Agree regarding seattle being a very strong week 9 save.

Just looked at SurvivorGrid, TEN looks to be in the avoid at all cost category. Most popular pick, and plenty of future games with similar win % as week 7.

Don'ts are Dallas & Tennessee. Even Minnesota is a bad pick, but I'm going to take them anyway since I want to 3 teams. If I only had 1 entry left, I'd never take them and probably take...

I LOVE Miami - they're useless to have for later. Like the Rams too. Saints are a good pick that I'm likely to take, but they have a lot of spots to play later.

Seattle is a good pick, but I want to save them for 9 because I already used Houston & Seattle in 1 pool and I want to have them for double pick pools for 12.

I only have 2 entries that I can use Carolina, but I'm going to hold off and use them in 10 or as part of double picks late in the year. I like this as a pick too though this week.

Don't like Pittsburgh if you still have them available. We didn't save them to use this early. Going to wait for 11, 12 or 14.

Lots of options. Basically stay away from Dallas and Tennessee this week. I count 9 teams to choose from this week (basically all the favorites minus Pittsburgh & New England). Your best pick is contingent on what your plan is for future week and who you used already.

Going to be an exciting Sunday

Survivorgrid and similar sites are definitely good resources. Its starting to get to a point where pools are small enough you can make a reasonable accurate forecast about what others will pick. I'd suggest if < 20 people left, figure out who they will likely pick and decide your selection based on that.

Managed to nail a solo pick on it in my 5 handed pool, everyones tips are in so they did the reveal early, i'm on Ten and there are 2x Pit, 1x Dal and 1x NO. In hindsight Tenn may not be the best pick but i've got a great slate of teams heading forward (used BUF/BAL/GB/SEA/PHI/WAS so far and TEN now) and we're 5 handed. A lot of the other entries have burned one or two of PIT/KC/NE plus all of the strong teams i've used as it's not a super sharp pool.

I agree Tenn may not be the best pick for my new pool starting week 7 but oh well too late now.

Think Tenn is a good pick for 5-handed pool. Feels like people will lean Dallas (off a bye), Pittsburgh, New Orleans (vs no Rodgers) over Tennessee.

For Week 7 start, yeah not a good pick but whatevs

Think I'm going with NO and MIA

Interestingly enough my comp starting Week 7 Sunday has 13 different teams selected in a 60 player pool, every match got picked except NYG/SEA. One of those weeks I guess.

gl all

Locked in.

70 left - NO
10 left - BUF

2 Miami & 1 Minnesota

Rams & Minnesota in pool that starts this week

3 Miami, 2 Rams, & 3 Minnesota in my rebuy pools. Last week of rebuys was last week

NO, DAL, TEN, MIA, TEN, MIN, PITT, CAR, TEN

Happy with this spread.

I am the only one to pick SEA with 20 left, I like my spot without being results oriented.

No blood.

Damn Browns though----could have really made me happy

So much potential for blood but the faves held.
Ten and Mia easily coulda lost.

I'm in an NFL Loser Pool. 598 entries and we are down to 29 through week 7.

Teams I've taken to lose so far are;

New Orleans, Philadelphia, NY Giants, New England, BYE, San Fran, Baltimore

Entries can purchase a bye, which I did and used already. One entry still has bye.
I'm only entry to use Philadelphia and only one other person has used New Orleans.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any suggestions or thoughts regarding Week 8 and who to pick to lose. I'm leaning toward San Diego at New England. Pats seem to be figuring out how to play with players they have and getting better or Denver at Kansas City. Back to back road game for a listless Broncos that have looked awful v. Chargers and Giants. KC coming off a Thursday night game heartbreaker with 10 days of rest.

As an obsessive Chiefs fan, I would recommend avoiding a pool situation where you need the Chiefs to win. The Chief defense is HORRIBLE - here are some things to consider:

-The Chiefs play a soft dime, essentially a prevent with two down lineman and a three-man rush, as their base defense. It's probably the worst scheme I've ever seen. The result is the worst run defense in the whole league - it's just 4-8 yards every carry, as many times as the offense wants it.

-They can't tackle for ****. The Chiefs' leading tackler is a freaking cornerback. Their every down starting MLB plays like he's in his mid 30's on two rebuilt Achilles...because he is.

