NFL Week 1 Survivor Pool Advice, Picks & Predictions: Risky Plays to Avoid (2022)
An increasingly popular way to bet on the NFL and stay involved for most of the season is a survivor pool (pick one winner of an NFL game each win, but you cannot use the same team twice). Some pools with a hefty entry fee or many participants can have prize pools in the tens of thousands.
Depending on the size of the pool, one may employ different strategies. For example, if a pool does not have many contestants, one may use a less risky strategy and pick a big favorite each week. On the other hand, if one is trying to best a pool of thousands of people, they may employ a contrarian style. A way to be contrarian is to pick teams that are less likely to be selected by others and save the better teams for later in the season while others may already have used them.
Each week I will be providing advice for which teams are best to select in survivor pools. Bettors that don’t enter these types of pools can still use this information from a betting perspective if they are comfortable laying big odds on money lines.
Here is a list of odds for all the favorites to win their matchups in Week 1 (odds courtesy of FanDuel).
Riskier Plays That Will Be Popular
San Francisco 49ers (-310), Cincinnati Bengals (-270), Denver Broncos (-255)
San Francisco has officially moved on from Jimmy Garoppolo as its starting quarterback, though he remains on the roster, which means the Trey Lance era has begun. Lance is an upgrade athletically from Garoppolo but is still very much an unknown with two starts (1-1 record) under his belt. I prefer to wait and see the kind of success the team has under his leadership before risking my survivor pool life on him and the 49ers.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow did not play in the preseason after undergoing surgery for his ruptured appendix. We are not concerned about his availability to play Week 1, but we figure he may look rusty with limited reps in training camp. In addition, it was likely difficult for Cincinnati to gameplan for Pittsburgh without knowing if Mitch Trubisky or Kenny Pickett would be the starting quarterback. Pittsburgh is 4-1 as underdogs in its last five against the Bengals, so an upset here would not be shocking.
Russell Wilson returns to Seattle for the first time as a visiting player. And while the Broncos have a much superior roster to the Seahawks, there are too many emotions and off-field distractions for me to feel safe about backing Denver on the road in survivor pools. Wait for a better spot.
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Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.