Week 11 NFL Moneyline Underdogs
Mike Randle
In the Final Destination movies, the characters narrowly avoid disaster at the beginning only to eventually meet their end in increasingly ludicrous ways, because you can’t cheat death. In Week 1 of 2024 NFL Survivor, I skated around selecting the Bengals in Week 1 and avoided that landmine, only for the Ravens to somehow cough up a 10-point lead in the final 10 minutes against the Raiders to eliminate me in Week 2.
Final Destination got five sequels (plus nine novels and two comic books — what a world). I’m getting at least one, because while Week 2 eliminated my picks from contention in this year’s contests, maybe you were smart and selected one of my honorable mentions (go Texans, I guess) and are still hanging around in the contest, and for you, the advice continues.
So each week in this space, I’ll continue offering up my favorite NFL Eliminator/Survivor picks for the week.
NFL Survivor Picks for Week 3
As always, the first step in deciding who to pick is deciding who not to pick. So my process each week is to eliminate selections.
Opponent Is Too Good
This one is getting tougher, because it increasingly looks like we don’t have any particularly dominant teams in 2024. The team that looks the best right now, the Saints, was popularly picked to miss the playoffs altogether. Are they good? Yeah, for sure. Are they so good after two weeks, are we so confidently throwing out our priors, that you couldn’t possibly pick against them? I’m not there yet. So for now (and this will certainly change by next week), the “opponent is too good” section is basically “Are you facing Detroit, Kansas City, Buffalo, San Francisco or Houston?,” and even then, Detroit and San Francisco lost last week and the 49ers in particular look broken. So this classification is fairly tenuous. But you have to start somewhere.
Arizona Cardinals (vs. Detroit)
Atlanta Falcons (vs. Kansas City)
Jacksonville Jaguars (@ Buffalo)
Los Angeles Rams (vs. San Francisco)
Minnesota Vikings (vs. Houston)
They’re Too Bad
Every team wins a game every year, with almost no exceptions. So sure, eventually even the terrible-est of terrible teams will win. But casting your lot with them for one particular game is just bad strategy.
Carolina Panthers (@ Las Vegas)
Denver Broncos (@ Tampa Bay)
Indianapolis Colts (vs. Chicago)
New England Patriots (@ NY Jets)
New York Giants (@ Cleveland)
Tennessee Titans (vs. Green Bay)
They’re on the Road
Road teams are 15-17 through two weeks. In other words, this isn’t exactly the “never pick them” category it feels like it should be. But until we get more data from 2024 itself, I’m sticking with this elimination category. It might be gone by next week, though.
Baltimore Ravens (@ Dallas)
Chicago Bears (@ Indianapolis)
Detroit Lions (@ Arizona)
Green Bay Packers (@ Tennessee)
Houston Texans (@ Minnesota)
Kansas City Chiefs (@ Atlanta)
Miami Dolphins (@ Seattle)
Philadelphia Eagles (@ New Orleans)
San Francisco 49ers (@ LA Rams)
Washington Commanders (@ Cincinnati)
The Candidates
That leaves us with 10 teams. Let’s hit them one by one before we make our pick.
Buffalo Bills (vs. Jacksonville)
Pros: The Jaguars are a mess, coughing up potential wins to the Dolphins and Browns through two weeks, while the Bills are 2-0 behind a Week 1 rally and a dominant Week 2.
Cons: Josh Allen is 1-2 against the Jaguars in his career, with his lone win coming in his rookie 2018 season when he went 8-of-19 passing for 160 yards. He lost to them 9-6 in 2021 and 25-20 last year
Cincinnati Bengals (vs. Washington)
Pros: Washington needed seven field goals and an injured opposing kicker to barely squeak by the execrable Giants in Week 2. Through two games, their skill players have exactly one touchdown, with Jayden Daniels adding two on the ground and zero through the air, and their pass defense is most charitably described as “shakier than your phone on vibrate.”
Cons: The Bengals are 0-2, and while they have been a “bad through two weeks, then generally good afterward” team throughout the entirety of the Joe Burrow tenure, putting your fates behind an 0-2 team just doesn’t feel very good, does it?
Cleveland Browns (vs. NY Giants)
Pros: The Giants would be getting mocked as the worst team in the world if we just took an eraser to the Carolinas. Daniel Jones against that Browns defense is this year’s top contenders for an “I’m seeing ghosts out there” moment.
Cons: Are you really comfortable casting your lot with Deshaun Watson? Really?
Dallas Cowboys (vs. Baltimore)
Pros: Despite some hype, the Ravens look very shaky!
