For the general public, a standard fantasy football league suffices. If you’re reading this article, you may have grown weary of normal leagues and would like to try something new. Crash Course, a Fantasy Football Universe series, delves into unique formats. So, let’s start with Survivor Series: Navigating NFL Survivor Pools.
How Does it Work?
It’s simple. Each week you pick one NFL out of the 32 teams and if they win, you survive to the next week. If your team loses, you are eliminated and the league goes on without you until a winner is crowned.
The catch is that once you have used a team, you cannot use them again for the rest of the season.
How is it different?
This one is different because it’s not a fantasy league at all and is closer to a Pick ‘Em contest. It involves no players, and there is no draft. Merely one team is picked by each manager every week until someone wins.
How does the Draft work?
As I stated above, there is no draft because there is no fantasy football league. It’s as simple as making a weekly pick and cheering on your team.
A look at the Rosters
There are no rosters, but as I said, you get to choose from all 32 teams, you can choose each team once, so be careful which team you decide to use each week.
How does the Waiver Wire work?
No waiver wire is needed. The team list starts with all 32 teams and dwindles by one option each week based on which team you chose the prior week.
How the scoring works
Again, scoring is not impacted by the league and can be done in any manner of your choosing. There is no wrong or right answer here, it’s all up to you and your league mates.
The Consensus Strategy
- Look Ahead: This is perhaps the most important strategy. If you are debating between two teams in a particular week, look ahead to see which team you are most like to use in a favorable matchup later. If this is the easiest game on one team’s schedule, while the other team you are debating has many other easy matchups, go with the team you won’t be using again in the future. Save the other team for that prime matchup down the road.
- Be the Contrarian: One thing is certain in a survival pool. The majority of the eliminations will come in bunches with managers who lost with a big favorite. Many managers take the biggest favorite that week and will find themselves as part of a mass elimination if that team loses. If you value another team in that week, why not take a team with similar risk that is less popular? If the heavy favorite goes out, you will find yourself on the winning end of it.
- Avoid Divisional Games: Even the most lopsided divisional matchup can be one to avoid. It’s nearly impossible to predict when a team will overachieve and knock off a rival. I prefer to avoid divisional games wherever possible, even when they seem to be a sure thing. There’s no such thing as a sure thing in a divisional game.
- Watch for Let Down Games: This piggybacks off the previous strategy. If you have a team coming off a huge win against a hated rival and they are facing an out-of-conference “cupcake matchup”, followed by another tough divisional battle, they can often overlook that inferior team sandwiched in the middle leaving them vulnerable to an upset.
My Strategy
- Don’t Look Too Far Ahead: While looking ahead is the most important strategy, it’s important to not plan more than a handful of games. Forgoing a team in Week 2 because you want to use them in Week 15 is a bad idea. You may be eliminated by then, the pool could be over by then, or something could dramatically change the game lines by then. So, why try to predict that far into a murky NFL future?
- When In Doubt, Take the Easy Play: While I advocate for contrarian plays, don’t do it just to be different. A contrarian play doesn’t do you much good if you are the one who is eliminated. So don’t always take the tricky play.
- Avoid Huge Underdogs: There is a reason a team is listed as a huge underdog by the Vegas sharps, they aren’t very good. Don’t try to prove you are smarter than everyone else. Winning the week with a 10-point favorite gets you to the next week just like winning with a 10-point underdog. So don’t get carried away with big underdogs. This is something we see with managers picking too many Cinderella’s in March Madness. Sure, they could win, but they aren’t a great repeated play.
In Closing
Have fun! This isn’t a fantasy football league but rather a fun Pick ‘Em league of sorts. So just come in and make your weekly pick and see if you can take home the championship.
Don’t forget to check out the rest of the Crash Course Series. Have a look at our Weekly NFL Survivor Pool article and see what teams we went with this week in the 2024 Fantasy Football Universe Survivor Pool on Yahoo.
