NFL Week 1 Picks: Strategy for Survivor & Pick’em Pools (2025)

Week 1 of the 2025 NFL season brings plenty of tough decisions for your NFL survivor pool picks and football pick’em contests. With the help of the experts at PoolGenius, we’ll walk through the best strategies to start the season strong.

This article breaks down three different strategies for NFL Week 1 — whether you’re locking in a team for your survivor pool, assigning points in a confidence pool, or targeting upset picks to boost your shot at winning a weekly NFL contest.

This is a guest post from PoolGenius, the only site dedicated solely to helping you win more sports pools. Be sure to check out their NFL Pool picks and tools.

Free Week 1 Football Pool Picks

Before we get into the analysis, a quick note: you can get full access to all of PoolGenius’ football pool picks and tools for NFL Week 1 at no cost, along with exclusive season-long discounts through Action Network:

Week 1 NFL Survivor Picks: Limited Options to Start

The Week 1 schedule offers limited choices for survivor pools. Only five teams are favored by more than a field goal, and those five should make up most of the public’s survivor picks.

• Denver (-7.5 or -8 vs. Tennessee)
• Philadelphia (-7.5 vs. Dallas)
• Arizona (-6.5 at New Orleans)
• Washington (-6 vs. NY Giants)
• Cincinnati (-5.5 at Cleveland)

Denver and Philadelphia stand out as the top two favorites, but both carry considerable future value (Philly ranks third and Denver sixth in our Future Value projections). The question is whether to spend them now or save them.

The other three options are slightly riskier — all road favorites or division matchups — but research shows that survivor players often overvalue those factors. Oddsmakers already account for division familiarity and venue when setting the spread.

• Division games: Since 2002, big division favorites have actually won at a higher rate than non-division favorites once you control for spread size.

Still, Week 1 is tricky because of uncertainty around new coaches and quarterbacks. Historically, when Week 1 underdogs have new QBs (rookies or injured vets returning) or new head coaches, favorites have underperformed compared to expectations.

This year, underdog QBs facing the most popular survivor picks include:

• Rookie QB Cam Ward (Titans)
• New veterans Russell Wilson (Giants) and Joe Flacco (Browns)
• Rookie Spencer Rattler (Saints)
• Returner Dak Prescott (Cowboys) after missing half of 2024
• Dallas and New Orleans also both have rookie head coaches.

Given all this, it’s no surprise the public leans most heavily on Denver — the biggest favorite and the only one playing at home against a non-division foe.

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Get the Best NFL Survivor Picks for Your Pool Size & Rules

PoolGenius helps simplify your Week 1 decisions by offering pick recommendations tailored to your pool size, number of entries, and other important factors. With this guidance, you can build an optimal strategy and give yourself the best chance to win.

Week 1 NFL Pick’em & Confidence Pools: Start Conservative

If you’re in a season-long contest where the winner is determined by the most correct picks across 270+ games, the best strategy in Week 1 is to stay steady. Focus on favorites early, limit risks, and aim to be in a solid position as the season unfolds.

In Confidence Pools, where you assign points to rank your picks, the top-five favorites listed in the survivor section should occupy your top slots. The real strategy comes in the middle tier, where public bias creates value.

• Green Bay (-2.5 vs. Detroit): Despite being favorites, just 26% of the public is taking the Packers at home.
• Indianapolis (-1.5 vs. Miami): Only 23% are picking the Colts, even though the market gives them better than 50% win odds.

Our customized pick logic factors in your pool size and other key variables to show how much you should adjust confidence points on teams like Green Bay or Indianapolis.

For detailed recommendations, check out our Football Pick’em Picks product.

Weekly Prize Pools: High-Leverage Upset Strategy

In weekly prize contests, it pays to be contrarian. The goal is to identify unpopular underdogs with a decent chance to win — think of it as hitting a three-team parlay at inflated payout odds.

For Week 1, there are five underdogs of 2.5 points or less being picked by fewer than 26% of the public:

• Minnesota vs. Chicago (MNF)
• Tampa Bay vs. Atlanta
• Houston vs. Los Angeles (Rams)
• Pittsburgh vs. New York (Jets)
• San Francisco vs. Seattle

For example, if all of these teams are picked in only 20–25% of entries, there’s just a 1% to 1.5% chance another random entry nails all three. But based on win odds, you might have an 8–10% chance of going 3-0, a huge leverage edge.

Another option: Baltimore at Buffalo (Pick’em), where 70% of the public is siding with the Bills. That makes the Ravens another high-upside leverage play.

In larger pools with hundreds or thousands of entries, calculated contrarian picks are often the only realistic way to contend for weekly prizes.

Get Expert Football Pool Picks In 2025

Winning NFL survivor and football pick’em pools comes down to stacking the odds in your favor. The tough part? The sheer volume of data and math involved — something most players don’t have the time or desire to take on.

That’s where PoolGenius comes in. We handle the data collection and analysis so you can compete like a pro in your 2025 football pools.

Thanks to our partnership with Action Network, you can start with a free trial (no strings attached) and unlock exclusive season discounts using the links below: