multiple teams if you’re playing more than one entry?

Technology to the rescue

As far as we know, we’re the only site that has built algorithms that evaluate all of the strategy factors that matter in survivor pools and provide you with customized survivor pick recommendations based on the data updated multiple times a day.

The result? Since 2017, our subscribers have reported over $3.7 million in survivor pool winnings using our data-driven picks and tools.

If you want to see all the picks we recommend for your pool, use our NFL Survivor Picks product.

Why we write this column

At the same time, we know our subscribers like to understand the rationale behind picks the product may recommend, especially when those picks go against the grain. So, over the years, we’ve started to write more about the “whys” behind our approach.

This column can also help educate our readers about survivor pool strategy. We highlight tactics proven to result in more survivor pool wins over the long term and point out common pitfalls to avoid.

We hope you enjoy reading, and we encourage you to check out more of our survivor pool strategy articles.


Get access to all NFL survivor pool content, picks and tools

Free subscription offers now available!

Subscribe now