We warned you about taking the Packers and Chargers last week.
It was another week of strong showings by favorites, but Week 5 is different as we prepare for the return of bye weeks.
The Falcons, Bears, Packers and Steelers won’t be playing this week, so if you’ve survived up to this point you will need to get through to Week 6 without those teams.
Check out our favorite Week 5 survivor plays and Top 10 confidence rankings.
| Confidence | Game/Team |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lions (-9.5) @ Bengals |
| 2 | Colts (-6.5) vs. Raiders |
| 3 | Cardinals (-8.5) vs. Titans |
| 4 | Bills (-8.5) vs. Patriots |
| 5 | Rams (-5.5) vs 49ers |
| 6 | Vikings (-4.5) @ Browns |
| 7 | Chargers (-2.5) vs. Commanders |
| 8 | Chiefs (-3.5) @ Jaguars |
| 9 | Eagles (-4.5) vs. Broncos |
| 10 | Seahawks (-3.5) vs. Buccaneers |
| 11 | Ravens (-3.5) vs. Texans |
| 12 | Giants (+1.5) vs. Saints |
Welcome to the Jared Goff business.
Unless the Bengals make a trade, Jake Browning and the rest of the team will continue to be outperformed by the competition as he is not a legitimate starter in the NFL.
The Lions are your top play this week by far, despite the rest of the spreads making it look decently reasonable to take a team like the Cardinals instead.
How about this? The Lions are currently No. 2 in DVOA in the NFL; that’s how good they’ve been this year.
The Bengals are No. 30 in DVOA, which is a nightmare spot for them. At least 30 percent of entries should be on the Lions this week.
Do not take the Eagles this week.
To say I don’t like the Eagles this week would be an understatement; I actually have the Broncos moneyline as a separate bet.
The Denver Broncos are No. 1 in the NFL in net yards per play, showing a terrific balance between offense and defense. The Eagles are 30th in that same statistic.
A wild reality. The Eagles are solid, but no advanced metric indicates they are as good as their record suggests.
Philadelphia is No. 12 in DVOA, while the Broncos are No. 9.
Big marbles play of the week. Do you believe in Jaxson Dart?
The Saints are No. 31 in DVOA, while the Giants are No. 28.
One thing I think I really underestimated was the return of left tackle Andrew Thomas.
This is why I think you could do much worse than a survivor pick on the Giants; this will be your only chance ever to use them.
The Giants’ defense had the best pass rush win rate in NFL history last week, while the Saints’ offensive line is ranked 27th in pass block win rate.
Big Blue’s defense is a way more intriguing play in Survivor pools than you are giving it credit for.
Erich Richter is a brazilian jiu-jitsu blue belt but he has a black belt in MMA betting. During the football season he’s showcased massive profits at The Post in the player prop market the last two seasons. While constantly betting long shots, his return on investment is 30.15 percent since 2022.