This was another challenging and crazy week of football with the most popular field pick, Dallas, going down on Thursday night, the Jags pulling out an improbable win in London, and the Commanders/Giants bumbling their way to a fitting tie.

Through all of this madness, I still managed to go 6-3.

My 6 wins were the Texans, Jaguars, and Lions in my Buddy Pool, the Patriots in BIG PRIZE Pool, the Broncos in Splash $100K Survivor, and the Bengals in a new Splash pool I just entered.

My 3 losses were all eliminations. The Cowboys lost to Tampa Bay in Real Simple Football Pool, so that one is done. I also lost the Commanders in Kelly's $50K Survivor and the Rams in 2nd Chance Survivor Pool.

Those two were new this week. I joined three new pools ($25 buy-in each) and lost two of them in their first week.

This week I went with no duplicates. 9 entries, 9 different teams.

I'm also employing a strategy where I'm spreading my entries across more pools instead of consolidating in fewer pools. My backtesting has shown that there is a small bump to overall survival probability by spreading out your entries. See my post, Multiple entries and buybacks keep you in the game longer, but by how much?

No buybacks used this week. Every loss from here on is a real elimination.

I have 6 entries alive across 4 pools: 3 in my Buddy Pool, plus one each in BIG PRIZE and the two Splash pools. That's 4 of my original 15 entries plus the 2 Splash entries. Total prize money still in play is $467,000.

Here are my week-to-week results so far. I built a tool called SurvivorPulse (https://survivorpulse.com) mostly to help me track all this:

Week 6 Rankings are up at https://survivorpulse.com/rankings if you want to see how I'm thinking about this week.

Curious how other people fared in Week 5. Anyone else join a new pool this week?

Here is my full Week 5 rundown:

Last Thursday, Dallas had 55.3% field exposure on Yahoo going into kickoff against Tampa Bay. As most everyone knows by now, Tampa Bay took it to Dallas 24-16.

This begs the question, how often does a team with that much of the field on it lose? We went back through the last 10 NFL seasons, 2016 through 2025, using real Yahoo field exposure numbers.

Including Dallas, a team has reached 50% or more Yahoo field exposure 27 times, and those teams went 22-5 (81%). Twenty-five of those were regular season weeks and 2 were last year's playoff rounds.

The five losses:

• 2016 Week 8: Minnesota, 53.9%, lost 10-20 to Chicago
• 2017 Week 11: Kansas City, 55.1%, lost 9-12 to the Giants
• 2018 Week 3: Minnesota, 64.2%, lost 6-27 to Buffalo
• 2025 Week 14: Tampa Bay, 61.4%, lost 20-24 to New Orleans
• 2026 Week 5: Dallas, 55.3%, lost 16-24 to Tampa Bay

What do we take from this?

It's not surprising that favorites with high field exposure win most of the time. A team with that much love is almost always a big favorite.

What is interesting is the top end. Teams at 55% or more went 11-4 (73%), compared to 81% for teams at 40% or more. Four of the five losses came from that group over 55%, and Dallas was the latest. The sample is very small, but it's something to keep in mind the next time a team over 55% is on the radar.

Note: We haven't compared this to how often similarly strong favorites win when nobody is piling on, so take it with a grain of salt. The historical Yahoo percentages come from stored data, and we can't always tell exactly when in the week each one was captured. Dallas's number is the Thursday pre-kickoff figure.

Curious who was on Dallas. Anyone else willing to fade a team with this much of the field on it?

Field exposure for every team, every week, is on the Weekly Rankings page at survivorpulse.com.

It'd be unprecedented to have two winless teams in one season, but the Titans and Dolphins look absolutely terrible.

Are there any games either of them have a chance of actually winning (without an opposing QB being out)?

I went through both schedules and don't think there is.

