Survivor: Week 2

[mauf]

Consensus money lines from vegasinsider.com:

Denver  -1100
Green Bay  -440
New Orleans  -300
San Francisco  -300
Tampa Bay  -265
Washington  -260
Seattle  -250
Cincinnati  -230
Tennessee  -200

According to survivorgrid.com, GB is getting the most play (average P% 29.7), with Denver (25.1) and New Orleans (15.6) also getting significant play. All others are below 6%.

Notwithstanding the conventional wisdom of avoiding the consensus pick, I think Denver is the obvious choice this week, provided you didn't burn them in Week 1. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I did.

I'm leaning toward Tampa Bay -- not a popular pick, and not a team I'm likely to regret being unable to use down the road. The money line on the Bucs opened at -200, so the gambling community evidently shares my optimism that they are a relatively safe pick.

Thoughts?

 

[Ed Hillel]

I honestly like the Titans, as a solid risk pick. I think they are a solid 9-10 win team and Dallas may well be an easier home opponent for them than Jacksonville. I'd save the big players for later in the season.

 

[Dan to Theo to Ben]

I'd even save TB, and go with the Team in DC

 

[Super Nomario]

I honestly like the Titans, as a solid risk pick. I think they are a solid 9-10 win team and Dallas may well be an easier home opponent for them than Jacksonville. I'd save the big players for later in the season.

Why do you think the Titans are good?

 

[jmm57]

I don't understand why everyone is so anxious to use bad teams in survivor pools. Most likely if you make it 11/12 weeks you will be in really good shape? Its a good matchup for TB, but I don't get why you would take the extra risk with the bad teams since you can win the thing without using even half the teams in the NFL.
 
I am all in on Denver this week. Advance and worry about next week when the time comes. If I get to week 10 and only have shitty teams left, I will take my chances then.

 

[RedOctober3829]

Honestly, I'm leaning towards New Orleans.  If you look at their schedule, they don't have too many games left(even though this is on the road) that you'd be taking them as a lock.  Here's their remaining games: Atlanta, Carolina x2, Tampa Bay x2, NFC North(at Detroit and Chicago and hosting GB and MIN), and AFC North(vs. CIN and BAL and at CLE and PIT).  They also go to Dallas and host San Fransisco.  Very tough schedule. 

 

[ivanvamp]

I don't understand why everyone is so anxious to use bad teams in survivor pools. Most likely if you make it 11/12 weeks you will be in really good shape? Its a good matchup for TB, but I don't get why you would take the extra risk with the bad teams since you can win the thing without using even half the teams in the NFL.
 
I am all in on Denver this week. Advance and worry about next week when the time comes. If I get to week 10 and only have shitty teams left, I will take my chances then.

 
This is how you handle survivor pools.  Most guys get eliminated very early.  You need to last as long as you can.  

 

[Kramerica Industries]

I don't understand why everyone is so anxious to use bad teams in survivor pools. Most likely if you make it 11/12 weeks you will be in really good shape? Its a good matchup for TB, but I don't get why you would take the extra risk with the bad teams since you can win the thing without using even half the teams in the NFL.
 
I am all in on Denver this week. Advance and worry about next week when the time comes. If I get to week 10 and only have shitty teams left, I will take my chances then.

 
My buddy took the "I wont be able to use them anywhere else this year...I want to save the good teams for later..yada..yada" strategy.
 
He took the Bears...I took the Eagles.
 
Im leaning toward Denver this week.

 

[bowiac]

This is how you handle survivor pools.  Most guys get eliminated very early.  You need to last as long as you can.  

I haven't thought it all the way out, but I think survivor pool strategy needs to depend on the size of the pool. In a 2 person pool for instance, you should aim for the biggest favorites. The pool isn't likely to last long, and the winner isn't going to have to reach that deep into their bench. In a very large pool on the other hand, simply because of size, there won't be a winner until late into the season. As result, some degree of planning needs to take place for then.

