Pools

Two office-pool formats, driven by The System's numbers. Future weeks use Elo's current forecast blended with any market line that already exists; they firm up as the season goes.

Survivor

One team a week, never the same team twice, and you're out when it loses. The plan below is the exact optimum for surviving the whole season from Week 8 on, given the numbers now. Alternatives are the next-best teams that week.

Save your survivor season. Sign in and lock in a team each week: the page remembers every team you've used, re-plans the rest of the season around them, and tracks your results.

Chance of surviving all 10 weeks on this path: 12%. Next week: KC vs NYJ at 82%.

Survivor odds compound: even a path of 80% favorites survives 18 weeks only 2% of the time. What the optimizer does is spend your best teams where they are worth most.

Week	Pick	Win prob.	Alternatives
9	KC vs NYJ	82%	SEA 87% · SF 82% · JAX 74%
10	LAR at ARI	73%	JAX 78% · BUF 75% · BAL 70%
11	CHI vs NO	80%	KC 83% · BUF 79% · DEN 76%
12	JAX vs TEN	86%	MIN 78% · CIN 76% · NE 72%
13	DEN vs MIA	77%	MIN 83% · SEA 76% · TB 72%
14	DET vs TEN	83%	SEA 83% · LV 70% · DEN 69%
15	SEA at PHI	78%	MIN 75% · SF 72% · LAR 69%
16	MIN vs WSH	83%	DET 76% · LV 75% · PIT 73%
17	SF vs PHI	82%	MIN 79% · JAX 76% · PIT 74%
18	BUF vs NYJ	84%	DEN 81% · SF 78% · HOU 76%

Teams available: ARI, ATL, BAL, BUF, CAR, CHI, CIN, CLE, DAL, DEN, DET, GB, HOU, IND, JAX, KC, LAC, LAR, LV, MIA, MIN, NE, NO, NYG, NYJ, PHI, PIT, SEA, SF, TB, TEN, WSH.

Confidence pool · Week 8

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Wild Card Divisional Conf. Champ.Super Bowl

Rank every game from most to least confident; a right pick scores its rank. The order that maximizes expected points is simply by The System's win probability, so here it is. The order and the picks are open to all; The System's percentages are for members, except on the featured game and games that have kicked off.

Points	Pick	Win prob.	Game
14	CIN	88%	TEN at CIN Sun 1:00 PM ET
13	JAX	79%	IND at JAX Sun 1:00 PM ET
12	LAR	74%	LAC at LAR Sun 4:05 PM ET
11	DAL	74%	ARI at DAL Sun 1:00 PM ET
10	WSH	70%	PHI at WSH Sun 8:20 PM ET
9	NE	70%	NE at MIA Sun 4:25 PM ET
8	PIT	67%	CLE at PIT Sun 1:00 PM ET
7	GB	66%	CAR at GB Thu 8:15 PM ET
6	SEA	65%	CHI at SEA Mon 8:15 PM ET
5	BUF	65%	BAL at BUF Sun 1:00 PM ET
4	DET	55%	MIN at DET Sun 1:00 PM ET
3	TB	54%	ATL at TB Sun 1:00 PM ET
2	NYJ	53%	LV at NYJ Sun 1:00 PM ET
1	DEN	52%	KC at DEN Sun 4:25 PM ET