2025 NFL Survivor Pool Show

We are so close to the NFL season kicking off and the Overrated Experience Sports & Sports Betting Podcast gets you ready for your NFL Survivor Pools.

We go through the 18 game schedule and give you our picks if we had to make them today.

Take a listen and us know your lock for wk 1 and overall Survivor strategy.

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Transcript

Kyle Blondin (00:01)
Welcome back to the overrated experience sports and sports spending podcast. I'm your host Kyle Blondin. It is ticking down, getting ever so close to kick off to the 2025 NFL season and the most betters out there. That means it's kind of the opening day for your year long betting for 2025 heading into 2026. So get your charts up, get your record keeping going, get your bankroll.

secured and let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. The overrated experience sports and sports putting cop podcast is your regular kind of guy betting podcast where I'm not your Vegas pro. I'm not your sharp. I'm just like you. I've been doing this a long time, making mistakes, making, learning some things over time, but I like talking sports gambling and every so often we throw out

you know, specials out there. Last, ⁓ last podcast we did was a review of Netflix's sec any given Saturday, which I encourage you to go back. You can take a listen to that. That doesn't get old. ⁓ what will get old is this special podcast because we're going to talk about survivor pools. Yes, that's right. Survivor survivor pools. If you have not completed a survivor pool, it is pretty simple.

Okay, I'm going explain how it works for those who may be tuning in who have never tried it. The Survivor Pool just means that every week you pick or select a team to win on that week. Not lose, not tie, but win. And if you win, you go on to the next week, but you cannot choose the team you picked already. And that's very important as the season progresses. So it's as simple as that.

You'll probably find a survivor pool at your local pub, the local bar, restaurants, office. You ask around, you'll find it. They can range from minimal amount of money to larger amounts of money. They could allow certain number of entries. You could have more than one. Maybe you want to have multiple to increase the odds, but that's totally your choice. But it's a simple, fun activity.

that if you can go on a run, would be worthwhile to get into one of these survivor pools. Now, before we begin to that, I want to let you know that you can follow the Overrated Experience Sports and Sports Betting Podcast on X at Overrated EXPER2. That's Overrated EXPER2. You'll see the Overrated Experience X profile within the contents of the podcast you're listening to on your provider. You can easily select it there.

You can also find us on Instagram at Overrated Experience on both Instagram and Facebook. Please, please join us. I want to hear from you. Tell us what you think about the podcast and let's keep this going. This is a small time business podcast. What I mean by that, it's just a little guy like me talking in front of a microphone. And I just want to make a run here and make it successful. And ⁓ all the help is ⁓ obviously appreciated. So the Overrated Experience today is going to go through what I

I'm going to think about as far as my strategy heading into this year's NFL season when it comes to a survivor pool. Now, just to add a little flavor, a little uniqueness to the overrated experience sports betting podcast here about survivor pools is there are different variations as well that you really need to know what the rules are. Some survivor pools don't use the Thursday nighter. ⁓ did you hear that? Did you hear anybody hear that?

If you had to guess what that sounded like, what would it be? If you said beer, you'd be right. What kind of beer? I'm hold it up to the mic. Can you smell it? But right now I just got a Corona can. You know, it's what was in the fridge, what am gonna do?

Obviously that sip of beer will help with any podcast we do. So the survivor pools, pay attention to your league rules. And that means understand that is it just going to be make a selection through 18 weeks? Do you have to make a pick before a certain day and time? AKA maybe the Friday or maybe the Thursday nighter or some pools allow it to go into the weekend.

So make sure that you are paying attention to the cutoff dates and now the strategies involved here. let me, let me jump in here. I think it's pretty cool. So for you serious survivor pool players, there's a pretty unique contest, which at some point in my life, I like to join. It's not going to be this year. We do know somebody here that actually has his planning or has already flown the Vegas to join, which is awesome. That's a Circa survivor pool. So the Circa,

Survivor Pool is very unique, a lot of money. I don't have the entry fee at the top of my head, but it's quite a few dollars. And you also need a proxy that lives in the state of Nevada to be able to make your picks. So you have to pay a fee for somebody, resident of Las Vegas, I think it could be Nevada, but maybe the city of Las Vegas that has to make the picks for you. And there are people that do this for a living. They do it as a side gig, main gig, I have no idea.