 

[mauf]

There are three factors at play in a survivor pool pick:

1. The odds of that team winning.

2. The percentage of players choosing that team.

3. The likelihood that your odds will be worse in some future week because you picked that team.

I think those points are in order of importance. I agree that #3 is overrated, but I think #2 is underrated. You're unlikely to win a pool of any size by picking the heaviest favorite each week that you haven't taken previously, because there will be too many other people employing that strategy. Your odds of winning a large pool are obviously slim in any event, but you improve them when you set yourself up to benefit when half the pool gets wiped out by a big upset -- which, anecdotally, seems to happen more years than not.

This week, Denver is so much safer than any other pick that you should take them if that's an option, especially with three-quarters of participants taking someone else. (As a comparison, over 40% of players took PHI over JAX last week.)

But if Denver is not an option, I think it's better to avoid the swarm of people taking Green Bay and choose one of the other moderately heavy favorites. Because I think TB's as safe a bet as any of the others, I'll take them now and save SF for later -- using #3 as a tiebreaker, not making it an overriding consideration.

 

[SMU_Sox]

Denver. My vote is solidly fkr Denver wbo should win by 15+ points.

 

[Oppo]

I'm going NO this week

 

[pokey_reese]

How is Houston not on the list? QB is a wash, and they have far more talent everywhere else on both sides of the ball.

 

[Old Fart Tree]

I haven't thought it all the way out, but I think survivor pool strategy needs to depend on the size of the pool. In a 2 person pool for instance, you should aim for the biggest favorites. The pool isn't likely to last long, and the winner isn't going to have to reach that deep into their bench. In a very large pool on the other hand, simply because of size, there won't be a winner until late into the season. As result, some degree of planning needs to take place for then.

 
What Bowiac just described effectively summarizes James March's work on The Competition for Primacy in a Mutually Adaptive Learning Environment, in which in a game a) that is winner take all, and b) has many players, the optimal strategy is not that with the highest mean, but rather, and counter-intuitively, that with the highest variance. To extend his analogy, if you were in a two-person NCAA pool, your best bet is probably just to go chalk; every upset you pick by definition decreases your expected mean. But in a pool with 100,000 people... You best be picking some upsets.
 
Oh, and I like Green Bay. I don't think Denver should be favored by that much in a division game.

 

[k-factory]

The thing about pushing the envelope on variance though is that it can be a large and unnecessary gamble early in the season. The very good teams and very bad teams are easier to identify right now. But for all those teams in the middle having seen only one game provides very little information.
 
GB and Denver are both good picks. So what if most people pick them? You should still be buying time right now to learn a bit more about the quality of the various teams out there.
 
I'm leaning more towards GB than Denver only because i could see using Denver as a road pick in a pinch but would have a harder time doing that with GB.

 

[steveluck7]

The thing about pushing the envelope on variance though is that it can be a large and unnecessary gamble early in the season. The very good teams and very bad teams are easier to identify right now. But for all those teams in the middle having seen only one game provides very little information.
 

I disagree with this a bit. This early in the season, it's more diffucult, IMO. Bad teams from last year can quickly show enough improvement where they aren't considered absolute bottom feeders and teams with hgh expectations can easily lay an egg.
2 weeks ago, many may have looked ahead and thought "I'll sit on the Patriots until week 2 against MIN, that'll be cake." Now, not so much

 

[glennhoffmania]

Honestly, I'm leaning towards New Orleans.  If you look at their schedule, they don't have too many games left(even though this is on the road) that you'd be taking them as a lock.  Here's their remaining games: Atlanta, Carolina x2, Tampa Bay x2, NFC North(at Detroit and Chicago and hosting GB and MIN), and AFC North(vs. CIN and BAL and at CLE and PIT).  They also go to Dallas and host San Fransisco.  Very tough schedule. 

 
This is why I'm going with GB.  I don't take road teams unless it's really lopsided and here are GB's remaining home games:
 
Min
Car
Chi
Phi
NE
Atl
Det
 
They have no obvious road games that would work.  So if you don't use them this week maybe you take them against Car but otherwise I think they become useless.  I don't see how they lose to the Jets this week.

