How to win your survivor league

I like to play in the survivor leagues my friends put together and have had some good sucess at it over the past few years. I would like to share with you guys what we found while we were doing some research for the upcoming podcast. There are always rules and tricks to help you get a leg up on the next guy but here the process has been boiled down to the basics by Jason Willan.

So here is the boiled down strategy that could help you win the pot every time.

A Brief Introduction
The survivor concept is about as simple as it gets. Every week, you pick one winner in the NFL. No point spread. No over/under. Just one weekly winner. Sounds easy, right? Well, the catch is that you can’t pick the same team twice. If you like the Super Bowl Champion Ravens in Week 1, feel free to use them as your pick, but know that you won’t be able to use Joe Flacco and company again for the rest of the year… assuming you are able to move on.

Which brings me to point number two: there are no do-overs. If the team you pick doesn’t win, you’re out, even if that happens in Week 1. If you take the previously-mentioned Ravens and they lose to the Broncos in the season opener, thanks for playing. Better luck next year. You’d be surprised how many people are eliminated in Week 1 every season. So, while there is an element of long-term strategy to making your picks, the game is all about simply surviving to the next week.

Survivor leagues typically start with the first week of the NFL regular season, continuing as long as more than one person is accurately making picks. I have seen smaller leagues decided after just five or six weeks and I’ve seen those that last well into the season. But I have never been in a league that actually lasted the entire 17 weeks of the NFL schedule. It’s just a lot more difficult than you might think.

Five Rules for Survivor Success
1. Just Win

This seems obvious given the nature of the game, but often survivor league participants get too concerned with saving the better teams for later. This is particularly detrimental during the opening weeks of the season, when we are still trying to get a feel for which of the teams are actually “good”. If there is a matchup in Week 1 that you feel strongly about, don’t pass up that pick simply because you are hoping to use certain teams later in the season. Just worry about getting to that later week, and figure out the rest when you do.

2. Let the Spread be Your Guide

While picking games against the spread isn’t part of survivor leagues, that doesn’t mean you should ignore Vegas projections all together. If you can identify a few teams each week that are favored by more than five or six points, that’s usually a good place to start when looking for your winners. This is by no means a foolproof method, as evidenced by a 14-point underdog Arizona team going to New England and beating the Patriots outright in Week 2 of last season. But a little spread analysis can start you down the right path.

3. Stick to the Home Teams

There’s a reason it’s called a “home field” advantage. Maybe it’s because teams are playing in front of their own fans. Maybe it’s because players got to sleep in their own beds the night before. Whatever the reason, NFL home teams have historically won a higher percentage of games than visiting teams. There will be opportunities to play upper-level teams on the road against weaker opponents, but if you can confidently pick a home team, I recommend it for survivor leagues.

4. Avoid Divisional Matchups or Other Rivalries

You’ll probably be staying away from the Seattle/San Francisco games anyway, but you might want to simply avoid all divisional matchups or historical rivalries, even if they otherwise seem ripe for the survivor picking. These are the kind of games that often include commentators saying things like, “you can throw out the records when these two teams get together.” The reason that rings true is that certain teams will always get up to play one another, no matter how mismatched the talent levels might seem to be. It’s a trap survivor league participants fall into far too often.

5. Stay Away from SNF & MNF

I like to stay away from Sunday Night and Monday Night Football games all together. The networks are obviously trying to make these games compelling, but sometimes you get a matchup that looks appealing from a survivor-league perspective. But in the same way that teams can get up for rivals and play above their talent level, the same can be true of teams getting the opportunity to play on the big stage of a primetime game.

These rules obviously won’t guarantee you a survivor league victory, but they might give you a leg up on your competition. Remember, you won’t necessarily have to keep the correct picks up for the entire season. Just keep them going a little bit longer than everyone else. ;)

Good luck!