Anyone ever participate in a suvivor pool?

[TDs3nOut]

Seems like an interesting contest. Pick one NFL team to win straight up (i.e., not against the line) in Week 1, but you can never pick that team again for the rest of the season. If the team you pick does win, then you make your pick for Week 2; otherwise, you're out of the pool. Rinse and repeat each week for the rest of the season. Last man (or woman) standing wins the pool.

If you have participated, how many weeks did you survive? Any secret strategy that you wish to share?

The prohibition on picking the same team twice creates a real tension between picking a team that you think is very likely to win and not wanting to use up your ability to pick that team for the rest of the season. For example, according to the current betting lines, Indy, a 9.5-point favorite at home this week, is the most heavily favored team this week. That presumably makes them an attractive pick, but they still have two remaining games against Jacksonville, so one might not want to "use up" the ability to pick them in Week 1.

Finally, what is the best pick this week? I think that I would pick Pittsburgh at home against TN in Week 1. Would this pick survive to advance to Week 2?

 

[fordman84]

Not for money but we did one in my old department for fun, just to see how hard it would be.

I think of the 12 that signed up we had everyone out by like week 7.

I think the strategy is to pick the "can't miss" games when they come up, don't try to save the best teams for later. If there is a SF vs Oak game, take SF and run with it. Injuries can't be accounted for and you will lose a lot of people each week. If I had taken that route I could have lasted till the end. Tried to take a crap shoot early on and missed, had I gone with the safe bet I could have made it to the end.

 

[TDs3nOut]

Not for money but we did one in my old department for fun, just to see how hard it would be.

I think of the 12 that signed up we had everyone out by like week 7.

I think the strategy is to pick the "can't miss" games when they come up, don't try to save the best teams for later. If there is a SF vs Oak game, take SF and run with it. Injuries can't be accounted for and you will lose a lot of people each week. If I had taken that route I could have lasted till the end. Tried to take a crap shoot early on and missed, had I gone with the safe bet I could have made it to the end.

Not at all surprised that everyone was eliminated by Week 7 given that you had only twelve participants to begin with.

Not sure I agree with picking the safest game each week. That would certainly give you the best chance to advance to the next week -- which, of course, is one way of thinking about the ultimate goal of the game -- but I think that one is probably better off to put some weight on what options are available in the future.

 

[fordman84]

Not at all surprised that everyone was eliminated by Week 7 given that you had only twelve participants to begin with.

Not sure I agree with picking the safest game each week. That would certainly give you the best chance to advance to the next week -- which, of course, is one way of thinking about the ultimate goal of the game -- but I think that one is probably better off to put some weight on what options are available in the future.

That was the theory I took as well, get through the early weeks and have cupcakes later. Didn't work out for me. Picking the easy games early would mean that you survive, and then watch injuries. Maybe looking at the week6 schedule there isn't an easy pick, but in week 5 a QB goes down and all of a sudden there is a gimme game.

 

[TDs3nOut]

That was the theory I took as well, get through the early weeks and have cupcakes later. Didn't work out for me. Picking the easy games early would mean that you survive, and then watch injuries. Maybe looking at the week6 schedule there isn't an easy pick, but in week 5 a QB goes down and all of a sudden there is a gimme game.

I think that your point about updating expectations to reflect key injuries is a good one. Every year there are also teams that play better and teams that play worse than expected, so it also seems wise to adjust expectations to reflect that. I don't think that I would look too far ahead on the schedule to make my pick each week.

 

[SomeGuy]

Old website I used to frequent had this 2 years in a row. I somehow never lost a game. I have since retired undefeated. No money involved though.

 

[TDs3nOut]

Old website I used to frequent had this 2 years in a row. I somehow never lost a game. I have since retired undefeated. No money involved though.

You survived the entire season two years in a row? That is quite impressive! In fact, it is nearly unbelievable.

So, which team would you pick this week? And feel free to explain the strategy that you used.

 

[Jims_Doors]

My 14 team league has been doing it for about 3yrs now. Everyone puts in 5 bucks (on top of the $160.00 for your team) and the last man standing wins the 70 bucks. I and many others didn't last long last year. Arizona won @ New England the second week of the season.

There is some strategy but Arizona winning last year proves that upsets happen all the time.

I chose TB > NYJ for week one. Seems like a good time to use TB as the one time pick for them.

 

[TDs3nOut]

My 14 team league has been doing it for about 3yrs now. Everyone puts in 5 bucks (on top of the $160.00 for your team) and the last man standing wins the 70 bucks. I and many others didn't last long last year. Arizona won @ New England the second week of the season.

There is some strategy but Arizona winning last year proves that upsets happen all the time.

I chose TB > NYJ for week one. Seems like a good time to use TB as the one time pick for them.

TB over NYJ seems to me like a much better pick than using up NE over AZ in Week 1, though the AZ upset certainly highlights just how difficult it is to survive from week to week.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

Best advice I have is to pick 3 of the worst teams in football and follow each one. Play the matchups for those 3 teams.

 

[SomeGuy]

You survived the entire season two years in a row? That is quite impressive! In fact, it is nearly unbelievable.

So, which team would you pick this week? And feel free to explain the strategy that you used.

Honestly, it was just pick the team most likely to win. I know, DUH. It was probably just dumb luck. The 1st season I tied with the site admin, 2nd season I was 1st. Not sure how far into the season we went.

Oh, I didn't finish 2 complete seasons though. Just realized that I didn't portray that correctly.

There were about 10 of us picking.