The trend of heavy NFL underdogs winning this season has been a sight to behold, and few one-strike survivor contests remain active at this point. If you’re still competing in your tournament — or if you’re in a two-strike contest or just started fresh — we have the data you’ll need to make a solid Week 5 pick.
The Sporting News has been running with affiliate partner PoolGenius all season to help you make informed survivor pool decisions. Every week, this column highlights the teams that rank as the week’s most popular picks and teams with the highest win probability.
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PoolGenius is a sports data site living under the TeamRankings umbrella. Its mission: to provide you with the statistical information you need to succeed as bettors, fantasy players, and pool entrants.
Today, like we do every Friday, we’re going to the grid. Each week, PG updates its NFL Survivor Data Grid. It ranks every team scheduled for the week based on PG odds (win probability), pick popularity, and more.
This info — as well as the NFL Survivor Season Planner — are invaluable resources for serious survivor contestants looking to map out a season-long strategy.
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Let’s get to the NFL survivor picks grid for Week 5 of the 2024 regular season, highlighting the teams with the best PoolGenius odds as well as the most popular picks of the week. Good luck, have fun, and here’s hoping you stay alive to see next week!
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All odds and data courtesy of PoolGenius.
| Team | PG odds | Popularity |
| 49ers vs. Cardinals | 75% | 16% |
| Seahawks vs. Giants | 73% | 35% |
| Chiefs vs. Saints | 69% | 5% |
| Bears vs. Panthers | 62% | 9% |
| Jaguars vs. Colts | 60% | 2% |
| Commanders vs. Browns | 59% | 13% |
| Vikings vs. Jets | 59% | 5% |
| Packers at Rams | 56% | 5% |
| Broncos vs. Raiders | 54% | 2% |
| Falcons vs. Bucs (W) | 54% | 1% |
| Steelers vs. Cowboys | 53% | 0% |
| Ravens at Bengals | 53% | 2% |
| Texans vs. Bills | 52% | 0% |
| Patriots vs. Dolphins | 51% | 2% |
| Dolphins at Patriots | 49% | 0% |
| Bills at Texans | 48% | 1% |
| Bengals vs. Ravens | 47% | 0% |
| Cowboys at Steelers | 47% | 0% |
| Bucs at Falcons | 46% | 1% |
| Raiders at Broncos | 45% | 0% |
| Rams vs. Packers | 44% | 0% |
| Jets vs. Vikings (N) | 41% | 0% |
| Browns at Commanders | 41% | 0% |
| Colts at Jaguars | 40% | 0% |
| Panthers at Bears | 38% | 0% |
| Saints at Chiefs | 31% | 0% |
| Giants at Seahawks | 27% | 0% |
| Cardinals at 49ers | 25% | 0% |
Brock Purdy and the 49ers yield the best PG win probability for the second week in a row, but their 75-percent probability has dropped from 80-percent against New England last week. They’re also the second-most popular pick this week (16%), after being the most popular selection in Week 4 (31%).
Don’t read too much into that — they would be picked in a lot more pools if they were still active in a lot of pools. Between their Week 1 game against the Jets and their Week 4 game against the Pats, they’re probably not available in too many contest pools at this point.
We’ve been saying it all week, and it bears repeating: the Seahawks feel like the optimal pick in Week 5. They’re home, Geno Smith is leading the NFL in passing yards, Seattle almost beat Detroit at Ford Field on Monday Night Football, and the Seahawks D gets to tee off against Daniel Jones with Malik Nabers sidelined. Go crazy, DK Metcalf and Kenneth Walker III.
The Commanders vs. Browns serve as the third-most popular pick of the week, with Jayden Daniels responsible for some of the most efficient and effective rookie quarterbacking we’ve ever seen. It’s tough to love Washington against the Browns D, but it’s even more difficult to pick Deshaun Watson to out-duel a young phenom like Daniels.
Good on the majority of survivor contestants for not taking the cheese on Kansas City at home on Monday night against the Saints. The Chiefs are ravaged by injuries, the Saints have a good defense and an explosive offense, and crazy things always seem to happen on Monday night. This has “trap game” written all over it for Andy Reid’s 4-0 Chiefs.