So it's on the up and up. There are people who do it.

as long as you want to pay a little bit of money. Now, what's unique about the Circa pool, and something to really pay attention to, is that they have 20 weeks of selections that you need to make. Now, why is it 20 weeks when the season's only 18 weeks? Well, they consider the Thanksgiving and Black Friday bucket of games an actual week. So what that means is that you got to make sure that you have saved some of these teams

to possibly take on the Thanksgiving slash Black Friday. Those are like considered combined. You pick a team there. And then Christmas day where there's three games. So very unique. Like for example, if you wanted to use the Eagles against the Bears on Black Friday, that means you can't touch them earlier in the season. And I'm telling you, as we go through this, I found it very challenging to feel confident that I could

100 % make a long run here. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of strategy involved that could maximize your performance in your survivor pool. Now there's philosophies out there, which, you know, I don't know what, what side you land on, but you know, there, you want to select and save some of the big teams you want to save, you know, the Kansas city chiefs.

You want to save the Ravens, want to save the Bills, you want to save the Eagles. And again, that is because you don't want to burn them off. You want to save them until later in the year. Again, that's one strategy. I'm saying I'm going to follow it as go through my picks necessarily, but that is ⁓ one situation to really consider. Also, some of the thoughts would be that you try to take maybe the second favorite team.

that during a week or a third favorite, take a chance that there'll be upsets so that you will be a part of a smaller group over weeks and then more of a chance of a payout. Now last year, for those of you who already have the survivor pool experience, many of you, just like me, were knocked out of many of your survivor pools because the Cincinnati Bengals once again had a slow start and lose to the New England Patriots

in pathetic fashion. there was last year was such a nightmare. I guarantee you that many shell shocked individuals out there that were burned, really burned bad. They will probably take the higher percentage teams ahead of time and maybe not take the chances to save those teams down the right. I mean,

Even if you save some of the top teams, you have a chance that they have a tough matchup in the weeks that you want to take them.

So I don't know what the best strategy is here, but that's one of them again, is potentially staying away from everybody's and hoping you get a break and the field whittles down. Now why is it important to maybe take some of the higher echelon teams right out of the gate and burn them? Because you can't use them again. Well, I mean, here's a strategy for you.

is not really a strategy, but a thought process, I guess, is many, many of the pools out there. Once they get down to a smaller group of folks, you know, 10 people left, 15 people left, especially in the giant ones, right? The giant, the thousands of dollars ones, they tend to talk and ask, hey, let's cut a deal. Let's make a deal here. Let's split this up. This percentage of the payout as guaranteed money that we all take or

Maybe we take a percentage, divide it up, and let the rest ride. Because at a certain point, when there's fewer players available, that's when the deal making begins. So just watch out for that to try to maybe survive long enough to get into that conversation about cutting a deal, a backroom dirty deal, to get paid out. So again, last year I got burned. I also got burned in another survivor pool.

because the Ravens lost at home to the Raiders. I mean, that's like, how could you walk into last year and think that the Ravens were going to get knocked off at home against the Raiders, go on the road and lose against the Deshaun Watson and the Browns? Not Deshaun Watson, was ⁓ Jameson Winston and the Browns at that time.

Weird season. So nothing's a guarantee.

And injuries are huge, right? You know, think, what if Joe Burrow gets hurt and you're holding onto the bangles? Well, yeah, I mean, that decreases quite a bit. Your chances of winning. And also here's another thought. You know what I mean? You gotta be able to pick out some of the horrid, disgusting, you know, just gross teams that are currently in the league at the moment. And I'm sure you can think of some right now like the New Orleans Saints.

Not sure where they're at in their franchise as far as thinking they have Spencer Rattler, second year quarterback, I think second year, but in a sloth, is it sloth? That they draft in the second round. Seemed like caretakers for the Saints at quarterback. David Carr kind of surprised the league by announcing his retirement.

