NFL Survivor 2025 Week 9
Probably the most popular football contest ever, Survivor only requires you to pick 1 game winner each week. The catch, you can’t use the same team twice. Here are some different strategies that I’m applying each week, and of course the teams I expect to win.
DraftKings Pools offers multiple NFL Survivor contests each season with entry fees ranging from $10 to $1,000. If I’m going to enter a $1,000 Survivor contest, it would be the Circa Survivor, which pays out $15 million to the winner. I haven’t had as much success with survivor as I have with pick ’em pools, so I stay to the $10 and $100 entries. This year, I have 40 entries in the $10 pool (winner gets $1.2 million) and 3 entries in $100 contest (winner gets $900 thousand). They are also running 2nd and 3rd chance survivor pools that I will enter and follow similar strategies as outlined below.
New Mexico Strategy
The New Mexico strategy is a selection of teams using the New Mexico pick ’em model. I use this model for against the spread predictions, and this season I’m running it in the Circa Millions and Westgate SuperContest. I will start with the teams it likes to win big, and then consider if they are home/away or playing a divisional opponent.
The Patriots and Chargers both won big at home last week. That allowed all of the entries I entered to move on to week 9. However, I made the biggest mistake last week, and I forgot to enter my picks in one of the contests. It was a DraftKings 3rd chance contest that I started off using the option strategy for 4 weeks before switching to the New Mexico model. It was going well and I had a lot of good teams still available. I have no excuse, I made all my other selections, but I went to Nashville last weekend and missed this contest in my haste. It’s a shitty way to be eliminated.
This weeks schedule offered a few options with big lines. I used the Packers a few weeks back against Cincinnati, so that is not an option for me. I also considered the Chargers at the Titans, as the New Mexico model expects a 8-12 point victory for Los Angeles. However, I think I want to save the Chargers for later in the season and use them at home if I can, like last week against the Vikings.
I’ll take option three, which I believe will be the most popular option this week. I normally try to avoid the “obvious winners” as they tend to get upset, looking at Cincinnati and Atlanta from last week as the most recent examples. Nearly 34% of the survivor contest I’m in was on Atlanta last week. My selection hasn’t struggled offensively like Atlanta has this season, and really only has issues when the quarterback is pressured. I don’t think pressure is something the Rams will have to worry about against the Saints this week. Despite only being rated as an average team by the New Mexico model, the model shows the Rams are the far superior team. The Saints are a bad team and on the way to being poor. The model only has New Orleans rated higher than the Titans and Jets. It has them rated similarly as the Browns and Raiders. Not good company to keep. I’ll take the Rams at home, fresh off a bye and against a poor team searching for their quarterback.
Option Strategy
The option strategy requires a user to make a contest entry on both sides of a game. This will ensure that 1 entry moves on to the next week. However, it also means 1 entry will be eliminated. It is a good strategy to use early in the season. It allows you to get a better understanding of each team, avoid the early upsets and save good teams for later in the season.
I’ve decided not to run the option strategy for the next few weeks. Hopefully I’m able to take 2 of the top teams identified by the New Mexico model to keep all options open moving forward. This will allow me to use the option strategy one more time later if caught in a tough week.
What teams are you taking this week and why? Let me know in the comments.
