Force1's ways to win at Survivor Football

Force1 · #1 09-18-2006, 02:28 PM

"Saving" teams for later use if very bad strategy IMO. Not only do we not know who is going to be a "good" team later in the year usaully survivor leagues end fairly quickly (Week 10-12 with last year being the exception). To be succesful in Survivor there are a couple rules you must follow.
1. NEVER pick a road team. The only reason to ever pick a road team is if you absolutely have too.
2. Take the best game on the board that you are eligible for every week. Don't worry about teams to save later no matter what during a given week of a NFL season someone will be a 7 pt fav.
3. If you've narrowed it down to 3-4 home teams you like take the non-division game. IMO, division opponents know eachother to well and a upset is more likely.
4. When in doubt, take the bigger ML favorite.
5. When still in doubt, take the team with the better TO ratio.

I have finsihed no worse then 3rd 5 years running by following these rules. Please believe me when I say there is absolutely no reason to "save" teams for later use, if you lose on the week where you took a iffy game to save "Indy" for later it won't matter anyways. So far your picks should of been..
Week 1-AZ, or NE.
Week 2- IND

This week was pretty close games across the board. Looking over the games my clear cut pick is Miami over Tenn. This keeps to most of my rules. Miami is at home, in a non-divisional game and they are the biggest ML favorite on the board.

wh1t3bread · #2 09-18-2006, 03:02 PM

Force,

I agree with pretty much everything you said.

Although I have to disagree with Indianapolis being the only week 2 pick. Baltimore was a $ pick in week 2 as well. They were huge favorites and had the Raiders (a team that had to fly 3000 miles and play a 1pm game on the East Coast) at home.

gusmahler · #3 09-18-2006, 03:06 PM

There were 3 or 4 10 point lines this past weekend. You would have been safe picking any one of them.

wh1t3bread · #4 09-18-2006, 03:08 PM

Well I think the other large favorites were playing inter-divisional games which goes against Force's rule #3.

Force1 · #5 09-18-2006, 03:10 PM

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Baltimore was a $ pick in week 2 as well.

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I thought about taking Baltimore as Indy/Hou was a divisional game but I decided against as Indy was favored by 4 more pts then Oak. Also, I expected Baltimore's offense to struggle (Baltimore is much better then I gave them credit for and this was also a very, very sound choice).

B-Man · #6 09-18-2006, 03:15 PM

I agree with all of your rules and I have been very successful using the same strategy.

However, I think there is an exception. In addition to my normal survivor pool (which has about 25 people), I'm also in a pool with over 4,500 entries (multiple entries are permitted--I have 4 entries this year). This pool goes thru Week 17 every year. In addition, because there are so many entries, in order to keep the number of winners down, in some weeks double-picks are required (it used to be double-picks only for weeks 1 and 2, but this year there are no double picks the first 6 weeks, then potentially double-picks the rest of the season depending on how many people are left (i.e. if there are more than 250 people left going into week 7, two picks are required, more than 180 people going into week 8, two picks, etc.)).

So in addition to having to last thru all 17 weeks, you potentially will have to use 28 of the 32 teams. Now THAT is a tough challenge. For this enormous pool, I think that some planning/projecting is required, though I still use the traditional rules as a strong guide.

Force1 · #7 09-18-2006, 03:17 PM

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Well I think the other large favorites were playing inter-divisional games which goes against Force's rule #3.

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This is why I didn't touch the Broncos/Chiefs game. Keep in mind the divisional rule is only if you have 2-3 games that you are close on. If Team A is favored by 17 1/2 pts but playing a divisional game and Team B is favored by 9 1/2 but not playing a divisional game by all means take Team A.

Mia, and StL this week are the reason people lose in Survivor Leagues there is no reason to take a road team, against a divisional opponent this early in the year, just like there was no reason to pick NYJ, CLE, MIA, TB in week 1 yet people still did.

You're goal in survivor is to survive to the next week, do not worry about later weeks games as someone will always be playing OAK [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Force1 · #8 09-18-2006, 03:20 PM

[ QUOTE ]
So in addition to having to last thru all 17 weeks, you potentially will have to use 28 of the 32 teams. Now THAT is a tough challenge. For this enormous pool, I think that some planning/projecting is required, though I still use the traditional rules as a strong guide.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes the rules would still help but this style is a whole nother beast. Hmmm, it would be interesting to see what the optimal strategy would be in a situation like this.

kyro · #9 09-18-2006, 03:26 PM

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This is why I didn't touch the Broncos/Chiefs game.

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I didn't touch the Broncos/Chiefs game because the Broncos got their asses handed to them Week 1.

gusmahler · #10 09-18-2006, 03:30 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Well I think the other large favorites were playing inter-divisional games which goes against Force's rule #3.

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San Diego played at home against Tennessee and was a 10.5 point favorite. This meets the rules better than the Ind game did.

The other 10 point games were:
Hou @ Ind (divisional)
Cle @ Cin (divisional)
Oak @ Bal (meets the criteria)