 

[mauf]

 
This is why I'm going with GB.  I don't take road teams unless it's really lopsided and here are GB's remaining home games:
 
Min
Car
Chi
Phi
NE
Atl
Det
 
They have no obvious road games that would work.  So if you don't use them this week maybe you take them against Car but otherwise I think they become useless.  I don't see how they lose to the Jets this week.

 
The Minny game isn't until Week 5. I'm going to wait for the Vikings to look good against someone besides the Rams before I rule out picking GB there.
 
That said, there are other Week 5 options (Eagles home vs Rams, Saints home vs Bucs), so if you think GB is the safest pick on the board, it's probably worth taking them -- especially if you didn't use PHI last week.

 

[glennhoffmania]

Sure, I wouldn't rule out week 5.  But since we don't know yet, I'm not going to rely on it.  Using GB this weeks allows for saving Denver, instead of possibly never being able to use GB again and burning Denver. 
 
Unless you think the Jets will win this week.

 

[mauf]

Sure, I wouldn't rule out week 5.  But since we don't know yet, I'm not going to rely on it.  Using GB this weeks allows for saving Denver, instead of possibly never being able to use GB again and burning Denver. 
 
Unless you think the Jets will win this week.

I believe the odds and think the Jets are 2-3x more likely to win than the Chiefs.

But you do have me thinking about my TB pick. Picking the Bucs leaves me in a position to benefit in the unlikely event the Jets win; the question is how much more likely a Rams win is than a Jets win.

 

[Dan to Theo to Ben]

My gut says bad teams are more consistent and therefore predictive losers than good teams are winners, but I could be wrong on that.

 

[glennhoffmania]

For what it's worth, the lines we use for a pool were posted last night.  I don't know what source he uses, but GB is the heaviest favorite.  Denver is second, followed by a tie between SF and Washington.

 

[Ed Hillel]

Why do you think the Titans are good?

 
I don't know, maybe it's not logical, but I think Locker is going to be fairly solid, assuming he can play healthy. I don't think the division is anything special either. Mostly, it's just that I think Dallas is terrible and Dez is a bit shaken up.

 

[dynomite]

I'm leaning Green Bay, for some of the reasons discussed above.

In part I think the NFC North is tough this year, and I like the relatively healthy Packers at home against a limited Jets team more than most Packers games this year.

As for the Broncos, they are one of the few teams I'm happy to save for later weeks. Also, IntraDivision games always worry me. Not sure if there's statistical evidence for that fear.

 

[mauf]

 
I don't know, maybe it's not logical, but I think Locker is going to be fairly solid, assuming he can play healthy. I don't think the division is anything special either. Mostly, it's just that I think Dallas is terrible and Dez is a bit shaken up.

With the weak divisional slate and an NFC East round robin, the Titans aren't a terrible dark-horse pick. But I'm not convinced Dallas is as bad as you think -- if Romo didn't soil himself on Sunday, the Cowboys would've been competitive with one of the league's elite teams. TEN is deservedly favored, but there are half a dozen safer picks, imo.

 

[Old Fart Tree]

The thing about pushing the envelope on variance though is that it can be a large and unnecessary gamble early in the season. The very good teams and very bad teams are easier to identify right now. But for all those teams in the middle having seen only one game provides very little information.
 
GB and Denver are both good picks. So what if most people pick them? You should still be buying time right now to learn a bit more about the quality of the various teams out there.
 
I'm leaning more towards GB than Denver only because i could see using Denver as a road pick in a pinch but would have a harder time doing that with GB.

 
You're not wrong. The unnecessaryness scales in perfect inverse correlation to the number of players. With 2 players, it's totally unnecessary. With 10, it's still pretty poor. With 100,000, it's gone well to the other side of Salt & Pepa's "Very Necessary."