The announcer retirement he was injured. couldn't, yeah, he's injured. I don't know if he officially, I think he officially, yeah, he retired. He retired, officially retired. But he announced an injury where he couldn't start the season first. the Saints, I think, were put behind the eight ball and all account purposes that despite the piss poor showing of Archie Manning with Texas in Ohio State last, yesterday, they're probably still thinking if we can finish low enough, we want to go for Arch. That's probably where the New Orleans Saints heads at. Cleveland Browns.

You know that's a joke, right? You know they bring back Joe Flacco, have Shadr or Sanders and they got the other kid out of Oregon, the lefty. I don't know why his name slips my mind at the moment. So they released, ⁓ well they traded Kenny Pickett to the Raiders. ⁓ But they're gonna look bad, man. The Browns are not gonna look good. They may jump out of the gate early, but don't expect Flacco to be under the center for too long.

I got a feeling that the two rookie quarterbacks are gonna get their time in there and it might be a bit of a shit show. And at some point, Sean Watson's coming back. So let the shit show begin in Cleveland. And some other teams that don't look too good, I don't know, like those are the two that really stand out to me, the New Orleans Saints and the Cleveland Browns, maybe follow them around a bit. And as the season goes on, expect the New York Giants to kind of.

You know, fall, fall the same script as Russ Wilson and the Pittsburgh Steelers last year where there was kind of, he can still play, can throw the deep ball. And then everybody figures out that he can't move anymore. And he always checks down. I don't see it. So expect Jackson Dart to be in there. ⁓ Jameson Winston, I don't know how long he'll stick in New York. So look for that to be a shit show too. So the Giants later, New Orleans right off the bat shit. ⁓

Tennessee I don't know. I mean cam ward quarterback first overall pick at a Miami has the Tennessee the odds are he's gonna take a little bit to get going ⁓ even Jaden Daniels had a struggle in Tampa Bay open up the season until he flourished and took off and Went nuts and brought the commanders to the NFC championship game. So let's kick it off Let's talk about good old Kyle's survivor picks is if I had to make all 18

at once. Week one, I'm going for the, what I think is the safest play and that is the Bo Nix, Sean Payton, Denver Broncos taking on that rookie quarterback, Cam Ward. I can't see Cam Ward walking into Denver and that defense in his NFL debut, regular season NFL debut and walking out with a win.

There are serious thought that maybe just maybe the Denver Broncos can compete for a division title and push the Kansas City Chiefs to the second spot in that division. I don't know about that, but they're going to have enough to get by the Tennessee Titans. I feel very confident. A confident level is probably eight out of 10. They're going to walk away the victory here. ⁓ Don't see Tennessee and kind of envisioning that game last year that Jayden Daniels had.

in Tampa Bay where he kind of looked like a fish out of water. Obviously he turned around, but week one, he's not the Jayden Danos we saw last year. I don't think we're gonna see the Max Cam Ward week one. I think this is pretty much a lock. No fear here. Week two, this is my philosophy of trying to mark down a sure win and not saving some of the big boys till later. And this is the Baltimore Ravens at home against the Cleveland Browns. Lock this in.

I don't see the Ravens losing against Cleveland, a division opponent. I don't see it being like Raiders heading to Baltimore, kind of sneaking up. This is a divisional matchup. I just see the Ravens icing the Cleveland Browns. Joey Flacco, just watch out though. Joey Flacco will put the ball in the air. And ⁓ we might talk about this on props and some of the combined receiving yards by, no, that's weak one, nevermind.

That's another show, another time.