Week 1: Packers @ Vikings -121 ($100)

Week 2: Panthers -155 @ Falcons ($182.64)

Week 3: Jets @ Lions -305 ($300.47)

Week 4: Packers -185 @ Buccaneers ($398.98)

Week 5: Raiders @ Patriots -192 ($614.64)

Week 6: ($934.77)

Selected teams:
Vikings
Panthers
Lions
Packers
Patriots

Week 6 Options:
Cardinals @ Rams -650 (3:05) (Biggest Spread)
Chargers @ Chiefs -380 (3:25)
Titans @ Colts -305 (12:00)
Bills -258 @ Raiders (3:25)
Bears -170 & Falcons (12:00)
Steelers -155 @ Buccaneers (12:00)

I think anybody playing the Titans, is going to be a pretty safe pick for the rest of the reason. I also try to stick with noon games, so I like the colts a lot this week. If something changes during the week, I think the bears are a good backup option if Caleb Williams is starting. TBD.

The Rams & Chiefs are also really good picks, but there is it much reward on a near 1k bet.

Thoughts?

Pick against them the rest of the year....?

So much for things getting back to normal. Last night's loss by Dallas was worse than either of this year's other two chalk disasters. The Chargers were Week 1's wipeout at 32% owned on Yahoo. Tampa Bay was Week 2's wipeout at 33.8%. Dallas was over 54%, the most popular pick of the season by a wide margin, somewhere around 35-40% of the field in the big contests like Circa and Splash. If that was your only entry, your season's over with 13 weeks still left on the schedule.

Side note: Tampa has now been involved in the two biggest wipeout games of the season, and they were responsible for the biggest wipeout last year in week 14 (61.4% field exposure). You really can't make this stuff up.

Sadly, this isn't a rare occurrence. I looked back at how often the most popular pick actually wins, going back 10 seasons of real Yahoo field-exposure data. Picks with heavy field support, 50% or more of the field, have still lost about 1 in 6 times. Note to self: Send this kind of data out before the game starts :-).

One guy on X said his pool started with 8,408 people, was down to 1,718 after Week 4, and 895 of those remaining entries, more than half, were on Dallas. Gone in one Thursday night game.

If you spread your picks out, you are still alive. One entry on the popular pick means one Thursday can end your year. A handful of entries on different teams means a bad Thursday is a setback instead of a funeral.

If Dallas was your only shot tonight, I feel for you. Don't let it happen twice. Spread your picks out.

Hey all - I've been writing up weekly survivor slate reviews looking back at the weekly carnage that has been rampaging through the field's entries each week this year. Week 4 was the quietest week so far, but with the Cowboys performance last night, we may be in for another bloodbath this week!

If you managed to avoid what seemed like an obvious pick, you're looking at another week that could mow down half of the field or more! so sit back, relax and watch your position improve! If you didn't, well you're not alone! Splash just lost 38% of the remaining entries in the Survivor World Championship, and your pool is probably similar!

Check out my week 4 review at my site ffsurvivor.com for a deepdive into what went wrong in an otherwise quiet week last week.

You can also ready my other weekly post-mortems for each week except week 2, because uhh, I forgot to write one.

You can also feel free to try our season long survivor planners and optimizers all for free! Luckily, our model was not suggesting DAL this week!

Week 1: Packers @ Vikings -121 ($100)

Week 2: Panthers -155 @ Falcons ($182.64)

Week 3: Jets @ Lions -305 ($300.47)

Week 4: Packers -185 @ Buccaneers ($398.98)

Week 5: ($614.64)

Selected teams:
Vikings
Panthers
Lions
Packers

Week 5 Options:
Browns @ Jets -135
Texans -425 @ Titans
Bengals -325 @ Dolphins
Colts @ Steelers -148

Tonight’s cowboys game was a prime example of why I stick with Sunday noon games as much as possible. The parlay is still alive and, call me crazy, but I am leaning Jets this weekend. Out of those four games I’m 95% sure I will choose the Jets or Texans. I’m far from rich so $600 is more than I should be spending on gambling but I’m riding this out, I’m only invested $100. 😂

I thought I would’ve been eliminated by now but it’s hard to bet anything over -300 odds because the juice is not worth the squeeze, hence the Jets choice.

It’s going to be an ugly game in New York but I’m going to give the slight advantage to the home team. Plus I like the slight line movement for the jets.

The Texans have to win at some point don’t they?

I was hoping to get this out much earlier in the week, but things got a little sideaways.

This week was much better than last. I think most people who are still alive can probably say the same thing as almost all of the top picks, except the Bills, won.