 

[SMU_Sox]

FO doesn't like HOU this week. They are favored to win by less than a FG and are 14th in confidence.

 

[Chemistry Schmemistry]

I go with the best possible team early in the season, because we don't know who has improved the most - too many early surprises. I'd take San Francisco. I watched the entire Chicago game Sunday, the receivers are already banged up and even against a depleted 49ers defense, Cutler should have his struggles.

Before last week, I was looking more at Cincinnati, but Atlanta showed much more offensive spark than expected, even against a mediocre defense. Carolina was another thought, but Detroit also looked explosive and Cam Newton will be rusty.

As much as I dislike the Jets, I think Oakland is better than last year, and good Geno could show up. My second pick would be Tennessee or New Orleans here - with a slight lean toward Tennessee because early road picks are also very dangerous. Denver is also up there. I don't think much of Kansas City at all.

 

[Oppo]

How about the pats now? No Peterson, coming off a loss.
I still wouldn't pick them, road game, better games to use them later in the season

 

[Dan to Theo to Ben]

I'd even save TB, and go with the Team in DC

apologies, RGIII

 

[RedOctober3829]

Yup, glad I didn't go with my guy and New Orleans.  I ended up going with Denver.

 

[Deathofthebambino]

I'm firmly in the camp that JMM was talking about.  I don't look down the road at anything.  I don't care about saving teams or scheduling stuff out.  For everyone trying to save Denver, what happens when Manning goes down next week with an injury?  Then you never use Denver.  Same can be said for every team in the league.  Nobody has any idea what these teams look like or will be playing like next week, never mind 8 weeks from now, so the only thing that matters is getting by week to week.  Last week, I was perfectly content taking Philly in both of my pools, and this week, I liked both Denver and Green Bay, so I went one each (it also helps that in one of my pools, you aren't limited to taking a team only one time, so I took Denver in that one and will use them again and again and again if circumstances warrant).
 
New Orleans lost to Cleveland, Chicago lost last week to Buffalo, San Diego beat Seattle's asses...every week, this league surprises the shit out of people.  Thinking we can predict what's going to happen months from now is a fool's errand.  If I'm still alive in week 10 or whatever, I'll have so much more information about these teams than I do now, and if I can't pick a winner at that point, well, then I lose. I'd rather have a chance at winning my pool and losing, then 'donating' my money and being out of the thing in the first few weeks.

 

[Deathofthebambino]

FTR, one of my pools started with 2696 players.  After week 1, that number was down to 1930.  After today's games, we are down to 1480.  And there are still 150 undecided (145 picked SF, and the other 5 have Indy). 
 
In my other one, we started with 522 people.  In this pool, you get 3 strikes before you are out (each strike drops you into a lower bracket with a  lower prize payout) and you can pick the same team as many times as you want. Doesn't matter, we already have 185 people with one strike and about 35 people have SF tonight.
 
I just went with the highest favorites each of the last two weeks, Philly and Denver, and while I didn't exactly not break a sweat, I'm pretty happy to still be playing.

 

[bosoxsue]

I had the Packers and was nervous until (stolen from the other thread) the Jetsiest play in Jetstown happened. Green Bay just never seemed to have a handle on them.

 

[Oppo]

I'm going NO this week

Changed to GB at the last minute

 

[Deathofthebambino]

And down goes another 145 in my big pool.  We have lost more than half of the almost 2,700 players in two weeks.

 

[Oppo]

Week 3?
Gotta be the Pats

 

[Deathofthebambino]

That's who I took in my survivor pools.  Although right about now, I'm wishing I took Atlanta. 

 

[mauf]

The Pats are the correct choice -- despite being the consensus pick (P% 53.3), they are an incredibly heavy favorite, and the Pats don't have any cream puff home games after this one (NYJ is a Thursday game, BUF doesn't visit until Week 17).

If you used the Pats or want to position yourself to benefit from an OAK upset, NO over MIN seems pretty safe too.

