RADIO
Thunder Dan Palyo provides his top NFL Survivor League picks and expert strategy to win your knockout pool. Review the 2026 NFL schedule with his top grid picks for specific weeks of the season to dominate your NFL Survivor pool.
The NFL season is rapidly approaching, and the excitement that comes with it is palpable. You're likely doing some fantasy football prep, drafting teams, or just getting far too excited about your team by reading all the glowing reports that are coming out of training camp.
At RotoBaller, we continue to develop our tools and content to help you win your fantasy football leagues of all formats. Standard redraft leagues are great, but so are dynasty leagues, guillotine leagues, DFS, and prop betting. But another way to compete with your friends and co-workers this season is by participating in an NFL survivor pool. These pools continue to grow in popularity and can offer a weekly sweat that you just don't find in other formats.
Players have to choose one NFL team to win every week, but can not use any team more than once in the season. If the team you pick loses, you are eliminated, and the last team(s) standing late in the season win the prize, whether it's a cash prize or even just bragging rights. Let RotoBaller help you win your survivor leagues this season!
Bookmark our updated and revamped fantasy football rankings portal for all league formats!PPR rankings | Half-PPR rankings | Non-PPR (Standard) rankings | Rookie rankings | Superflex rankings | Best Ball rankings | Underdog rankings | Dynasty rankings | IDP rankings | Injuries
How to Win a Survivor Pool
Let's start with some quick tips and strategies to employ for survivor pools.
Plan Ahead: Use our Survivor Picks Tool to look ahead; don't be shortsighted, and look at only one week at a time.
Avoid the Chalk: Typically, the team that is most heavily favored ends up being the most popular pick. If you can avoid using that team each week, a big upset of a favorite could eliminate half the pool and leave you in good standing.
Wait on Good Teams: Whenever possible, save some of the best teams until late in the season. Doing so will leave you with more reliable options in the late weeks while other players have to take riskier teams. Our Future Value Rating (more on this later) is a great tool to use here!
Don't Pick Against the Same Bad Team Every Week: We can certainly target bad teams more than once, but going after the same team every week could be a recipe for disaster. Even the worst NFL teams usually win three or four games a season.
Beware of Injuries: Make sure you are monitoring the latest NFL injury news throughout the week. An injury to a key player on offense or defense could be enough to make you want to switch your pick if you think it could affect the outcome of the game that week.
Target Home Teams: While matchups matter the most, home teams often win at a higher rate. Don't force a home team that is a riskier option than a very good team on the road, but you can view the home field advantage as a tie-breaker between two teams that you are considering.
Avoid Divisional Matchups When Possible: Divisional matchups can result in upsets quite often, as teams have more familiarity with their divisional opponents than the rest of the league. When you factor in a possible rivalry, these games can get dicey.
Avoid Teams On A Short Week: A team that has to turn around and play on Thursday on only three days' rest is hard to trust, especially if they are playing on the road or facing a team that has had more days to rest.
Check out this Survivor League Strategy Guide for more tips on winning your survivor leagues.
Using The Future Value Rating
One of the best features of our Survivor Grid Tool is the future value rating, shown as FV in the first column after the team name.
This is a rating that is calculated based on how many games that each team is favored in for the rest of the season, so it updates every week to reflect the remaining strength of schedule for each team.
Only games that a team is favored in contribute positively to this rating, and the margin by which they are favored is also factored in.
A quick look at the chart and we can see that bad teams are usually going to have low ratings (Cleveland - 6, Carolina - 19, Tennessee - 14), but there are several potential playoff teams with low ratings, too, such as the Chargers (5) or Buccaneers (41).
The higher the rating, the more reliable that team will likely be later in the season, and our color coding shows when each team is favored by highlighting them in green. I'll review a couple of teams in my picks that have either low or high FV ratings and why I plan to use them earlier in the season or later.
Thunder Dan's Weekly Picks Using Survivor Grid
These picks are subject to change, obviously, but I wanted to highlight some teams to use earlier in the season and later in the year and illustrate how to best use our Survivor Grid Tool!
I managed to use home teams in all but one week (Week 17), and I didn't pick on one opponent more than three times (Browns). Other teams I targeted twice were the Raiders, Panthers, Jets, Cardinals, Cowboys, Dolphins, and Titans.
The only divisional games I used were Denver vs. Las Vegas (Week 11), Jacksonville vs. Tennessee (Week 12), Baltimore vs. Cleveland (Week 16), Buffalo vs. Miami (Week 17), and Cincinnati vs. Cleveland (Week 18). It's pretty tough to avoid them entirely, and I expect each of those home teams to be pretty heavily favored in those matchups.
This tool is pretty awesome and easy to use! You don't have to plan out the entire season at once, just a week at a time. But you can save your progress and revisit your planner at any point during the season.
Here's a quick breakdown of my picks week by week.
Week 1: Los Angeles (vs. Arizona)
The Chargers' future value rating is low, and they are one of the biggest favorites in week one, so it makes sense to utilize them early.
Week 2: Tampa Bay (vs. Cleveland)
Tampa is another team that has a schedule that gets tougher as the year goes along. I like using them early, when they're the healthiest, as we saw last year what can happen to this team if they get banged up.
Week 3: San Francisco (vs. Arizona)
Week 4: Chicago (vs. NY Jets)
Just because I bet the Bears' under in wins at 9.5, it doesn't mean that I think they're not a good team. Chicago just has a tough schedule, so taking them against the Jets, who I think will be one of the worst teams in the league here, makes a lot of sense.
Week 5: New England (vs. Las Vegas)
I like the Raiders this year as much as the next person, but the defending AFC Champs should be able to handle them at home.
Week 6: Philadelphia (vs. Carolina)
Week 7: Houston (vs. NY Giants)
I think the Texans are a dark horse Super Bowl contender in the AFC!
Week 8: Green Bay (vs. Carolina)
Going after Carolina twice in three weeks, but both the Eagles and Packers are superior teams on both sides of the ball.
Week 9: Kansas City (vs. NY Jets)
Week 10: Indianapolis (vs. Miami)
Will the Colts be good enough this year for us to trust them in a must-win spot? Or will Miami just be bad enough that we can pick on them with some decent teams?
Week 11: Denver (vs. Las Vegas)
Week 14: Detroit (vs. Tennessee)
Week 15: L.A. Rams (vs. Dallas)
Having the Super Bowl favorites here in my back pocket with only a few weeks left is ideal.
Week 16: Baltimore (vs. Cleveland)
Week 17: Buffalo (at Miami)
Week 18: Cincinnati Bengals (vs. Cleveland)
Targeting the Browns twice in the last three weeks is by design. I expect Cleveland to be completely out of contention by then and in the running for the top pick in next year's draft. Both the Ravens and Bengals should be playing must-win games for their playoff hopes or seeding, so the divisional rival angle doesn't bother me too much here.
Click here to follow our survivor pool picks each week this season! Every week, our experts will rank their favorite plays and give you their top picks to use in your survivor pools.
Use our Survivor Grid Tool to plan out your picks and keep an eye on upcoming matchups! Remember that projections will change from week to week. Injuries are going to happen, and certain teams will play above or below their preseason expectations.
I hope this article helped you become more familiar with our Survivor Pools content and tools. We'll be here all season, adjusting our projections and rankings to give you the upper hand in your contests!
More Fantasy Football Analysis
Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App
Like what you see? Download our updated fantasy football app for iPhone and Android with 24x7 player news, injury alerts, rankings, starts/sits & more. All free!
