The first week of the 2024 NFL season was as exciting as most of us had hoped, delivering some epic battles and even a couple upsets. If your survivor contest entry remains alive, you’re probably somewhere along the process of deciding which team to select for Week 2.

Don’t worry, because we’ve got your back. The Sporting News and PoolGenius have teamed up to help you make informed survivor pool decisions all season long. This column will highlight the teams that rank as the week’s most popular picks and the teams that PoolGenius lists with the highest win probability.

GET PICKS NOW: NFL Survivor Picks from PoolGenius

The best name in survivor pool advice and pick’em strategy, PoolGenius is a sports data site living under the TeamRankings umbrella. Its mission is to provide you with the statistical information you need to succeed as a bettor, fantasy player, and/or pool entrant.

Today, we’re going to the grid. Each week, PG updates its NFL Survivor Data Grid. It ranks every team scheduled for the week based on PG odds (win probability), pick popularity, and more. This info — as well as the NFL Survivor Season Planner — are invaluable resources for serious survivor contestants looking to map out a season-long strategy.

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Let’s get right to the NFL survivor picks grid for Week 2 of the 2024 regular season, highlighting the teams with the best PoolGenius odds as well as the most popular picks of the week. Good luck, have fun, and here’s hoping you all stay alive to see next week!

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NFL survivor Week 2 picks grid: Best and most popular picks 

All odds and data courtesy of PoolGenius.

NFL survivor Week 2 picks grid: Key takeaways 

The first thing that comes to mind after checking out the grid: Baltimore has PoolGenius’s top odds and ranks as the most popular pick in Week 1. That’s notable, because Cincinnati had the top win probability and biggest popularity last week, and the Bengals ultimately lost to New England. Thirty-seven percent of survivor-pool entrants either got eliminated or took their first strike of the season.

PoolGenius lists the Lions over the Bucs with the same win probability (80%), but Detroit has been chosen on just five percent of pools in PG’s data purview. That might make Detroit a good contrarian pick this week, especially when you consider that PG lists this week as the Lions’ highest win probability of the season (the next-highest win probability for Detroit is 78% vs. Tennessee in Week 8). 

After that, it’s the Texans (vs. Bears) that have the next highest win probability. Houston similarly enjoys its second-highest scheduled probability this week (72%), with its highest coming in Week 12 against those same Titans. C.J. Stroud and his vast arsenal of weapons — not to mention a strong Houston D — do seem like a solid choice.

The two most chalky but seemingly most faded picks are the Chiefs over the Bengals and the Cowboys over the Saints. Kansas City and Dallas both enjoy -6.0 spreads, and both favorites started the season very hot. The Chiefs out-dueled a very good Ravens team 27-20, and Dallas beat the snot out of the Browns 33-17.

Now Joe Burrow and his broken-looking Bengals travel to Arrowhead with Kansas City off a mini-bye, while Derek Carr and the Saints go from the lowly Panthers to the high-flying Cowboys in Arlington!? If you’re looking for straight wins, KC and Dallas each fit the bill. 

Best free NFL survivor pools in 2024

One of PoolGenius’s great features is that for every survivor pool you enter, you can customize league settings — pool size, number of personal entries, etc. — to fully optimize your picks to win. Every pool is different so naturally, strategy can change from pool to pool even within the same week. Some pools even allow you to join after Week 1 has concluded, so be sure to check out each one. 

DraftKings FREE $1M Pro Football Survivor

The big kahuna of the free NFL survivor contest market, DraftKings already has nearly 600,000 entrants in its $1 Million Pro Football Survivor contest. Talk about a game-changing sum of money! As the pool is so high and the number of contestants is so massive, DraftKings made the wise decision to only allow one entry per user. 

CBS Sports Football Pick’em

Another massive contest that should finish with an insane number of entrants, CBS Sports Football Pick’em features a $100,000 jackpot. The margin for error, like with DraftKings, will be very low considering it’s a single-elimination format with a max of one entry per user. But that grand prize, though!

ESPN Eliminator Challenge Presented by ESPN Bet

One of the whoppers of the free survivor contest landscape, ESPN’s Eliminator Challenge has a grand prize five times larger than the majority of its competitors. And that’s not all — you can also create up to 25 entries! Talk about a guaranteed traffic driver! The only downside is that your odds of winning will be very low considering the sheer volume this contest will see this year. But if you can stay on top of it — and even contend through Week 10 — just imagine the rollercoaster of emotions throughout the season! 

2024-2025 USA Today Pro Football Survivor Pool

One of the most popular pools running, the USA Today Survivor Pool features a fantastic $5,000 top prize. The entrant who survives the longest with the highest point differential wins the grand prize. What do we mean by point differential? It’s a built-in tie-breaker that reduces the odds of having multiple winners at the end of the season. The point differentials of your selections are tallied throughout the season, and the survivor with the highest point differential wins any end-of-season tie.

Yahoo! Survival Football Challenge

Another leading name in free sports challenges with prizes, Yahoo has one of the most popular NFL survivor challenges on the Internet. Register to join the Survival Football Challenge group, join a friend’s existing group, or create your private group to play with family and friends. Custom contests allow you to play with a strike system so teams get a second or third chance if and when they pick incorrectly. 

The Lines Pro Football Survivor 

Another free contest with a $5,000 grand prize, The Lines’ Pro Football Survivor is overseen by Catena Media affiliate betting site The Lines. The contest should increase exposure for the site, which has less brand recognition than the aforementioned power players in the industry. 

NFL survivor pools: Strategies, tips and tricks

Check out our complete breakdown of the NFL survivor pool strategy, courtesy of our partners at PoolGenius. Looking for something simpler? We’ve got you covered right here.

Draft a plan at the start of the season

Decide whether your entry will be based entirely on first instinct and gut decisions or 100 percent research. Map out your first few weeks of picks, or maybe even your picks for the entire 18-week regular season. You can never be too prepared for an NFL survivor pool.

Pivot when necessary

Like Ross trying to carry a couch up a narrow stairwell in “Friends,” sometimes you need to pivot. A team you thought at the start of the season would be a lock to win its Week 4 matchup might lose its starting QB to injury or fire its head coach. Don’t marry yourself to a plan, strategy, or 18-week list of picks. Just like in fantasy and betting, we sometimes need to change up our order of attack.

Don’t always follow the crowd

The proverbial sheep often get slaughtered in betting, and the same often happens in pick’em and survivor pools. Being slightly different than the crowd doesn’t just make for fun stories — it often serves as the difference between an early exit and a true contender of an entry.

Have fun with it

Remember that the odds of winning, from the get-go, are statistically very low. Treat survivor pools like a free scratch ticket that you can improve your chances with thanks to some educated guesswork. But if you lose, what’s the worry? You were expected to fail, anyway, and the L didn’t cost you a thing. Sports — and any contest related to watching sports — should be fun, first and foremost.

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