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Thursday, September 8, 2011

NFL Survivor - Week 1

Another popular fantasy/gambling game that has picked up steam among friends and gambling addicts alike is the Survivor Pool. This is a game in which contestants get the opportunity to pick ONE Winner every week. If you select correctly, you survive on to the next week. If you don't, you're dead. The person to 'survive' the longest wins. The one catch is that once you pick a team, you can no longer use that team for the remainder of the season. Pretty simple, right? Click to read this year's thought process as well as this week's pick after the jump...

Since 2003, the longest that I have survived is 8 weeks. I've gone out in the first week, three times and the second week two times. Why should you trust my picks? Because I'm an expert. No but seriously, this year feels like my year to figure this game out. 


In years past, I usually sit down and scan the spreads and just select the team with the highest margin in week 1. I think it's important to take into account what Vegas thinks - but this should not be the only factor. This year, the gist of my formula is going to look like this: 


-Must be a home game... Why try to survive with a team on the road?
-Team should have significant edge at the Quarterback position
-Stay away from Divisional games - These teams see each other every year, twice a year. They know each other. Unless there's a significant advantage for one team (i.e. Saints / Panthers) I'm going to try to stay away from these matchups.
-Don't try to be cute, especially early on. I've gotten in trouble in years past trying to take teams that aren't usually favorites so that I can save the better teams for later on in the season. Not going to happen this year.


Taking these 'guidelines' into account - my week 1 pick will be the San Diego Chargers. 
While I took the Vikings to cover the 8.5 spread in my Week 1 Predictions, I just don't see how the Chargers lose this game outright at home. Looking at the big picture, I really feel like San Diego has a great chance this year to contend for the AFC Title - and I think with Rivers as a viable MVP candidate they will get off on the right foot in this game. The Vikings have been an up and down team in the past couple of years as the Brett Favre experiment finally came to an end. With a player like Adrian Peterson on their team, they truly have a chance to win any game - he's just that good. That being said the suspension of run-stopper DT Kevin Williams will be too big of a hole (haha I just wrote a-hole) for the already suspect Vikings D to fill. Take the Chargers and survive week 1!


Previous Teams Selected:
None

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