My 6 wins included the Seahawks, Vikings, and Colts in my Buddy Pool, the Chiefs in Real Simple Football Pool, the Rams in BIG PRIZE Pool, and the Ravens in a new pool I just entered. My one loss was the Bills in one of my 4 remaining entries in my Buddy Pool.

That new pool is the Splash $100K Survivor ($25 buy-in). 3,837 of the 4,445 entries are still alive, so it's early and there's a long way to go. I'll be adding it to the diary from here on.

The buyback deadline in both Buddy Pool and Real Simple was Week 3, so that window is closed. From here on, every loss is a real elimination. I'll probably buy in to a pool starting in Week 5 to make up for the 1 entry I lost this week since I no longer have buybacks at my disposal in my current pools.

I have 6 entries alive across 4 pools: 3 in my Buddy Pool, plus one each in Real Simple, BIG PRIZE, and Splash. That's 5 of my original 15 entries plus the new Splash entry. Total prize money still in play is $397,976.

Here are my week-to-week results so far. I built a tool called SurvivorPulse (https://survivorpulse.com) mostly to help me track all this:

Week 5 Rankings are up at https://survivorpulse.com/rankings if you want to see how I'm thinking about this week.

Curious how other people fared in Week 4. Did anyone else get burned by the Bills?

Here is my full Week 4 rundown:

Everyone got a chance to take a breath last week, but now the real game starts. Week 1 pools have been winnowed down to ~20-25%, and 2nd Chance pools are in full swing. Week 5 is the first week where a lot of people are looking at a thinner menu and are eying whats ahead, so I put together the board for it. Posting the numbers in case they help, whether you're still alive in a main contest or in a second-chance one.

The board (win % / projected Own% / pot share)

What stands out

• DAL has the highest win probability and is also the most-owned team on the slate. If it loses, a big chunk of the field goes with it. If it wins, you gain almost nothing on the pool. I think my Own % is a little high because DAL plays tonight, and some people might not be paying attention
• JAX at ~75% with only ~12% of the field projected on it is the best balance of survival and leverage this week.
• If you'd rather save JAX, the model's best alternatives are Week 12 vs TEN (79%) and Week 17 vs WAS (75%). Those are the weeks where it's worth more than it is now.
• Own% is modeled, not measured, so treat it as an estimate. Pools with different rules or sizes will look different.

I also made a leverage map and a season map showing which weeks each team is still worth spending (images attached).

Full disclosure: I built this. It's a survivor pool tool at survivor.the-duke.app that ranks your picks using market lines, estimated ownership, and what each team is worth later in the season. It works for second-chance contests too. You can set up your pool, record your picks, and see what you've burned and what's left. There's a free tier, with more features on the paid plan. The full Week 5 breakdown is here: https://survivor.the-duke.app/picks/2026/week-5

Happy to answer questions about how the numbers are built, and I'd like to hear where you think the Own% is off.

I know Dallas is a heavy favorite tonight with a backup QB starting for Tampa Bay, but an unknown QB always makes me nervous. And while Houston is 0-4, they are a good team playing an awful Titans team.

What are your thoughts? Seems like not a lot of people are on Houston and I don’t know why.

Cowboys?

ETA: -9.5 point favorites losing at home… what the actual fuck ugh

Should you put several entries on the same top team or pick a different team for each entry? It's one of the most argued topics in survivor pools, so I backtested it over the last 10 seasons (2016 to 2025).

This follows up on my Week 1 thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/NFLSurvivor/comments/1wi5svz/putting_my_money_where_my_mouth_is/), where a commenter asked whether it wouldn't make sense to stack the top teams with more entries instead of using weaker plays just to keep every pick unique. I said I'd run the numbers, so here they are.

FYI, this research comes from SurvivorPulse (https://survivorpulse.com), a survivor pool management platform I built to better manage, coordinate, and game plan out picks across multiple pools and entries to maximize overall survival probability, minimize correlated risk exposure, and better avoid wipeout weeks.

The short take

Duplicating gives a small early boost to the share of your entries still alive (i.e. survival probability). It doesn't grow as you add entries, and it's mostly gone by week 9 or 10. None of the 162 comparisons I ran were statistically significant, so this can't tell you either approach is reliably better.

