Week 12 NFL Survivor Picks: Browns Most Popular Dish, But Other Sides To Choose (2020)

The Cleveland Browns are the public favorite in an NFL Week 12 that looks pretty scary for survivor pool picks — but you've got options.

Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns get the Jacksonville Jaguars, who have lost 9 games in a row (Photo by Jeffrey Brown/Icon Sportswire)

Thanksgiving Week is here, and with it comes a full serving of 16 NFL games. It’s also a pretty scary week for NFL survivor pool picks, with no double-digit favorite on the board but plenty of fairly risky picks available to most players.

In this post, we’ll analyze the five most popular NFL survivor picks of Week 12 using the “Holy Trinity” of survivor pick strategy data: win odds, pick popularity, future value.

The foundation of this pick analysis is the Data Grid feature of our NFL Survivor Picks product, the only tool on the market that customizes picks to maximize your edge in survivor pools.

Last Week Survivor Recap

This could be going down as a season of “What Ifs” in survivor pools. Over the last eight weeks, the most popular public survivor pick has been in a close game late seven times, and gone a woeful 1-7 against the point spread. Nevertheless, these public darlings have managed to go a perfect 8-0 on the season in terms of survival, with the Chargers adding to that total this week.

That’s a tough pill to swallow for more contrarian pickers making intelligent, Expected Value based decisions, but every year has its own dynamics and luck cuts both ways. We’ll see what the final six weeks of the regular season has in store.

Minnesota, meanwhile, was the single largest public casualty of the year, by pick percentage, when they lost to Dallas last week (30% of the public was picking Minnesota). Our subscriber recommendations were under the public average on Minnesota, but we did see our rate of recommendation climb Sunday late morning after betting line movement favoring the Vikings.

Here is a summary of the weekly pick rate by the public, and our final recommendations, for any team picked 2% or more by either.

In the end, our subscriber picks survived Week 11 57% of the time, while the public survived 65% of the time. Tampa Bay’s loss was the difference. Over two-thirds of the public surviving entries used the Chargers last week, while our more EV-driven picks largely avoided them, hoping for an upset.

Week 12 NFL Survivor Pick Analysis

Below we break down the public’s five favorite survivor picks this week, evaluating the pros and cons of each pick.

You’re probably thinking about picking at least one of these teams, but remember there are also other options to consider in Week 12, and highly contrarian picks can sometimes provide a solid boost to win your pool.

To get our Week 12 survivor pick recommendations customized for your pool’s size, rules, and the teams you’ve already picked, make sure you use the My Pool Picks feature of our NFL Survivor Picks product.

Note: Data referenced below was current as of Wednesday morning, and could change between posting time and kickoff time. Our product updates multiple times per day with the latest information.

1. Cleveland Browns (at Jacksonville)

Survivor Pick Popularity: 23%
Point Spread: -6.5

Week 12 is a diverse week with no clear-cut top favorite, and the public has latched on to the Browns as its most common pick. Given their relatively high popularity for a team favored by less than a touchdown, though, the Browns’ Expected Value (EV) is fairly low.

In fact, in a standard 100-entry pool, Cleveland’s EV is behind 13 other teams this week. You may not have all of those other 12 teams available to you, there’s a pretty good chance you have some of them. (You can see EV for every team in our Data Grid feature)

As far as the game against Jacksonville, rookie Jake Luton is averaging under 6 yards per pass attempt and has thrown 6 interceptions in three starts for the Jaguars. According to Adam Schefter, the Jaguars plan to start veteran Mike Glennon at quarterback this week, as Gardner Minshew is apparently not quite ready to return, and the Luton experiment is coming to an end.

While the betting odds should not change significantly with this news, we still might see some shifts for this game, so keep an eye on it.

2. New York Giants (at Cincinnati)

Survivor Pick Popularity: 15%
Point Spread: -5.5