Dr. Bob’s Week 4 NFL Survivor Strategy
Welcome back to Dr. Bob’s Weekly Survivor Strategy blog. We retained our perfect record across recommended survivor picks – 3-0 on EE-favorite and 3-0 on Contrarian – with both EE-favorite Buffalo and Contrarian Kansas City cruising to easy wins. Unfortunately, we lost 3 of our 10 Circa Survivor entries, one of which (Atlanta) lost decisively, while the other two (both on Green Bay) lost painfully due to a blocked FG in the final minute of regulation. Our 7 remaining entries have a combined equity of $9,485.
While dropping out of 30% of our pools isn’t ideal, our pick subscribers benefited last week, as our Strong Opinion on the Browns +7.5 cashed comfortably. NFL plays are now 475-352-9 (57.4%) on Best Bets and 354-294-15 (54.6%) on Strong Opinions since 2016, when we switched to using advanced metrics derived from play-by-play data. To get access to our picks, you can purchase a weekly or a season-long subscription here.
On to our picks for this week:
Our EE-Optimal Selection: The New England Patriots (vs. CAR)
(Win Prob: 73%, Pick Prob: 8%)
I’m sure some readers expected us to take the other heavy AFC East favorite, Buffalo, as our EE-selection of the week (for the third week in a row). It is true that a selection on the Bills this week does provide positive EE, with their 90%+ expected win percentage, but that is balanced out by the large portion (~25%) of the field that is expected to be selecting Buffalo. On the other end of the spectrum, the Patriots have a lower expected win percentage of 73%, but a similarly low expected pick percent of only 8%. These balance out and we have the Pats as only slightly less EE-positive than the Bills. Typically, when a weaker team is a heavy favorite, they would command a much larger portion of the field, but we believe many entries will save New England for weeks when they could be 7+ point favorites (Week 8 vs. the Browns, or Week 11 vs. the Jets) or skip them entirely. This might be the best value we will get on the Pats all season.
The Contrarian Play: The Los Angeles Rams (vs. IND)
(Win Prob: 69%, Pick Prob: 2%)
You might want to take a deep breath for this one. By all accounts, the Rams should have pulled an upset over the Eagles last week – but they ended up being the second team to lose due to a blocked field goal in less than an hour! They led Philly for most of the game by limiting Saquon and the run game, which we expect them to do again versus Jonathan Taylor and Indy this week. The Colts are hot, but we think the Rams are hotter right now – through three weeks, the Rams have a +7.8% net success rate compared to the Colts’ +5.8% net success rate. We think many people are underestimating LA, and that creates value, but only if you are brave enough to fade hot Indy!
The 90% Optimal Portfolio
Now that we no longer have all 10 of our entries remaining, we are going to switch up this section to show the optimal addition to your portfolio for each additional entry. If you have only 1 entry, take the first team, if you have 7, select the first 7, and if you have all 10 remaining, take them all.
For details on our selection strategy for our 90% Optimal Portfolio, see our Week 1 Blog Post.
| Selection | Team |
| 1 | BUF |
| 2 | NE |
| 3 | HOU |
| 4 | DET |
| 5 | DEN |
| 6 | BUF |
| 7 | LA |
| 8 | GB |
| 9 | NE |
| 10 | HOU |
Since we have 7 entries remaining, this will be our portfolio:
| Team | Num |
| BUF | 2 |
| NE | 1 |
| HOU | 1 |
| DET | 1 |
| DEN | 1 |
| LA | 1 |
Appendix:
Expected Team Pick Probability for Week3 in Circa Survivor:
| Team | Predicted Pick % | Team | Predicted Pick % |
| BUF | 25.5% | JAX | 0.2% |
| HOU | 23.9% | IND | 0.1% |
| DET | 13.7% | DAL | 0.1% |
| DEN | 8.1% | CHI | 0.1% |
| GB | 8.1% | TEN | 0.1% |
| NE | 7.7% | NYJ | 0.1% |
| LAC | 5.7% | ATL | 0.1% |
| LA | 2.0% | CAR | 0.1% |
| SF | 0.9% | CIN | 0.1% |
| MIA | 0.8% | NO | 0.1% |
| MIN | 0.5% | CLE | 0.1% |
| WAS | 0.3% | NYG | 0.1% |
| PHI | 0.2% | SEA | 0.1% |
| BAL | 0.2% | PIT | 0.1% |
| ARI | 0.2% | TB | 0.1% |
| LV | 0.2% | KC | 0.1% |
| NO PICK | 0.001% |