Move The Line - 6 Tips You NEED to WIN Your NFL Survivor Pool in 2023!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of Move the Line. I'm Connor Allen, your host for today's show, where we will be discussing our top six picks to win your Survivor Pool. Joining me today is Survivor Pool and Pick'em Pool guru, Jen Eakins. Jen, how are you doing today? I'm good. I'm excited to be, I've moved over to move the line. I'm always on the fantasy side. So this is fun to be over here. I'm doing well. Yeah, you seem a little bit alarmed with the green and yellow uh you know designs over here whereas you know this is what i'm used to so yeah i'm all red red and black where i'm from so this is this is a new little spot for me but no it's fun i love the little crossover i'm excited to be here

Starting point is 00:00:54 awesome also joining us today is jason lisk over from team rankings and pool genius jason how you doing today man i'm doing great yeah it feels like mardi gras in here i see the purple green and yellow beads uh colors so we're uh we're ready for some sugar bowl action um yeah doing great doing great ready to talk some survivor and whatever you want to talk about love it love it well cool before we get into the show today with our top six picks to win the survivor pool today's show is sponsored by pool genius pool Pool genius is the only site dedicated helping people win more sports pools from NFL survivor pools to pick them pools, 10 CWA bracket pools. I know we, Jason and I had a stream before where we've talked about some March madness stuff that went really well. Subscribers use customized pool picks and tools from pool genius and they

Starting point is 00:01:40 cash in pools more than three times as often as expected. In NFL Survivor pools alone, Pool Genius subs have reported over 5.7 million in prize winnings since 2017. And for a limited time, Pool Genius is offering exclusive discounts on 2023 Survivor and Pick'em Pool picks to 4 for 4 listeners. If you go to poolgenius.com slash 4 for 4 to sign up, You can get everything there for a test drive. You can get a free trial through NFL week one. So make sure to check that out. Definitely recommend it. You know, even as someone who does like pool genius, I think it's really, really great, great site to check out. So let's hop in here though first. So we're gonna go through our top six picks, go into as much or as little depth as we need to, I think, because we'll probably touch on just a wide variety of topics and strategies here. But Jen, I would love to get your first

Starting point is 00:02:29 tip on how you recommend going about winning a survivor pool. So my first tip seems pretty obvious to us, but it might not be to other people. And that would be to look to Vegas to kind of guide you as to what to do. You're going to look for bigger spreads. I mean, Vegas oddmakers go over mountains of data for a reason. They create the lines for a reason. So don't overthink it and just get in there and look for favorites. I mean, I'll get into more later as far as the favorites go. But I think a first pick, just if someone's sitting down to a survival for the first time,

Starting point is 00:03:02 look to the Vegas odds. Yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense. And so I think that the best way to do that is you can go over to four for four.com or pool genius. I know as well, you know, you're looking to, if you look to Vegas, you're looking at a team being favored by a lot or a little, and you can kind of from there project how likely a team is to win, because as you mentioned, they have a lot of models, but I know pool genius does too as well. So Jason, I'll let you get going here with your first tip. Yeah, absolutely. The first thing I would say, if I were to give people advice on winning Survivor Bowl, you got to know what contest you're playing, which is you got to beat other people. You're not just there picking games for yourself. And so you need to think about how the people you're playing against are likely to act in that pool. Because

Starting point is 00:03:49 if you pick the same teams the other people pick over and over again, you're gaining nothing. You move along with the same people. Eventually, you got to beat people. They got to get knocked out. You've got to advance. And you've got to be the ones left standing to win the pool. So you really need to think about how others are likely to pick. You know, think about the things that might impact how people have biases. Jen talked about, you know, trusting Vegas and the win odds. A lot of people don't do that. They will be scared off, for example, from what happened the week before. Let's say a team lost, but Vegas is telling you they're an eight-point favorite. They may just be unpopular because people are scared off of what just happened. And that may be your chance to take a really good team that nobody wants to take. So you got to watch those things. We track that data within our

Starting point is 00:04:34 PullGGS product. So if you are a subscriber, we get updated pick popularity data from around the country from a variety of sites. And we weight it from various sites because some sites may be a little sharper than others. So we get data and we can give you an estimate. Like I can tell you right now, Baltimore is over 30% in week one, for example, right now is the biggest favorite. Washington's the second most popular right now across the country. So that's probably what you're going to see in most pools. It may fluctuate in individuals, but we get that data updated regularly on a daily basis, more frequently than daily, and it'll be updated up until the time of kickoff. So we update that data, but you got to know that. You got to know how people are likely to pick to understand where to go. Yeah, that's a great, great point there