Here is the average share of entries still alive with 18 entries and no buybacks, using the SurvivorPulse default pick strategy (Mild Lean 80/20). The duplicated approaches put several entries on the top pick and thin out down the ranked list (linear 4-3-2-1, geometric 8-4-2-1, or equal across the top 6).

What stood out

• Duplicating is ahead by roughly 4 to 15 points in weeks 1 to 5. The risk is that when a top team loses, like in Weeks 1 and 2 this year, every entry on it goes out together.
• The edge doesn't grow with more entries. It peaks around 6 to 12 entries and shrinks by 20. At 2 to 4 entries, duplicating is worse.
• Buybacks make the early edge (weeks 3 to 5) larger at roughly 10 to 20 entries. In my test each entry got one buyback, and a group of duplicated entries was revived together on the same pick.

I measured the share of entries still alive for a given week, not the chance at least one survives the whole season or the chance of winning a pool, and I'm not saying either approach is best.

The other four pick strategies, buyback settings and starting weeks are all on these pages if you want to dig in:

Survival Curves: https://survivorpulse.com/research/duplicating-vs-not-duplicating-picks

Strategy Comparison: https://survivorpulse.com/research/duplicating-vs-not-duplicating-picks-compare

Curious how others decide when to duplicate or differentiate.

Things didn’t go my way in Week 3, but this is exactly why I play multiple pools and entries with buybacks where possible. I expect to have some sub-par weeks. I just don’t want to get wiped out.

I went 5-6 on my picks. Sadly, four of those losses were all due to the Seahawks. I’ll explain below why I stacked 4 entries on Seattle. My other two losses were with the Packers and Eagles. The good news is that the Green Bay entry has a buyback so I still have 6 entries alive. I did win with the Chiefs, Bills (2 entries), Niners, and Lions with my other entries. Not great, but also not catastrophic.

Here are my week-to-week results so far using SurvivorPulse:

So why did I load up on Seattle this week?

I just pushed out some new research which I plan to post about later this week that looks at the survival probabilities over the last 10 seasons for duplicating picks across entries versus not duplicating them (https://survivorpulse.com/research/duplicating-vs-not-duplicating-picks). For the number of entries I had alive in Week 3 (11 entries) and using the Mild Lean (80/20 Blend) pick strategy with buybacks, the survival probability for different duplicated pick strategies is higher than no duplicated picks by anywhere from 15.8 to 27.5 points.

For Week 3, that is a survival probability of around 75 – 80% if I stacked more of my entries on the top-ranked pick across multiple entries versus about 60% if I used different picks across all my entries. Pretty compelling.

Also, Weeks 3 and 4 carry the largest survival probability discrepancy between duplicating picks and not duplicating picks of any of the weeks by far. Intuitively, this makes sense as the longer the season goes and the less entries you have the easier it is to spread different good picks across those entries. I decided to strike while the iron was hot. Unfortunately, the iron burned me.

Honestly, I think the rationale and the approach were sound. As we all know in survivor pools, even the best laid plans can backfire. Again, why you want as many entries as possible.

I messed up one thing, and I’m kicking myself for it. I had two entries with buybacks still in reserve, and I put them on single-pick entries instead. As it turned out one of those picks was the Packers so I still get to use that buyback, but the other entry was on the Bills. It would have been nice to use that buyback on one of the Seattle picks. Unfortunately, I got the allocation backwards. The entry with no margin left got the risky, crowded pick, and the one entry that could afford to gamble got a separate, unrelated pick instead. Live and learn.

I think there is a whole separate post I could do about matching your riskiest picks to whichever entries still have a buyback in reserve. I want to think through that concept a bit more before I post anything.

It's a long season, and I’m planning to enter a few new pools starting up over the next couple weeks, so I'll be adding entries back into the mix even after a week like this one.

Curious if anyone else got hit stacking the same team this week. How do you decide when to spread your picks out versus lean into one?

Here is my full Week 3 rundown:

Still alive in the 100k gladiator challenge on draftkings we are down to ~3100 participants left from 103k in week 1, who do we like scorers for this week? Im probably going to go for the low hanging fruit with Derrick Henry this week with it being a favorable matchup. Any thoughts?