Now we get to week three. Now this is where I start falling around the New Orleans Saints. They head into Seattle. Seattle. And they've made a lot of changes in Seattle. Got rid of DK Metcalf, got rid of ⁓ Smith. ⁓ my God, I'm drawing a blank here. ⁓ In as quarterback, ⁓ he went to Las Vegas. They bring in Sam Darnold, who I don't know what you think about Sam Darnold. He had a good ⁓ blip.

in performance with the Minnesota Vikings last year under ⁓ a season ending injury to first round pick JJ McCarthy. And he stepped in and was fantastic until, later in the season where many of you seen what I seen that old baby, the same old Sam Darnold. But he'll have enough here against the New Orleans Saints. But.

in true Marvel spirit, let's look at the multiverse. Let's say here I went off to a different direction. How much would that change? Okay. So week three, the multiverse begins and let's say I go with Green Bay on the road heading into Cleveland, knocking off the Cleveland Brown once again, cause they're spiraling, right? They're already writing off the season after three weeks after this 0 and 3 start that Green Bay has set them on.

Jordan Love, Mika Parsons probably up to speed at this point, given the flackle problems. Green Bay in multiverse. Green Bay, week three. In the regular world, Seattle. At home against the New Orleans Saints. Week four. Again, I'm following New Orleans around. And they head on the road to go to Buffalo. There is no way, absolutely no way that the New Orleans Saints are gonna walk into Buffalo.

knock off the bills at any point. I can't see any situation where that occurs. Okay? Now, I don't know why I went off to save in the multiverse. Week four, the multiverse. Remember, I Green Bay in week three. This week, I'm taking Detroit. Who they playing? They're at home to the Cleveland Browns, the shittiest team in the NFL. Second shittiest, sorry, shouldn't say that.

Dylan Gabriel, by the way, Cleveland quarterback, rookie out of Oregon. Sorry, game back to me, old man moment. Now, Detroit Lions are a fantastic football team despite losing their offensive and defensive coordinators and a retirement on the offensive line. It's a situation where they have a rough, very rough schedule. You gotta look at this schedule, including matchups against Baltimore, Kansas City, a lot of bad matchups.

For them, but I don't think Cleveland at home in the multiverse has any shot in hell There's no way Detroit's gonna drop this one. So take week four in the multiverse the Detroit Lions in the regular world the Buffalo Bills week five Patty Mahomes on the road taking on the Jacksonville Jaguars Jaguars are a sneaky bunch because they got a new coach. They got Cohen the former offensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

They Travis Hunter, Brian Thomas Jr. Maybe it's a resurgence to Trevor Lawrence, but this is the Kansas City Chiefs. I think they'll get by and both the regular world and the multiverse are going to pick the Kansas City Chiefs on this day, which is week five. Week six, again, the Pittsburgh Steelers home to the Cleveland Browns. Guess what? Cleveland still sucks at this point. Dylan Gabriel is probably in quarterback at this point. Rookie starting his first game in Pittsburgh.

I don't think so. think it's a turnover, turnover Sunday and week six in the normal world, Pittsburgh is the play. But in the multiverse, we got good old Jayden Daniels hosting the Chicago Bears and the bears look like their stock is up. Don't get fooled. Don't get fooled. They may be a little better, but I don't see them walking into Washington and knocking off the commanders. And you remember last year it was at Hail Mary ⁓ that was tipped.

that where the commanders beat the Bears. So I still think this will be as close, but Chicago will find a way to lose. Week seven, we fall around the New Orleans Saints again as they go to Chicago. Now the Bears gonna have winnable games and this is one of them. If you're gonna pick a team that you wouldn't normally pick on a regular scenario, this is the week to do it when New Orleans is town. And in the Bizarro world, the multiverse, there is no change. We're going into the regular world.

and the multiverse both with the Bears at week seven. Week eight, this is where you see the Giants taking on the Philadelphia Eagles in Philadelphia. I'm gonna go with Philadelphia by week eight here. I gotta believe that Russ, there's questions around New York. Brian Dayball ⁓ is on the cusp of being fired. There's gonna be some sort of controversy. Russ is either gonna be hurt or playing poorly and there's gonna be screams for their first round pick, Jackson Dart.

to come in and just start, you know, when you get a young quarterback early in the draft, right away there's gonna be a call to bring that guy in. Why wait? Get him the reps. that's, but week eight, yeah, that's when it's gonna start, the calls. And they go to Philadelphia and lose. But in the multiverse, I'm taking the Bills in Carolina week eight. Bills on the road, Carolina.