Starting point is 00:05:20 specifically. So for week one, you said that Baltimore is probably going to be the most picked survivor pool team, right? And then Washington, or I would have guessed it was going to be Washington right now, seven point favorites starting against probably Josh Dobbs. And I think Connor, that probably depends on what kind of pool you're in. And you can also adjust for what kind of pool you're playing in. I think in a sharper pool or in a pool with more experienced players, because let's face it, survivor pools can have a variety of people with commitment levels and attention levels that are just making picks. So some low entry fees or whatever, they're going to gravitate to big names.

Starting point is 00:05:59 They may not go to Washington because Washington hasn't been good recently. They may go to the Chiefs, the Ravens. Sharper pools, Washington may actually be overpicked, right? They may be so popular that you might want to think elsewhere, but that may depend on what kind of pool you're in. And so knowing what kind of pool you're in is also important thing to consider. Totally, totally. Yeah. And I think that leads as a perfect segue into my first tip here, which is constantly understanding your leverage opportunities. So for people who don't really understand what that means, kind of what we looked at there. So if you see Washington and say 40% of the people are picking them, Washington over Arizona,

Starting point is 00:06:34 obviously Arizona is not a team that we're projecting to be very good this year, but Washington is a little bit more volatile than I think we normally expect as well. You have a new quarterback in Sam Howell starting Terry McLaurin's a little bit banged up. The offensive line ranks as one of the worst in the league. And the defense, while they were good last year, is not exactly a spectacular unit, at least off the top. So is this a potential spot here where 30 to 40% of the field could be wiped out in week one?

Starting point is 00:06:58 You know, you are in a much better spot picking someone else who maybe you wouldn't normally pick in this spot, but maybe you pick a different team and you're avoiding the public basically in this point. So you kind of, in my mind, I like looking at situations where if I'm right, how much am I rewarded? So like how, how big is the reward for fading a team like Washington? If it's only 20%, it's probably not that big of a reward. I'm probably into them because I'm never going to pick Washington again the rest of the season.

Starting point is 00:07:23 They're favored in like one more game the rest of the year. So that may be where I go if it's 20%. Now, if it's 50%, I might fade them in week one, I think, because then you've already chopped off half the field if somehow they lose. So I think that's a great example there of potentially understanding your leverage and understanding how that can help you win your pool. All right, Jen, I'm going to kick it back to you here for your second tip. Okay. Excuse me. My second tip is to basically balance the current value versus the rest of the season. So, you know, you're going to look for heavily favored teams anyway, but you've got a team say like Kansas city, Philadelphia, they're going to be heavily

Starting point is 00:07:59 favored throughout the year. So you don't want to blow your wad, so to speak early by taking a team that way when there's going to be a team that's, you know, significantly favored maybe by five or more points that may not be on later on in the season. So, you know, basically you have a lot of, a lot of the more popular teams are going to be favored by a lot throughout the season. And you want to kind of leverage that and make sure that you're not going too early on those. Yeah, that makes sense. I think having a roadmap of where you're going in the season is pretty helpful and maybe

Starting point is 00:08:32 it doesn't always have to play out as planned. You know, you're probably might end up straying here and there. Teams are going to be better than you think, worse than you think, but having a general idea and then having, being able to understand your pivot points and how that impacts the rest of your season is really important. Jason, I don't know. I think that you guys have some some tools and things around that kind of looking at later in the season as well. Right. Yeah, we actually do future value estimates. We have projections based on our power ratings. Some of that also has like look ahead lines. You'll have look ahead lines from some books. And we'll have our power ratings projections for the future where we can see which weeks kind of are tougher or maybe have a lot of favorites over 70 percent or some weeks.

Starting point is 00:09:18 I think I know there's some this season, for example, that don't have many. I think like week nine is a pretty limited week, for example, on options. And so if you know where those weeks are, you can kind of figure out how to play it. You may play it different ways. You may be like, oh, everybody's got to be on the one obvious pick that week. Maybe I want to plan to have one of these other teams available to me. But yeah, thinking about the future, we do that. We balance that.

