For the second straight week, the two most popular survivor teams picked up wins for the people who selected them, with one making it more interesting than backers expected. Those scares both came against the Cardinals, a team we said it would be wise to avoid auto-fading last week with the Giants going on the road after an awful offensive performance and with injury questions on the offensive line. Congrats to anyone who got there with the Commanders and Giants the first two weeks and still has every above-average team available to them moving forward.
Also for the second straight week, the Broncos were responsible for eliminating a healthy chunk of survivor-pool participants. The Denver offense somehow leads the league in points per drive, but outside of a few plays to Marvin Mims early in Week 2, the unit has lacked explosiveness once again this season. The Broncos defense has seemed to fall off a cliff as well, and since Denver couldn't beat the Raiders and Commanders at home with a great early-season home-field advantage, I don't know when you're supposed to trust them in survivor moving forward.
When looking at your options for Week 3, it's important to project out the rest of the schedule (hence the point of this weekly column). It's also important to know the format of your pool, as Circa Survivor adds two standalone slates for Thanksgiving and Christmas. In that format, you definitely can't play the Cowboys this week, but even in 18-week formats I would avoid using the Cowboys despite their matchup against the Cardinals.
The Cowboys have had two easy wins against limited offenses, and this week figures to be more of the same. But that's what everyone who took the Commanders and Giants over the first two weeks thought as well before having to sweat a second-half comeback. It would be shocking for the same thing to happen to Dallas, of course. But another reason to save the Cowboys is Thanksgiving week, even in pools where the Thursday slate isn't its own week. That's because Week 12 doesn't offer a lot of clear alternatives, especially when you account for using some teams in other hard-to-fill weeks. If you don't have the Cowboys that week, your best options may come down to playing the Vikings at home against the Bears or the Titans at home against the Panthers. Those opponents don't seem too tough now, but neither do Minnesota or Tennessee. If you plan out your season correctly, you can get through this week without continuing to autofade the Cardinals.
Why listen to me? Well, I was 535-450-30 (+3532) on ATS picks over the last six years and even better with my top five picks each week, going 376-290-24 (56.5%) over the last eight years in the Westgate SuperContest. While this doesn't involve picking against the spread, I do believe by applying the strategies I've developed to have long-term success on those picks to survivor pools, we'll be in the best position to outlast the competition.
What are the best options to use in survivor pools in Week 3? And which teams should be saved to use later in the season? ... !