NFL survivor pool picks, strategy: Cases for Chargers, Lions, Cowboys, Bengals in Week 1

Welcome to Week 1 of another new NFL survivor pool season!

The timing of this year’s kickoff couldn’t be better: Coming off a long holiday weekend — in the United States, anyway — we only have to wait two days for real football. The opening slate features a full 16 games with a lot of questions left unanswered after a pretty mundane preseason schedule played out. Not to worry, we’re here to help!

Let’s run through our overall strategy for Week 1, then dive into chalky and contrarian picks.

NFL survivor pool strategy

Renee: My advice for Week 1 is the same year after year: Make it to Week 2 — don’t prove how clever you are by fading an obvious favorite that might have a good Week 12 matchup.

A lot of us are pretty good at evaluating individual NFL players, in real life or fantasy football, but we tend to make more mistakes in evaluating team offenses and defenses this early in the season. That is to say, what we think is a cake later-season matchup might turn out to be surprisingly difficult in the coming months.

Did you have the 2025 Seattle Seahawks as a juggernaut on both sides of the ball early last September? Me neither. So we learn as we go, but we still have to start somewhere, right?

For me, that comes back to the individual talent. Some teams clearly have more of it than others, and I’ll be staying away from teams with less proven success, less chemistry (between players and coaches), and more uncontrolled variables (such as weather and time zone if they’re on the road). Of course, that’s all baked into the betting lines, a north star for any survivor player — and both of my Week 1 picks are decent betting favorites. I’ll explain why they’re my favorite below.

Adam: I completely agree with Renee. Just get to the next week.

In any given season there are only a handful of teams I comfortably believe will be either being really, really good or really, really bad at the start. Every other team is in that middle ground where we’re waiting a few weeks to see how much of a contender or pretender they are.

There are a few matchups that are easy to remove from your menu of picks. You’re not taking the Bills or Texans with Buffalo favored by 1.5 points in Houston. You’re not taking the Seattle Seahawks or New England Patriots in the Super Bowl rematch. You’re not taking the Kansas City Chiefs or Denver Broncos in an AFC West steel cage match.

But it’s not just the powerhouse teams or contenders playing each other that should be a no-go this week. Do you really feel comfortable with the Pittsburgh Steelers or Atlanta Falcons in a battle of new coaches and new systems where you have no idea what they’re going to look like? The Miami Dolphins and Las Vegas Raiders might both stink and be teams you want to pick against as the season goes on, but how do you feel confident picking one or over the other in a head-to-head opener? I’m not rolling that dice. And you shouldn’t, either.

You are not winning your pool this week, but you can lose it (or risk having to buy yourself back if your pool allows it).

Do not be afraid to be boring this week.

Chalky survivor pool picks

Adam: Los Angeles Chargers over Arizona Cardinals

If you have read this column over the past few seasons, you know I am not really a huge believer in whatever it is the Chargers are selling every season. It gets tough to buy into the offseason hype year after year, see them fall short of it and still believe that the new season is going to be any different.

This season, they are one of those total wild-card teams that have a lot of unanswered variables — but that is part of what makes them a perfect, boring Week 1 pick for me. I’m not sure what to expect from the Chargers in their next 16 games, especially in what could be the best division in football, so I’m not really concerned with “saving” them for a later matchup. I also like their chances of taking care of business against an Arizona team that could end up competing with Miami and Cleveland for the worst record of the season.

Not only do the Chargers have a massive quarterback advantage with Justin Herbert, I also don’t see a Jacoby Brissett offense doing much against a Jim Harbaugh defense, especially when No. 3 overall pick Jeremiyah Love is likely to be less than 100 percent for the Cardinals (assuming the rookie running back plays). There are not many “you should win” games in the NFL on a weekly basis. This is a “you should win” game.

Renee: Detroit Lions over New Orleans Saints

The biggest betting favorites aren’t the surest things to me. Am I excited by the new system the Chargers are employing? Yes. Do I think this could be the year that the Jacksonville Jaguars finally put it together from the get-go? Yes. Am I betting my Survivorship on either? Not this week.

I want proven success, tons of chemistry and health across the board, on top of individual talent. The Lions embody all four. They have two of the league’s most electric offensive playmakers in Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown. The supporting cast would be headlining many other NFL teams. And while Jared Goff might be the football equivalent of vanilla ice cream — boring but often better than you expected — he’s run this team to two NFC North championships in the past three years.

The glaring weakness is the offensive line: young and without their intended starting center. That would worry me in a more difficult matchup, but the Saints defense is not going to scare me off, especially in Detroit. Their D-line has suffered injuries of their own this preseason, which Gibbs in particular should be able to exploit.

The final piece is the Saints offense. Tyler Shough flashed enough last season to offer some hope to fantasy’s Chris Olave, Juwan Johnson and Travis Etienne, but this is a Tier 1 vs. Tier 2-3 offensive matchup all day. Skill and experience are going to carry the Lions to what I see as an easy Week 1 victory.

Contrarian survivor pool picks

Renee: Cincinnati Bengals over Tampa Bay Buccaneers

If, for whatever reason, you decide you want to “save” one of the bigger favorites for a juicier matchup down the road, a matchup which may ferment into something else entirely by then, I offer you the Bengals. When healthy, they can beat anyone in the league. They’ve proven as much. Joe Burrow has been full-strength all summer and his receiving corps is good to go, too.

This is another team that embodies talent, continuity and health in an at-home matchup against an opponent with questions at all three.

The Bucs have retooled some, losing Mike Evans as well as shifting things on defense. The biggest factor on offense is how healthy Emeka Egbuka will be on Sunday. Aging Chris Godwin is good, but the Bucs have their hopes pinned on the young receiving weapons they have accumulated over the past couple years. I’m a fan of Egbuka, but the Bucs are going to be outgunned in this matchup.

If you want to go more contrarian while staying safe (Cincinnati is expected to be picked in about 1-2 percent of pools), the Bengals are the team for me. Their future schedule is full of matchups that could get a lot easier or a lot harder — see: Tennessee, Jacksonville and New Orleans — in addition to their divisional opponents, so there isn’t a strong drive to save them. That said, I’m not even taking this much risk in Week 1.

Adam: Dallas Cowboys over New York Giants

I could see this being one of those potentially scary matchups, and while I would not push this as your top pick for the week, I can put together a contrarian argument for taking the Cowboys.

Dallas is one of those middle ground teams that could see its season go in a couple of different ways with a wide range of outcomes, and divisional games are always a risky pick. The Giants also have a little bit of hope with the John Harbaugh hiring, Jaxson Dart onto Year 2 and the return of Malik Nabers, but the roster still has lot of holes and question marks. There is also this reality: When Harbaugh coached in Baltimore, his teams were only 7-14 outright as home underdogs. That’s not great, and it put him in the lower-half of the league with a roster that was consistently better than this one.

I’m not sure if Dallas will end up being a team we should have saved for later in the season, but outside of Week 8 against Arizona, there’s not a lot of obvious games where the Cowboys are going to be major favorites.