Probably on the upswing, probably gonna improve from last year. They finished off strong. Bryce Young looked a little better last few weeks at the end of the year there. But it's the Buffalo Bills, one of the top tier teams in the NFL. They go to Carolina and get the job done. Week nine, New Orleans again. They head out to the West Coast and take on the Los Angeles Rams and SoFi. there's, I don't even need to talk about this, the Rams outside of a Matthew Stafford back injury.

You're still gonna go at the Rams here. ⁓ Even if it's Jimmy Garoppolo under center, ⁓ this team is loaded with talent. Devante Adams out there receiving with Puka. And then their D-line, young D-line is gonna put some pressure on any team they play, especially at home and against New Orleans. So expect that to be a lock on week nine. And also in the multiverse, we're gonna take the Rams as well. Because there's no reason to bet four.

New Orleans always bet against. New England and Tampa Bay, week 10. New England is up and coming. The stock is up. Drake May is on the rise. Again, he could falter this year, but he's on the rise. Mike Vrabel and the Patriots look like they're moving the franchise in the right direction, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at home are too much for this Patriots team. We gotta give credit where it's due. Baker Mayfield.

is a solid star quarterback. He knows his offense. I know they got a new offensive coordinator, but they got the talent. They're loaded up on the offensive side. I don't think that maybe New England gives them a run, but I don't think Tampa will have much problems in Week 10. In the multiverse, we're going with the same pick. The multiverse says Tampa Bay. Doesn't matter what universe you're in, Tampa Bay is your play in Week 10. Let's have a sip.

Week 11, here's where multiverse and the normal world go off in their own directions. Houston Texans haven't heard much about them. There's not as much, you know, after CJ Stroud had that like tremendous rookie year, he kind of was kind of, ⁓ it's okay. It was okay in year two. And you know, now they've lost Joel Mixon running back for four weeks at least. And...

You know, like it's not as exciting a buzz around this team as there once was last year. Are they expected to win their division? Yes. Are they expected to go into Tennessee on the road? This is a little tough for me, but I'm going to say yes, they get the job done. But this could be one of those weeks in week 11 where cam ward does the old Jayden Daniels where he's just lighting up the league and on fire. I hope not because the Texans are the right play here and the better.

the probably the pick of that week where it's very challenging to find a team you feel is as well ahead of the other team. But in the multiverse, I'm to take the Vikings at home against the Bears. I find what the Vikings either people love them or they feel they're on the downswing. I get mixed mixed signals when I go on X and I start hearing about J.J. McCarthy in Minnesota. You know, Kevin O'Connell's

quarterback whiz, he does great things with quarterbacks. I don't think there's gonna be a difference here. He has a lot of weapons. He'll find a way to get to Jefferson. They picked up Adam Thielin, which is a no-brainer to me because he's a reception machine. He's in that short yardage and you gotta worry about him and you gotta worry about ⁓ Justin Jefferson just tearing you apart. And Addison's gonna be back by this point, week 11. Minnesota gets it done at home in the multiverse. Week 12.

wouldn't normally take the Raiders, but Cleveland's in town, so I'm taking the Raiders. Not much to say there. And then in the multiverse, not much to say there either. Raiders is the same play. Week 13, San Francisco heads into Cleveland. Guess what? Guess who I'm taking? I'm taking the 49ers. I don't think Cleveland's got what it takes. And in the bizarro world slash multiverse, it is also the 49ers, week 13. Week 14, the Dallas Cowboys visit.

The Detroit Lions. The Lions again, it talked about having a tough schedule. Remember like, uh, just last year, tough beat from no, it's not, two years ago, but Dallas at this point, what a shit show, clown show, Jerry's world falling apart. Mika Parsons getting traded. Don't know what the hell's going on in Dallas. And at this point, I think week 14 is going be a very chaotic situation. Detroit's going to be gunning for the division. They get the job done.

in the normal world and the multiverse. So take Detroit week 14. Week 15, we took Washington in the multiverse, but we didn't take it in the normal world. And they are on the road against the New York Giants. And I talked about at this point in the season, we're already talking about coaching changes. We're talking about where the direction of this franchise is going. It's going to be a complete mess in the metal lands or MetLife Stadium for the Giants at this point in the season.

and the Washington commanders get the job done in week 15. But in the multiverse, where I already took the Washington commanders in week six, I'm to go with the Philadelphia Eagles hosting the Las Vegas Raiders. Las Vegas Raiders are very hard to read. ⁓ I don't know, they got a lot of veterans out there and we're going to find out what they're all about, but I don't think they walk into the Superbowl champs and knock them off at home. Week 16.