The Bears (vs. Panthers) feel like a tough team to back, too. Carolina has played pretty dang well since Andy Dalton took over for second-year QB Bryce Young, with Diontae Johnson and Chuba Hubbard both racking up stats. If the Panthers can beat Vegas and put 24 on the Bengals, they can get a W in Chicago.
Consider punting on the Vikings-Jets game, too. It’s in London, it’s a battle between four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers and breakout MVP candidate Sam Darnold, and both sides have game-changing playmakers. The Jets D could stifle the Vikings, or Justin Jefferson could bust loose for 200 yards and three TDs. You typically want to avoid neutral-field games in which the narrative is hard to predict.
Sleeper of the week: Broncos vs. Raiders. Las Vegas will be without Davante Adams (now and seemingly forever), and Denver’s defense has been as good as any unit outside of the Jets. Javonte Williams should be able to run on the Raiders’ soft run D, and Bo Nix can probably escape with a home victory as long as his line keeps Maxx Crosby out of his grill.
One of PoolGenius’s great features is that for every survivor pool you enter, you can customize league settings — pool size, number of personal entries, etc. — to fully optimize your picks to win.
Every pool is different — so naturally, strategy can change from pool to pool, even within the same week. Some pools even allow you to join midway through the season, so be sure to check out each one.
The big kahuna of the free NFL survivor contest market, DraftKings already has nearly 600,000 entrants in its $1 Million Pro Football Survivor contest. Talk about a game-changing sum of money! As the pool is so high and the number of contestants is so massive, DraftKings made the wise decision to only allow one entry per user.
Another massive contest that should finish with an insane number of entrants, CBS Sports Football Pick’em features a $100,000 jackpot. The margin for error, like with DraftKings, will be very low considering it’s a single-elimination format with a max of one entry per user. But that grand prize, though!
One of the whoppers of the free survivor contest landscape, ESPN’s Eliminator Challenge has a grand prize five times larger than the majority of its competitors. And that’s not all — you can also create up to 25 entries! Talk about a guaranteed traffic driver! The only downside is that your odds of winning will be very low considering the sheer volume this contest will see this year. But if you can stay on top of it — and even contend through Week 10 — just imagine the rollercoaster of emotions throughout the season!
One of the most popular pools running, the USA Today Survivor Pool features a fantastic $5,000 top prize. The entrant who survives the longest with the highest point differential wins the grand prize. What do we mean by point differential? It’s a built-in tie-breaker that reduces the odds of having multiple winners at the end of the season. The point differentials of your selections are tallied throughout the season, and the survivor with the highest point differential wins any end-of-season tie.
Another leading name in free sports challenges with prizes, Yahoo has one of the most popular NFL survivor challenges on the Internet. Register to join the Survival Football Challenge group, join a friend’s existing group, or create your private group to play with family and friends. Custom contests allow you to play with a strike system so teams get a second or third chance if and when they pick incorrectly.
Another free contest with a $5,000 grand prize, The Lines’ Pro Football Survivor is overseen by Catena Media affiliate betting site The Lines. The contest should increase exposure for the site, which has less brand recognition than the aforementioned power players in the industry.
Check out our complete breakdown of the NFL survivor pool strategy, courtesy of our partners at PoolGenius. Looking for something simpler? We’ve got you covered right here.
Decide whether your entry will be based entirely on first instinct and gut decisions or 100 percent research. Map out your first few weeks of picks, or maybe even your picks for the entire 18-week regular season. You can never be too prepared for an NFL survivor pool.
Like Ross trying to carry a couch up a narrow stairwell in “Friends,” sometimes you need to pivot. A team you thought at the start of the season would be a lock to win its Week 4 matchup might lose its starting QB to injury or fire its head coach. Don’t marry yourself to a plan, strategy, or 18-week list of picks. Just like in fantasy and betting, we sometimes need to change up our order of attack.
The proverbial sheep often get slaughtered in betting, and the same often happens in pick’em and survivor pools. Being slightly different than the crowd doesn’t just make for fun stories — it often serves as the difference between an early exit and a true contender of an entry.
Remember that the odds of winning, from the get-go, are statistically very low. Treat survivor pools like a free scratch ticket that you can improve your chances with thanks to some educated guesswork. But if you lose, what’s the worry? You were expected to fail, anyway, and the L didn’t cost you a thing. Sports — and any contest related to watching sports — should be fun, first and foremost.
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