NFL Survivor Pool Picks 2023: What’s The Play In Week 18?

Survivor pools have quickly become one of the most popular ways to get in on the NFL season, but they aren't easy.

Picking one winner a week is harder than it might seem, especially as we get deeper into the season. That’s why you must go into your survivor pool with a strategy. So, here are some strategies you can use throughout the season and our weekly pick as we seek 18 weeks of perfection.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks 2023: Week 18

After the Jets ruined my perfection in Week 14, we've gotten back to the winning ways with three-straight correct picks. If you're somehow still alive in your survivor pool, pressure is at an all time high with one final week to play. So, I'm going to try to break down the best option for your Week 18 pick.

Here are the most popular picks at this point and the percentage of users picking that team according to Yahoo survivor pool data:

And here are the teams most likely to win this week based on moneylines and our Odds Calculator:

The Cowboys may be oddsmaker's safest survivor pick this week, but it's unlikely you've held on to Dallas for 17 weeks. Even if you have, I feel like the Cowboys have a tendency to blow these easy end-of-season games with playoff seeding on the line. That's why the Buccaneers, facing off against the Panthers, are the clear consensus pick.

Week 18 NFL Survivor Pool: The Pick

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Normally, we're looking solely at health and talent discrepancy to make our survivor pool picks. But, in the Week 18 the largest factor is motivation.

Lucky for us, we've got a team like the Buccaneers left on the table that have all three: health, a clear talent advantage, and plenty of motivation. if you look at Net EPA, the Bucs rank 11 spots higher than their opponent this week, the Carolina Panthers. They also have a +185 better point differential.

Most importantly, this is the biggest game of Tampa's season. The Buccaneers can clinch a playoff spot with a win over the league-worst Panthers in Week 18. Sure, something could go terribly wrong, but this is about as safe of a pick as you can get this week.

Check out the table below where we will keep track of the teams as we pick them. We will mark picks we got wrong with an X, picks we got right with a ✔ and a pending pick with an O.

NFL Survivor Pool Picks

General NFL Survivor Pool Strategy

Know The Rules Of Your Pool

This is the most important thing to watch for before you make your pick for Week 1. Every pool is different -- Bill from accounting or whoever set up your pool might have a couple of weird rules thrown in that you need to know. Tiebreakers, pools that allow buybacks, pools that make you select multiple games per week, pools that run into the playoffs and pools that use spreads instead of straight-up winners can all affect your approach. Learn the rules of your pool and act accordingly.

Size Matters

The size of your pool should also affect your strategy. Small pools with just a few friends don’t typically last as long, so you may opt to deploy a more conservative approach by using some of the best teams early in the season.

But if you’re in a huge office pool or large online pool, you need to be thinking long-term if you want to last to the end.

Pay Attention To The ‘Hot Team’ Each Week

Fading the most popular survivor picks is a pretty good strategy in a lot of weeks because an upset of the team everyone is picking might get you closer to a win. You will be taking on a little bit of added risk by selecting a “worse” matchup, but the payoff could be worth it. This strategy will also help you save some better teams for later in the season, which leads to our final point.

Conserve Good Teams Until Later If Possible

This is especially relevant when in a larger pool. It can be very tempting to burn through a few of the best teams early in the season “just to survive,” but you will be looking at the list of teams available to you in Week 14 and sweating it out when you have to pick between the Bears and Jets to win a game. We don’t want to go overboard, but if you can make it through the first part of the year without burning some of the top teams, the payoff could be huge when you get to use the Chiefs or Bills in November or December.

Stay Flexible

Week 1 is far too early to be able to map our every pick all season because we know that a lot will change over the first few weeks of the season. Injuries, breakout performances, coach firings, cuts and signings will all drastically change how we view the league a few weeks from now. So, we want to look ahead a little bit but retain our flexibility for picks later in the year.