In the normal world, Minnesota on the road against that same team, it's in flux, the New York Giants. I think Minnesota gets it done. I think the Vikings will be contending for a division title and at least a playoff spot where the Giants I just talked about are gonna be talking about where they're gonna fall in the draft and who's gonna be making those picks. But in the multiverse, this is where it takes Cincinnati. Cincinnati is on the road against the Miami Dolphins.

might be Dolphins. Everybody loved the Dolphins two, three years ago. Mike McDaniel's coach, and that seems to have apart, hasn't it? Seems like he's lost the room a bit.

So expect him to be on the hot seat. Expect maybe at this point that the Miami Dolphins have already traded off their assets, right? Tyree Kill. I don't think Jaylen Waddle, maybe, maybe, you never know, but a lot of their assets might be gone and they may be just tanking for that next superstar quarterback next year. So that's the play. What was it? Miami? That was the multiverse in week 16. Week 17.

Week 17 in the normal world, got the Cincinnati Bengals hosting the Arizona Cardinals. And I think the Cincinnati Bengals are going to be cooking at this point. Either going to be desperate to win the division, contend for a higher playoff seed, and they will be guns a blazing. And Arizona will probably have a solid season. They'll probably finish 10 and 7, but they don't get the win here in Cincinnati. But in the multiverse, Pittsburgh is on the road in Cleveland. And face on their divisional opponent, the Cleveland Browns.

I don't know how much more I can say about the Cleveland Browns. think at this point at week 17, it's going to be Shrouder Sanders, maybe Deshaun Watts. I have no idea who's going to be quarterbacking 17 weeks into the season. Any guess is good. Now here's the tricky part. When you get to week 18, and believe me, there are some pools out there where people make it to week 18 is the most critical finale of their pool. And week 18 is a

Chit Show because you don't know each team's philosophy. Are the good teams gonna you save the bills you save the Chiefs you saved you know the Ravens but where are they in the standings they do the are they gonna sit everybody are they gonna play guys in a limited fashion so Really week 18 is up in the air and I you cannot save a team. I don't think

You you can't guarantee the Buffalo has not already wrapped up the AFC East well ahead of time and maybe home field advantage in the playoffs at this point. They would have no, no motivation to play anybody. And you think Josh Allen, they're going to risk Josh Allen if they've locked up that number one seed home field advantage throughout the entire playoffs. I don't think so. So be very careful on how and what you think going into week 18. So, our week 18 pick is going to be the Atlanta Falcons hosting.

the New Orleans Saints who at this point are going to be talking about the first overall pick. They'll be on the clock at the end of week 18 ready to reset that franchise. End of the multiverse, no change. Bet against New Orleans all day. So the multiverse and the normal world begin to align and that's how we end the season. So those are the 18 weeks that if I had to pick ahead and then throw in

The multiverse, that's the direction I go. as you know, 18 weeks seems short, you only play 18 games, but it's a long, long ass season, and many twists and turns occur. There has not been a year that goes by that a quarterback, a major quarterback or more than one, has somehow got injured and been impacting the league, impacting a team one way or another. So,

Watch out for that and good luck to you all. Again, visit the overrated experience at overrated EX PER2 on X, overrated EX PER2 on X, and good luck with all your fantasy teams that you're gonna be, or have already drafted, but it's survival time. Get out there, make sure you know the deadline for the survival time.

and get out there and play. Let me know your picks. Maybe let me know your lock for week one or get into the strategy that you will take and have been successful with. So the pleasure's all been yours. The overrated experience is over and out. Bye bye.