-Despite having 8 in coverage on almost every play, by playing 10+ yards off-man coverage on the reg, the Chiefs basically concede all short to intermediate passing routes. Just real basic pitch and catch plays are enough for unstoppable, long drives. Just find anything in your playbook that has slants, or hooks, or crossing routes and it's a free 9 yards anytime you want it.

-The Chiefs have made an art form out of giving up long desperation passes. You can basically just throw up lazy jump balls way downfield and you're unstoppable to the Chiefs, as their secondary badly lacks ball skills. The Texans' did exactly this in the 2nd half of their game. Raiders too. At first we thought these were lucky/fluke plays, but no, the Chiefs just can't defend a 50/50 ball.

-The Chiefs have no pass rush. A lot of this is due to the aforementioned two down lineman / three rushers defensive scheme, which also puts their only decent pass rusher, Justin Houston, into coverage a ridiculous 25% of all plays. You may remember Justin Houston covering Antonio Brown on the reg in that playoff game where the Chiefs got eliminated - turns out that was a feature, not a bug. Zero sacks all game is what you get.

The end result is a defense that gave up well over FIVE HUNDRED yards to a Raiders team that was on the verge of being de-facto eliminated by week 7.

I expect the Bronco defense to shut the Chief offense down, much like the Steelers were able to, while the Bronco offense FIGURES IT OUT, punting maybe twice all game and scoring every other drive. Final score: Broncos 32 Chiefs 16.

Cliffs

2nd best team in the betting market isn't ever worth being picked

The broncos lost to the Giants, I'd say Chiefs is a good bet even if their defense sucks.

yeah just enough of a favorite to draw a bunch of picks, making a weak pick even weaker for lack of differentiation.

I have reviewed the Broncos offense in more detail and I will admit that a similarly negative rant could be made about their ineffectiveness. But ultimately it is pressure that makes Semien play terrible, and the Chiefs don't/can't do that on defense, so you're much more likely to get the good Semien in this game. I remember him passing for over 300 yards pretty easily against the Chiefs last year and this year's defense is much worse, particularly without Berry.

I'm giving the Chiefs a strong AVOID recommendation, and I particularly encourage folks to bet on the under in whatever the Kareem Hunt rushing yard prop total is. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thinking of going Ravens this week. I think no way the Dolphins win heading to Baltimore this week.

This weeks thoughts

1. Wanting Saints but saving them for the week 15 vs Jets

2. Very little people will take the Ravens (v.s. the Matt Moore led Phins) and it is a nice match up + this is about the only week to take them other than week 15 vs Browns but there are to many other good match ups that week for other teams

3. Bengals WILL win this week vs the Colts, no doubt! I am saving them for week 12 Browns match up at home.


Thoughts on when to use the Packers? I was thinking the Browns game in Cleveland is obvious in December. Penciled them in for the Chicago match up in a couple weeks but with Rodgers out no way am I risking that now.

Man if the Raiders didn't scalp the Chiefs last week, this would be a pefrect extension of the JohnnyLift take all Thurs faves system. One could argue that the Chiefs really won that game, though, so maybe its still viable.

Seriously, I dismissed Ravens but at -180 they are actually not the worst aggressive pick in the world.

I will say that there are 5-6 extremely overwhelming faves, some of which will take very little money this week, with FV of varying proportions.. As BJ started to emphasize last week, finding the right play is becoming even more pool and entry specific now, though. Depending on pool size, it is becoming more important to gauge the quality of the entries stiill in your pool, as national popularity %s might not reflect yours.

I've used Philadelphia in all my entries. Will be all over Cincinnati, Minnesota & New Orleans this week.

There's very little merit to using Kansas City or New England this week unless your pool is down to a small number. I took Philadelphia in 3 in hopes that they'd be highest picked team in 8. Hope that's the case and can get a miracle upset like Atlanta & Denver 2 weeks ago

To Cincy or not to Cincy

I've already used Cincy and Philly in most places. Not too happy about it. Probably looking at a lot of Saints and some Vikings.

I think the Ravens are too small of a favorite relative to other options. Their EV on SG is 0.82 which is just awful.

I like separating from the heard, but I agree dipping below into the 605% and less to win teams in 8 is unnecessary. Unless you've used them all (which is almost impossible), there's almost no reason to take anyone other than Minnesota, Cincinnati, Philadelphia or New Orleans