What a season it’s been for the survivor upsets. Cleveland over Tampa earlier this year. Last week, the Dallas Cowboys lost inexplicably on Thursday Night Football to those same Buccaneers and wiped out all sorts of survivor plays. Whether you are still alive, on your second life, or entering a second chance pool, we’ll keep navigating this wild and fun game we all love as we try to survive to the next week. Let’s get into this week’s Weekly Sweat and make our NFL survivor picks for Week 6.
Unfortunately, last week I locked up the Dallas Cowboys. I was issued a stern warning in the SGPN Newsletter (sign up here) by our editor, Adam Pelletier, that I’d receive a reprimand for breaking SGPN’s golden rule of picking the Cowboys if I was wrong. I’ve taken my lashes off and just want to say Josh Allen’s comeback Monday night was maybe the best we’ve ever seen. It also cashed a massive parlay for me that eased the pain of the survivor pool loss.
The Confidence Playbook: NFL Confidence Pool Picks Week 6
The Upset Factory: College Football Upset Parlay Week 7
Now that we’ve gotten that silly business out of the way, it’s on to Week 6. The Los Angeles Rams are going to be the popular pick this week, and I’m done with popular picks. They are a beat-up team on a short week off an overtime game, facing a divisional opponent. Yes, they should easily beat the Cardinals. However, there are plenty of other good options this week. We’ll keep the “super team” in our pockets for later.
The Lock: New England Patriots
The returns are in. New England is a good team, and Drake Maye is back to his MVP-candidate ways of last season. They did it against the greatest regular-season team ever, the Buffalo Bills, but he does it even better against bad teams. Enter the New York Jets. They opened the season with an impressive win over the Tennessee Titans, who we now know are one of the worst teams in the league. Since then, they haven’t looked great. They did pull off a 17-12 win over the Cleveland Browns last week, but let’s not kid ourselves.
The Patriots won in dominating fashion last week against the Las Vegas Raiders. Beating them so badly they were forced to put in Fernando Mendonza because there was nothing left to play for. Like the Texans last week, who were our backup pick (and hopefully the one you took), they own this division, mate. New England has won 18 of the last 20 over the Jets. They’ll dominate them once again this weekend in Foxborough.
The Backup: Kansas City Chiefs
Kansas City is hosting the Los Angeles Chargers at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, this weekend. It’s a match of two teams in very different spots. Kansas City is 4-0 and has people talking about them like they’re in their Super Bowl season. Los Angeles has struggled. They are 0-5 and just look lost. They can’t get anything clicking on offense, and the defense hasn’t been much better. The Chargers are a beat-up team. Kansas City is coming off a bye, and this is where Andy Reid thrives. He is 22-5 straight up off a bye week. There is nobody better in the game with rest than Kansas City’s head man. Mix that in with home field advantage and the trajectory of these two teams, and it’s a great play.
The Degen Special: Indianapolis Colts
I don’t know if fading the Titans falls into the “Degen” category. But, as I mentioned in the opening, there are a few great options this week that aren’t the chalk play. Tennessee is a bad football team. Between them and Miami, it’s hard to discern which is worse. Indianapolis hasn’t been the most impressive team each week, but they’ve been a solid squad. The Colts took Kansas City to overtime in Arrowhead and defeated a tough Houston Texans team in a close thriller of a game. There aren’t too many spots you can trust this team, so this may be the best spot to burn them if you are feeling a little risky.
Official Week 6 NFL Survivor Play: Patriots
Official Play Teams Used:
Week 1: Jaguars
Week 2: Buccaneers
Week 3: Chiefs
Week 4: Vikings
Week 5: Cowboys