I’ve been building my own NFL Survivor Pool website and I’m looking to get some more real users on it and see what breaks / what could be better.

If anyone wants to try it, there are two ways:

• Join my free Survivor Pool starting Week 4 — winner gets a $25 gift card
• Create your own pool for free and invite friends, family, coworkers, etc.

No entry fee or anything like that. I mostly want to get more people using the site and hear feedback on the signup process, making picks, standings, pool setup, mobile experience, or anything else that feels confusing or missing.

Join the Week 4 pool:
https://www.survivesunday.com/join/f66f198e-3e00-4287-907d-d47da693dbb4

Or create your own:
https://www.survivesunday.com

Would appreciate any feedback!

I am personally between Vikings and Ravens (leaning Ravens).

Burrow and the bengals got me sadly. Got to use my buy back and bounce back next week.

How’d yall do?

Playing on pickstreaks so still alive even after last week’s disastrous Bucs pick 🫣

There are other obvious selections today but just think there is no way Texans go 0-3 even on the road.

How cooked am I?

Rough start if you were on the Chargers, Bucs, or Ravens. I'm still alive in 6 of my 9 pools.

Curious where folks stand. Do you still have a pulse? Who are you on for Week 3?

Two weeks in and Circa's record 25,017-entry field is already down to 8,610. Not a typo - almost two-thirds of the pool is gone before October.

Week 1 set the tone: LAC as -9.5 home favorites lost outright to Arizona. $10.3M in entries gone on one game, the biggest single-team wipeout in Circa history.

Week 2 kept it up. Tampa Bay was the field's #2 most popular pick (6,061 entries) as the Browns rained on Baker's revenge tour and the -8.5 home favorites and lost to Cleveland, 23-19. If you had the Bucs, you already knew this. The #1 pick, San Francisco, recovered fine from their jet lag back from Australia - 35-13 over Miami - so this was a coin flip between the two biggest chalk plays in the pool, and it split the room right down the middle.

Week 3's got real chalk again:

• Chiefs -10.5 vs Miami
• 49ers -8.5 vs a Cardinals team that just got run over 31-7
• Lions -6.5 vs Jets
• Bills -7 hosting a Chargers team that's lost two straight
• Packers -4.5 vs Falcons

That's a lot of pool sitting on the same 3-4 teams again. Worth thinking past just this week before you burn one of them. As a Falcons fan, I'm warning you all now about picking against them. I've seen them break hearts and winning tonight's game would be typical behavior for this drunk franchise.

Top picks available, no login: survivor.the-duke.app/picks/2026/week-3.

Full disclosure: custom pool rules/double weeks and portfolio management is behind login/paywall @ survivor.the-duke.app/

There is no sugar coating it. Last week was tough. Three of the top 6 highest win probability teams lost (Ravens, Bucs, and Chargers). And the Bears for good measure. Tampa was particularly brutal with 33% field exposure. The 2nd week in a row that the highest field exposure team was taken out.

Despite the carnage, I managed to go 9-4 on my picks with 2 of my picks in buyback pools (yes, I will be taking advantage of those buybacks) so I still have 11 entries alive out of the original 15, and I'm alive in 6 out of the original 9 pools I entered.

Here are my week-to-week results so far using SurvivorPulse (https://survivorpulse.com):

For my Week 2 picks I used the "Mild Lean (80/20 Blend)" pick strategy. I'll probably stick with this strategy for at least one more week. Given that the most popular team has lost 2 weeks in a row, it seems unlikely this can happen 3 weeks in a row. Our back testing over the past 10 years has shown on average that the most popular team loses 2–3 weeks each season. I'm probably going to lean toward a reversion to the mean for Week 3. We'll see how I fare.

Curious how other people fared in Week 2 and the season overall. Anyone else leaning on a buyback this week?

I built SurvivorPulse (https://survivorpulse.com) so I could better manage and stay alive across multiple pools and entries. It's completely free to use right now if you want to try for yourself.

Here is my full Week 2 rundown:

Thinking about riding with the bucs. Don’t see baker starting 0-3 on the year. Also have a buyback if I lose.

Who do you got this week?