Starting point is 00:09:40 That obviously gets balanced with your odds of winning. But you do need to think about the future. And it's not just like I'm going to, like you said, you got to adapt. You can't be like, I'm going to use this team in week 13. But if like the Chiefs are, you look like they might be usable in like five future weeks, that's very valuable. You don't have to pick which week you're going to use them now,

Starting point is 00:09:59 but knowing you probably want to save them to have is that like queen on the chessboard piece that you can move wherever you want and use them in the spot you need them is important. So I think that's something to consider. Yeah, absolutely. Well said. Well said. And then again, I'll probably reference it many times here. Go check out Pool Genius.

Starting point is 00:10:16 They got a lot of bunch of tools over there and everything. So what is your next tip, Jason? Yeah, the next one I'm going to talk about the mentality you got to have if to play survivor pools uh kind of how you want to think about the thought process because on an individual basis you're picking usually big favorites right you're picking a team with a seven point favorite seventy something percent to win um and so you should win any individual pick you make but we know from the odds that it's hard to really pick like three, four, five in a row. And in fact, the data shows us that if you play just one entry, you're probably out in the first month. Like every single year for the last decade, over half the survivor entries would have been wiped out if they had no strikes, no other options,

Starting point is 00:10:58 and they just, they couldn't lose. You're going to lose by even picking the biggest favorites. I think in week one, like three times in the last 10 years, the biggest favorite has lost. It happens. And so you're going to lose. You should go into this contest with the mentality. I'm a long shot to win. Survivor pools are fun because you can win a lot of money if you're in a big pool, but the odds are small. And so if you take the mentality that, you know, I can't, I can't pick from a place of fear. I have to pick from a place of wanting to attack this contest, like find those values and play them. Understand that I'm probably not going to win, but I'm going to take the proper chances when they present themselves. And don't pick scared, I think are the kind of things you

Starting point is 00:11:40 need to have in mind mentally. You're also going to go through sweats. Those of us who have played in survivor pools, like something like half of NFL games are like a one-score game. So if you can't mentally handle that, I mean, you can't play survivor pools, you're going to have to be at ease with the fact that some of your entries are going to get knocked out by a last-second field goal. They're going to get knocked out because your team blew a 10-point lead. Trust me, that happens, but you're also going to get saved when Justin Tucker makes a 63 yarder and you have Baltimore. So it happens both ways. And so you just have to

Starting point is 00:12:13 be understanding that you're going to go through those sweats and be completely comfortable with it. And if you can't maybe, you know, figure out how to, how to adjust to that because that's the way of life in survival pools. Yeah. It's one of the reasons that I generally like to play more than one entry. So I like to do two to three entries and I have no problem going all in on one team in certain weeks, but there are some weeks where I'm like, you know what? I don't know. I would like, I would love to flip a coin with these two teams. And then that's where my picks diverge. And so I'm able to pick two separate teams and ideally both of them win and I move on, but then it helps you diversify a little bit more.

Starting point is 00:12:47 So that's, I think that's a great point there specifically about mentality and focusing on how you want to like approach your pool. And that's kind of my last tip as well would be understanding your pool size and then the rules along with that and having like a proper risk allocation. Because if you're playing in a pool with whatever, 10 of your buddies, the amount of risk you should be taking is very low. You should basically only almost all always be picking the heavy favorites, picking the teams that are the most likely to win. If you're playing in a circa survivor or whatever, you know, one of those massive pools where there's, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:17 millions on the line, you're going to have to get crazy. You're going to have to get a little bit weird. You're going to have to be fading the chalk multiple weeks in a row. Uh, you know, like you're, and you're going to have to get lucky. So those types of like understanding your contest and pool size is really, really important. It's something we talk about in March Madness all the time. It's like, you can pick the chalk if you want. Um, but you have to have a small pool size because if everything goes right for you, you have to play that scenario. If everything goes right for you and you pick the chalk in a big pool, you're probably splitting the prize with a thousand other people or whatever, 5,000 other people. And if that's what you want, then that's great, but you're not going to be

Starting point is 00:13:50 rewarded for being right in the small percent chance you are right, because you're not going to be right probably most likely. So it's kind of a tough situation where you have to think about risk versus reward, risk allocation, everything there. So Jen, any thoughts on any of the other ones that we've talked about here in the last minute or so no you guys have covered a lot of it i did remember i mean we should probably mention that we have a pretty big survivor pool going to betzberts right uh we should probably mention that one i would think just because it is a big uh is it is a big pull i'm not exactly sure where people go to sign up with that uh is it honestly we're giving away two free super bowl tickets uh to survivor pool free survivor pool over run your pool um just go over to you know

Starting point is 00:14:31 four four dot com or bets birds any of our twitters we've been promoting it a bunch but yeah that's a great way to get in if you guys are listening and you have no idea what a survivor pool is uh i mean hop in the water is warm again probably not going to win but if you do super bowl tickets no it just reminds the reason i brought it up is when you were talking about I mean, hop in. The water is warm. Again, probably not going to win. But if you do, Super Bowl tickets. No, just remind. The reason I brought it up is when you were talking about, you know, know your size and vary your strategy based on the size. It reminded me of that because that's a massive one.