 

[Deathofthebambino]

I'm not a player that looks to the future at all when it comes to Survivor pools, but I would want nothing to do with taking the Pats against any division rival this season including Miami, home or away, and like you said, that really only leaves the road games because Denver, Cincy and Detroit are probably not teams you want to go against either, barring some major injuries to their teams down the road.

 

[Oppo]

Week 4, I'm talking SD at home over Jac
Other possible options: Pit at home over TB or Indy at home over Ten

 

[mauf]

Those are the only three viable picks this week. (Survivorgrid.com likes SF over PHI, but I think that's crazy.)
 
Money lines on the underdogs:
 
San Diego: JAX +650
Indianapolis: TEN +300
Pittsburgh: TB +300
 
There's something like a 50/50 chance that one of those three big favorites will lose. If the Steelers or Colts go down, they will each take 15% of your pool with them. If the Chargers lose, they'll take 60%.
 
If you view your entry fee as entertainment spending and want to maximize your fun by staying alive as long as possible, then obviously you should pick the Chargers. But if you want to maximize your slim chance of winning a large pool, then if you believe the money lines you should accept the greater risk of an IND or PIT pick, in order to position yourself to capitalize if JAX pulls the upset.
 
The key question is whether you believe the money line. JAX opened at +700, so there is obviously some interest in playing the long shot. That makes a certain amount of sense, given the uncertainty around JAX -- the offense might be much better with Bortles at QB, and the defense's struggles might be partly due to quality of competition. But if you think that's silliness, and that the Jags' odds of winning are more like 5-10% than the 15% implied by the current odds, then picking SD makes a lot of sense regardless of your strategy.
 
If you're one to look down the road, SD hosts the Jets next week, the Chiefs in Week 7, the Raiders in Week 11 and the Rams in Week 12.

 

[Kramerica Industries]

 
 
San Diego: JAX +650
Indianapolis: TEN +300
Pittsburgh: TB +300
 
There's something like a 50/50 chance that one of those three big favorites will lose. If the Steelers or Colts go down, they will each take 15% of your pool with them. If the Chargers lose, they'll take 60%.
 

 
 
Yep...which is why Im leaning toward using my one bye this week. Its a fascinating week.

 

[k-factory]

Any thoughts on a streaking Falcons team on the road against the train wreck that is the Vikings?
Atlanta doesn't have another gimme for 8 weeks.
SD on the other hand is likely to shred the Jets next week at home.

True it's a road game and Bridgewater might be something but the odds are long. Atl is hot.

Also can a mod change the thread title to just 'Survivor'? It's a low traffic thread and we don't need a new one each week but an important one for some of us.

 

[Deathofthebambino]

After Atlanta killed my chances (and a whole lot of other people) last year when they lost to the Jets at home (what was that?  Week 2 maybe), I'm gun shy to pull the trigger on that team, and have almost no desire to take them on the road against anyone.
 
I'm on San Diego this week.  Survive is my strategy.  If they lose, and I get knocked out, so be it, but I'll be far more pissed at myself if they win, and I decided to "change it up" and end up losing with a team like Indy or Pitt.  The NFL is as schizophrenic on a weekly basis as it's ever been, so when I see a 13/14 point line, that's where I'm going.  For those looking ahead, how many times will you take the Chargers down the road if Rivers gets hurt?  That's why I never bought into that strategy.  You just never know what's going to happen in the future in this league.

 

[Deathofthebambino]

Umm yeah, so Pitt.

 

[Deathofthebambino]

Glad I didn't let Atlanta bite me two years in a row.  The NFL is so, so hard to predict.  

 

[k-factory]

Glad I didn't let Atlanta bite me two years in a row.  The NFL is so, so hard to predict.  

Yeah good call. You got that silly thought out of my head and I ran with Indy against Whitehurst.

Bridgewater looked pretty damn good and Atlanta's D did not.

 

[Oppo]

Next week starts it get difficult. My early feeling is Pit over Jax

 

[Mugsy's Walk-Off Bunt]

Might not be the worst week to pick New Orleans.