If you joined USA TODAY Sports’ NFL Survivor Pool to bag yourself a clean $10,000 as the final winner, there are a few rules you already know, and strategies to investigate.
The idea here, of course, is to not only pick winners every week, but to pick the winners few other people do. And once you’ve picked a team to win one week, you can’t pick that team again all season, so it behooves you to be careful with your selections in that regard.
Odds do not factor in — you’re looking for wins outright. What matters is point differential — your team’s margin of victory — which is added to a bank that could become meaningful if you’re involved in any tiebreakers.
By the way, once you’re in, you want to stay in. If you don’t make a pick any week, you’ll be eliminated. And if you didn’t sign up already — sadly, the books are closed. But if you’re in, and you followed our Week 1 roadmap, you might be pretty happy right now.
In our four Survivor Pool suggestions for Week 1, we were 3-1 with a point differential of +18. So, let’s get into this week’s games, and which sleeper picks will (hopefully) draw similarly positive results.
Thursday Night Football
- Vikings at Eagles
Sunday
- Packers at Falcons
- Raiders at Bills
- Ravens at Bengals
- Seahawks at Lions
- Chargers at Titans
- Bears at Buccaneers
- Chiefs at Jaguars
- Colts at Texans
- 49ers at Rams
- Giants at Cardinals
- Jets at Cowboys
- Commanders at Broncos
Sunday Night Football
- Dolphins at Patriots
Monday Night Football
- Saints at Panthers
- Browns at Steelers
Jaguars over Chiefs
This may seem somewhat contrarian since the Jaguars lost to the Chiefs twice last season — 27-17 in Week 10 and 27-20 in the divisional round of the playoffs — but things are afoot in Jacksonville, and it all starts with new No. 1 receiver Calvin Ridley. Trevor Lawrence didn’t have a receiver last season who could consistently dominate one-on-one matchups and win contested-catch battles as Ridley can, and despite that, he completed 53 of 79 passes for 476 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception in those two games.
Add Ridley to the equation, factor in that the Chiefs are looking to work both Travis Kelce and Chris Jones back into the lineup after their “Burn the Tape” season opener against the Lions, and this is one to watch.
Cardinals over Giants
We told you last week to take Arizona’s opponents on a no-matter-what basis, but this is more interesting than it should be. Last week in their 20-16 loss to the Commanders, the Cardinals’ defense was shockingly spicy, with six sacks, eight quarterback hits, and 10 quarterback hurries. Now, they get the Giants at home, and man… if you didn’t see what Dallas’ defense did to Daniel Jones and Big Blue’s offensive line, that should come with an NSFW warning. Not that Arizona’s front six/seven has anywhere near the talent Dallas’ has… but that’s the point, to a point.
New York’s right side, with guard Mark Glowinski and tackle Evan Neal, are particularly vulnerable to all manner of pressure. You may not have heard of guys like Dennis Gardeck, Victor Dimukeje, Leki Fotu, and Jonathan Ledbetter, but we assure you that Giants head coach Brian Daboll and his staff have been studying these dudes all week long. This wasn’t a case where New York was surprised with the beatdown from a schematic perspective; Dallas just exploited some obvious issues. And we were quite surprised at New York’s complete lack of quarterback pressure against Dallas’ offense, outside of Dexter Lawrence.
Save this for your deep sleeper pick as Arizona’s offense has virtually nothing to offer… but it’s there if you’re in a YOLO mood.
Commanders over Broncos
So. The Raiders came into Denver last Sunday and walked out with a 17-16 win in which the Broncos tried an unsuccessful onside kick to start the game, had 166 net passing yards from Russell Wilson, barely pressured Jimmy Garoppolo (no sacks and just six total pressures), and had 10 penalties for -83 yards.
We have no question that Denver cornerback Pat Surtain II will shut down whichever Commanders receiver he’s on, but the problem there is that Washington has more than one elite target – there’s (Scary) Terry McLaurin, Jahan Dotson, Curtis Samuel, and Logan Thomas to deal with — and some interesting pass and run concepts from new OC Eric Bieniemy.
Add in a Washington defense with the tools to upend an already upended Russell Wilson, and we’ll take this one all day long.