Starting point is 00:14:55 And that's the one, like you said, you need to take risks because you're not going to win if you just pick chalk every week. Yeah. If you're if I don't know how many people will end up in there, but let's say a thousand. You've got a one in a thousand chance, so don't think about i got 70 chance to win this week think i got a one on a thousand chance i gotta take shots to be that one by being different than what other people are thinking while taking smart risks um building on some of that concept you talked about pool size different pool types too You can play in strike pools. You can play in other

Starting point is 00:15:25 pool types. Like a big one we see is multi-pick pools where you pick two teams in a week. A lot of times that's in really large pools so they can get the numbers to fall pretty quickly and not split the pot so much. But those are cool contests. And the thing about those, we always tell people play a portfolio. You mentioned playing lots of them. One of the good things about finding different contests, whether it be a really large one like you're talking about, or a small one with buddies, or a strike one, or a buyback pool, or whatever. If you play a variety, you're going to naturally diversify if you have a lot of entries

Starting point is 00:16:01 because some picks are better for some type of pool. Some picks are great for large pools. Some are great great for small so it'd be on a couple different teams and you want to diversify at pool genius one of the things we have is you can we support up to 30 entries and trust me we have people that email us and want more and and they're like i'm playing in 100 entries um so we support with each subscription 30 and so you can do that and you get customized picks for those pools so it'll give you the best pick for your small pool versus your five entry large pool and so that's another thing we provide and it's that's a good way to take out some of that risk as far as the day-to-day oh i lost on this field goal yeah yeah that's a great point there i mean

Starting point is 00:16:43 what's the what's the most amount of entries you've done in a season, Jason? I've been right around 30. I will probably be in that range. It's a matter of managing that and playing in the pick and pulls too. But I have played in some large ones where I had a lot of entries. And I chopped a pot in one

Starting point is 00:17:03 where most of my entries were out by week four a couple of years ago. But the one that got through didn't use good teams and was set up for success. And that's how you have to think about it. Like, if this entry gets through, can I make a run? And that's what you're going to do. I do have something else to say. It just hit me. Let's fire away, Jen.

Starting point is 00:17:23 You guys don't mind. We've talked a lot about, you know, tips. but what about things that you don't want to do right so i was just thinking like there's a you know a few things that maybe don't pick a team like on a division week because those are really tough to kind of decipher i mean i wouldn't necessarily go by that right but if you're deciding between two teams and one of them is playing a division rival and one of them is not, I'd probably go with the other one just because those games are so tough sometimes. That was a thought I had. I would also think about possibly teams that maybe have a shorter week, maybe not necessarily counting on them.

Starting point is 00:17:59 Like I said, if you're deciphering between several, I wouldn't go all in on that strategy. But if you're debating between a couple teams, maybe think about stuff like that. Right. I'm willing to take division teams because. I think that sometimes people will shy away from giving me value. It depends on the game, right? It depends on the game, because, gosh, like the Patriots, for example, dominate the AFC East for a decade and barely lost anybody. So if you're getting the right favorite, I think you might be OK. But, yeah, I'm looking for things like tips to avoid. A, pay attention. Right. Don't don't lock your pick in too early and forget about it.

Starting point is 00:18:39 Like we'll update data through Sunday morning. So if you know when your pick deadline is and take advantage of it, because some people will set it and forget it, and you'll get some great values late in the week. Like a Sunday morning quarterback injury, nobody's picking this team they don't want to pick, but the line just went from two to seven. And all of a sudden you can be on a team nobody's picking because they're not paying attention and you get a great value.

