NFL Survivor Pool Picks: Week 1 Targets and Avoids

September 6, 2025

The top NFL survivor pool picks for Week 1 of the 2025 NFL season. Kevin's weekly survivor league pool targets and avoids -- expert picks for survivor leagues.

Welcome back to our NFL Survivor Pool Picks for Week 1 of the 2025 NFL season! Football is back, and the options are endless -- there are so many different pools, fantasy leagues, weekly bets, and futures bets that it's hard to decide what to do with these choices. But survivor pools are the oldest and simplest leagues out there. All you have to do is pick a team and have it win, but you can't choose it again.

All season long, I'll bring you weekly survivor pool advice for NFL teams to target and teams to avoid each week. Survivor league strategy is a major part of winning your pools, and this article will help you through the 2025 NFL season. We're ready to preview Week 1 and get you through one of the hardest weeks in any Survivor pool.

In Week 1, you have an idea of which teams will be good, but it's speculation for a decent number of teams outside of the elites; there's no evidence (yet) to back up what anyone is thinking right now with zero data points. The stars don't play too much in the preseason, so it's hard to gauge who is going to be good and who won't be. Let's get some boilerplate stuff out of the way before diving right in with our picks for the opening week of the NFL season.

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Implied Point Totals, Point Spreads, and Over/Under Totals for Week 1

Before jumping into the picks for Week 1, it's helpful to get an overview of the slate with implied point totals, point spreads, and over/under totals from betting markets. All implied totals come courtesy of FantasyLabs each week.

Now, let's look at the survivor pool pick recommendations to target and avoid for Week 1.

Top Survivor Pool Picks to Target for Week 1

Denver Broncos vs. TEN

In the late window lies the largest over/under of the entire slate, which is the Denver Broncos as 7.5-point favorites at home against the Tennessee Titans. Last season, the Broncos were the best defensive team in the league when it came to EPA per play allowed. Denver was stout on both sides of the coin, with the top ranking in EPA per pass attempt and tied with the Philadelphia Eagles for fourth in the NFL in EPA per rush attempt.

The Broncos’ defense is expected to be elite this year, and understandably so

Watching it at camp the past couple weeks, I think it has a chance to be one of the “special” defenses we only see every few years

— Zach Segars (@Zach_Segars) August 3, 2025

Last season's NFL Defensive Player of the Year, Pat Surtain II, is the cornerstone of a defense that added major pieces like Dre Greenlaw, Talanoa Hufanga, and first-round corner Jahdae Barron. That is the hurdle that Titans quarterback Cameron Ward must overcome in his first NFL start on the road with a lackluster offense that's still retooling. Not only is it going to be a tall task to ask Ward to score enough points to stay in this game, but the Broncos were no slouch on the offensive side, too, with Sean Payton and offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi running things.

Week 1 makes it difficult to assess teams with no data points here, but we'll side with the oddsmakers and the circumstances here in having some solid, founded confidence in the Broncos for Week 1. Denver's schedule doesn't have a lot of slam-dunk options on it, so besides a Week 7 game at home against the New York Giants, the Titans in Week 1 may be the best opportunity to get to use the Broncos this season, according to our NFL Survivor Pool Picks Tool! I'm on board!

Arizona Cardinals at NO

The early ballots are in for the one team in 2025 Survivor pools, where everybody chooses their opponent. With multiple precincts reporting, we can confidently say that this season's team is the New Orleans Saints. They're slated to be a boringly average defense, but certainly one of the least-talented offenses in the league, with a quarterback room that rivals the Cleveland Browns in general ineptitude. Case in point: the Saints named Spencer Rattler as their starter for Week 1. We'll see how long that lasts, but even if the quarterback is rookie Tyler Shough, it probably won't be pretty.

Spencer Rattler is about to give epic ROI on his fifth-round draft slot by playing the Saints into an opportunity to beg on their hands and knees for Arch Manning to declare early for the draft in January.

— Thor Nystrom (@thorku) August 26, 2025

The Arizona Cardinals head into New Orleans as 6.5-point favorites and will probably be one of the sharper plays by people looking to get off to a good start without using one of the elite teams. The Cardinals' offense remains the same as last season, with Kyler Murray, Trey McBride, James Conner, and Marvin Harrison Jr. spearheading a talented offense. That should be enough to get the Cardinals off to a 1-0 start. The Cardinals' schedule has Tennessee in Week 5, but no other matchup feels even remotely good outside of this week and Week 5. If you don't want to use the Broncos, the Cardinals are a nice pivot, and they will be an attractive option this week.

Top Survivor Pool Picks to Avoid for Week 1

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at ATL

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 10-7 last season, winning the NFC South and getting a home playoff game, where they lost to the Commanders. That run helped spark interest in then-offensive coordinator Liam Coen as a head coaching candidate, and he took the job up the road in Jacksonville as a result. The Buccaneers losing Coen could be one of the biggest swings of any team in the NFL in terms of their offensive fortunes, but Tampa should still be solid this season.

But do you want to bank on that in their opener on the road against a divisional opponent like the Falcons? Now, the Falcons are no world-beaters; let's not get it twisted, but the line only has the Buccaneers favored by 1.5 points on the road. The Falcons' defense could also be one of the most improved units in the league after adding two first-round pass-rushers and then a Day 2 safety and Billy Bowman Jr. in the fourth round. This game could be tight, and we don't want to sweat out our Week 1 pick. Let's see how the offense operates under new OC Josh Grizzard and then pick up the Buccaneers again as they have two divisional matchups with the Saints in Week 8 and Week 14.

“James Pearce Jr. — you can make an argument he’s been the MVP of the defense so far this summer. … He has played his butt off. ... So much so that he’s gotten under the skin of the O-line on several occasions.”” ~ @marcraimondi

Full Falcons preview: https://t.co/HInd35itT9 https://t.co/HrsZ6Pi4LV pic.twitter.com/vGmHDSQodK

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) August 21, 2025

Pittsburgh Steelers at NYJ

The Pittsburgh Steelers have done their damnedest to remain an 8-to-10 win team for what feels like the last 25 years, and that likely continues with the team dipping their toe into the free-agent quarterback pool and pulling up 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers. A dubious choice for sure, but the Steelers have playoff aspirations, and Rodgers has gotten there a bunch and has won a Super Bowl in his long career. For 2025, the Steelers aren't a hard team to figure out on offense with Arthur Smith at the helm. Running the ball, play action passing, and grinding out games.

The 2025 iteration of the New York Jets feels like a lot of the same: running the ball, playing strong defense, and opportunistic passing with Justin Fields at quarterback. This is all reflected in the over/under of this game: a slate-low 38 points. As famed wrestling commentator Jim Ross would say, this game could be "bowling-shoe ugly." With low scoring comes tighter games, and tighter games mean that a game could swing the other way at the drop of a hat. The Steelers don't have many games this season where you can feel much confidence, but this certainly isn't one of them to target. I'm looking elsewhere in Week 1.

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