Cons: So do the Cowboys!
Las Vegas Raiders (vs. Carolina)
Pros: The Panthers could scarcely have looked worse through two weeks, while the Raiders rallied on the road against what is supposed to be a good Ravens team. “Pick the team, no matter who it is, facing the worst team,” is one of the more solid Survivor strategies.
Cons: Andy Dalton is starting for Carolina now. He got one start last year (also in Week 3, as it turns out), and while the Panthers did lose that game, they scored as many points there (27) as they had in Weeks 1 and 2 combined, and he put up more fantasy points in his one start than Bryce Young did in any game. The team still isn’t good, but with Dalton under center it might be competent.
New Orleans Saints (vs. Philadelphia)
Pros: It would be difficult for any team to look more dominant than the Saints have through two weeks. Meanwhile, despite winning in Week 1, the Eagles appear to be something of a mess, a continuation of how they finished the 2023 season.
Cons: Two weeks ago, this game wouldn’t have even made the cutoff to be under consideration here. Are we so sure that what we saw over the last two weeks is more meaningful than everything we thought we knew a couple weeks ago?
New York Jets (vs. New England)
Pros: The Jets were widely considered a contender entering the season, while the Patriots were widely considered a contender … to pick first overall in the draft.
Cons: It’s only two weeks, but New England has been surprisingly frisky so far, a couple of unfortunate fourth-quarter/overtime drives in Week 2 away from 2-0. Meanwhile, the Jets are 1-1, but there have to be some concerns about Aaron Rodgers’ lack of his traditional mobility at age 40.
Pittsburgh Steelers (vs. LA Chargers)
Pros: The Steelers are 2-0 and in first place behind an excellent defense, with Justin Fields only taking 4 sacks through two games.
Cons: Their two wins came against Kirk Cousins (who didn’t look comfortable even moving) and the nonfunctional Broncos offense. The Chargers are at a minimum functional, and their defense is much more intimidating than the Falcons or Broncos units. Fields will take more than 2 sacks this week.
Seattle Seahawks (vs. Miami)
Pros: The Seahawks haven’t beaten stout teams so far (the Broncos and Patriots), but 2-0 is 2-0. They could easily win this week, given the Dolphins will be rolling out Skylar Thompson and/or new-to-the-team Tyler Huntley at quarterback, and we still won’t be sure just how good they are.
Cons: The offensive line is still giving us all sorts of worries, and while the Dolphins are the walking wounded, they do convert a lot of pressures into sacks, which should be a concern for Geno Smith.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (vs. Denver)
Pros: The team that just beat popular Super Bowl pick Detroit now gets a Broncos team that is a complete mess. Bo Nix kind of looks lost out there.
Cons: The Broncos haven’t been blown out yet, losing by 13 total points in two games. When it’s close, even a bad bounce can swing things.
The Pick
Each week, I’ll offer up my No. 1 selection along with a couple of honorable mentions. It’s not just a winner pick, there’s game theory, because in this sort of game you always want to save some stud teams for later in the season so you don’t have to sweat so much later in the year.
Cleveland Browns (vs. NY Giants)
There were 10 contenders above, but the Steelers (vs. the Chargers), the Jets (vs. the Patriots) and the Cowboys (vs. the Ravens) were easy cross-offs. Despite their early success, the Saints (vs. the Eagles) were too risky as well. After that, I could have made a pretty solid argument for and against each of our choices — the Bills, Bengals, Browns, Raiders, Seahawks and Buccaneers. The game theory side of me really wanted to use the Raiders, because I doubt I’ll ever have another chance, but the upgrade to Andy Dalton at quarterback was enough to sway me. The fact that I’ve used the Bills already eliminates them from my role in this game, though you are of course free to use them if you haven’t.
That leaves four teams, and when I’m close on that many, I start to consider who I might want to use later. Well, I had the Seahawks in the playoffs in my preseason predictions, and nothing that has happened so far has swayed me from that, so I’ll save them for later. The Buccaneers certainly look like a competitive-all-year team. And while the Bengals have had yet another disaster start to the season, this is a team that should get better as things go along.
That leaves us with the Browns, and while putting my hopes in the hands of whatever has happened to Deshaun Watson’s quarterback ability, the Giants shouldn’t do much to stop them.
Honorable Mention
Cincinnati Bengals (vs. Washington)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (vs. Denver)
2024 Record: 1-1
Week 1: Bills (W)
Week 2: Ravens (L)
Week 3: Browns