Starting point is 00:19:01 So things like that, avoid, avoid like just setting up, forgetting it, stay on top of the news. Yeah. And that's a, that's a good point as well there. Um, and while I don't think like trap games per se are real, you know, according to what we see, but it's like some of that's baked into maybe a West coast traveling East West coast team, traveling to the East coast, playing at a noon game there, you know, the circadian rhythms of their body is not on par. And then they come out super flat. I mean, we see that every year, you know, like a lot of that's baked into the line though. But if you're ever wondering like, wow, this team is significantly better. Why are they not

Starting point is 00:19:34 six point favorites? And said, they're like three point favorites, you know, like a lot of that stuff, it makes them a little bit more volatile. And same with being, I would say a road favorite at times too, is you, you see those things and you're like, okay, well, why is this like that? So it's just, you should just think more about it. So, I mean, it's not necessarily a, don't take a road favorite. Don't take a West coast team traveling eats. It's just like, you should understand what you're getting yourself into. And I think that's, that's where I would leave it at. Awesome. Jason, any last tips or anything? I think you kind of already hit on one of the other ones we had as a bonus tip, but anything else from you?

Starting point is 00:20:07 I think we covered a lot of it. I mean, you talked about leverage. You might see that reference as expected value or EV when you're looking. Same concept. So if you're fairly new to Survivor but you see people referencing EV or expected value, it's the same concept. So you're going to see that number. We'll display that. That's a good number to look at to understand what your payoff is um if it's above one that's

Starting point is 00:20:31 probably a better pick than below one because one's like you're going to be in the same spot on average as you were heading into that week so that's kind of how to think about it when you see those numbers keep that in mind if you ever see a site with EV displayed. That kind of puts a math number on that leverage point. But yeah, I think we covered it all. Stay on top of the odds. Know how your opponents are picking. Use those leveraged. Pay attention to the future. Have the right mentality and understand the rules of your pool and the size of your pool. I think those are the key strategy points that will get you started on the right path. Yeah, absolutely jam-packed 20 minutes here of information.

Starting point is 00:21:10 But for those of you in survivor pools, I think this will be really helpful, kind of guide, refresher, trying to elevate your game, anything like that. But I know Jen will be writing a survivor pool article this year for some of the season. You want to tell us a little bit about you know, about that or any of your, any thoughts around that or anything else you have going on at four for four Jen? Sure. I think Jason is going to, is going to write the article for the first four weeks. And then I think I'm going to take over week five. This will be,

Starting point is 00:21:34 I think my third or fourth year writing it. And I just give you guys four or five. I think I usually do five picks that I like, you know, not against the spread straight up just for survivor pool or, or office pickups because people do those as well, where you're trying not against the spread, straight up, just for Survivor Pool or Office Pick'ems because people do those as well where you're trying to get the most right each week. So I just usually kind of analyze everything on Pool Genius and I use them as a tool and I give everyone, you know, five. I actually have to say I have a pretty good record over the years. So it's a fun article to write. So that'll be coming out. Like I said, Jason will do the first four weeks and then I will take over week five for the rest of the season. And then as far

Starting point is 00:22:09 as my content on 444, I just, I have a ton of redraft stuff coming up. Season starts next week. So we're ready to rock. We'll be in full, full season mode, all the articles, everything will be there. Let's get it. Jason, how about you, man? Oh yeah yeah i'll be busy uh you know pull genius so i within the season a lot of a lot of what i'll do for our subscribers i write weekly notes and updates daily like we're all explained strategy within that week is i can't sit here and tell you what week five is going to look like but as we analyze it we'll be like this team you know is showing up because they're currently not popular, but the odds have moved or whatever.

Starting point is 00:22:50 And I'll break down throughout the week, oh, we're seeing a line move here, and that's impacting our picks. And I kind of explain that to subscribers. They can ask questions, all that stuff. So that's a lot of what I do behind the scenes, in addition to just working on other things like betting picks, staying on top of the NFL in general, and then moving on to college basketball and NBA and all that stuff eventually. So, yeah, NFL right now, Survivor, pick them at our site.

Starting point is 00:23:14 You can get all that. Confidence point pools all have strategy, all have different things to look at, and we can provide input on all. Love that. Love that. And you guys can find our weekly Survivor Pool article over at 444.com. And again, check out Pool Genius. Go to poolgenius.com slash 444. A lot of awesome tools.

Starting point is 00:23:34 If you're serious about your Survivor Pool, you'll go there and check it out because I think it gives you significant edge. On top of the tips we gave today, just so, so much more that you can find over there. So guys, I appreciate you coming on. I know it was a short, quick, to the point episode, and I think that's exactly what we wanted for our listeners. So, uh, Jen, Jason, really appreciate you guys coming on.

Move The Line - 6 Tips You NEED to WIN Your NFL Survivor Pool in 2023!

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