NFL Week 3 survivor pool picks, strategy: To use or save the Packers?

Greetings, survivors! If you’re here, we’ll assume you’re still alive in your NFL survivor pool and ready to marinate on the best strategy to beat all your friends and become the sole survivor wherever your pool’s road ends.

Our survivor columnists, Renee Miller and Adam Gretz, will get more into this below, but this year has been quite smooth sailing so far, with the seven most popular picks winning in Week 1 and nine (9!) most popular picks winning in Week 2.

How long until a top-five survivor pick goes down? Will it happen this week? Let’s get into it.

Week 3 strategy

Adam and Renee will avoid writing about the most-used teams from previous weeks to serve the largest number of readers. But where relevant, they’ll still advocate for or against a previously popular team, because not everyone will have used them.

Highest percentage by week: Denver Broncos (W), Baltimore Ravens (W)

Renee: Another positive week in Survivorland! Surpassing Week 1’s results, the top nine picked teams all won in Week 2. We might start to get a little complacent here, making picks carelessly and assuming oddsmakers will never be wrong again. It’s easy to fall into recency bias, where we assign the most weight to the most recent game when making decisions. The NFL is an ever-changing landscape, though, and injuries are going to factor heavily into Week 3’s outcomes.

While we don’t want to get complacent, we don’t want to be too suspicious of these positive results either. The better teams are supposed to win, after all. It’s a fine line to walk, especially early in the season when we’re still figuring out who’s for real. The Jets? Not so much. The Packers? I believe! One of the best ways to toe this line is to carefully consider what information you’re buying into when making your decisions. Obviously, Vegas does the heavy lifting here in setting the lines, so it’s important not to double-count factors like win record, home field advantage, historical performance, weather, etc. We all do it, but it’s worth a check-in to make sure you’re being objective and applying the same information filters across the league.

For Week 3 strategy specifically — I will say it a thousand times — you don’t get to make the tough decisions in Week 12 unless you win now. We provide a couple of contrarian options for those in massive pools, but we don’t love them. We don’t use them in our own pools. Both of our contrarian picks lost last week (Pittsburgh and Miami). There are a couple of teams I’m actively trying to save for the end run, but without sacrificing some sense of security now. Those teams are Buffalo and Baltimore.

In Week 1’s article, I talked about breaking the season into thirds, and I have a couple of teams highlighted for use in the middle third too (Detroit, Green Bay and LA Chargers). These aren’t set in stone, of course, but they provide a way for me to narrow down my “use now” options. I went back and forth between two heavy favorites … see below for why I’m rolling with Seattle instead of Tampa Bay.

Adam: The start of this season is pretty much a complete 180 from the start of the 2024 season. Last year, the first two or three weeks were defined by massive upsets that absolutely decimated most pools early on and burned everybody who thought they were getting easy wins. This year? Not so much. Pretty much everybody who was supposed to win has won. Upsets have been few and far between, especially on the larger scale. But make no mistake, they are coming. This is the NFL, where any given Sunday rules apply. It’s just a matter of who it is going to be and when it happens.

You don’t need to shy away from big favorites, but just understand that sometimes it’s not going to go your way.

Quarterback injuries are also a huge game-changer, and the early season has been brutal for that with Joe Burrow, J.J. McCarthy, Brock Purdy, Jayden Daniels and Justin Fields all dealing with injuries. That can turn potential favorites into underdogs really fast. That might play a big role in my contrarian pick for the week, while for my chalk pick, I am still going to trust one of the big favorites and trust that the big upset won’t happen in that game.

Week 3 chalk picks

The table below lists the five most popular survivor picks for Week 3 from Yahoo Fantasy, with the percentage of pick distribution for each of those teams as well as the point spread, from BetMGM, for each of their games as of Sept. 17.

Adam: Green Bay Packers over Cleveland Browns

I think I am a believer in the Packers this season. I know it’s only two weeks, and there can still be some noise in the early-season results, but this was already a good team that added one of the best defensive players in football to its roster.

I like Jordan Love.

I love the way their defense has looked with Micah Parsons.

I am pretty sure they will make a lot of noise in the NFC this season.

But I also think I am going to strike while the iron is hot with them and take advantage of a great matchup this week against a Cleveland Browns team that just looks ... awful. Really awful.

Renee mentioned the Packers as a team to maybe save for the middle third of the season, and I can absolutely see — and support — doing that, but I look at Green Bay’s upcoming schedule over the next five to six weeks and I see a handful of 50-50 games where I am not as confident in them as I am this week.

We are still at a point in the season where you just want to get to next week, and for me, personally, I’ve only used the Broncos, Rams and now Packers as my main picks. I still have Baltimore, Detroit, Buffalo and Philadelphia sitting in my back pocket, as well as Kansas City if the Chiefs ever figure things out. Along with that, I still see a handful of favorable matchups in the coming weeks that don’t involve any of those contenders that could be safer picks in Weeks 4 and 5.

All of that together has me jumping on what looks to be one of the most favorable matchups of the week.

Renee: Seattle Seahawks over New Orleans Saints

Your first question might be, "Why not Buffalo?" They are the biggest favorite of the week. On a short week, even at home against a Dolphins team I (rightly) disrespected in last week’s article, I see better spots to use the Bills in the future. Seattle is coming off an impressive road win over the Steelers in Week 2, while New Orleans is 0-2 so far this season, losing home games to Arizona and a backup San Francisco 49ers team. Perhaps most importantly, the Seahawks are healthy.

Seattle has offensive depth that is vastly more talented than the Saints. We saw a resurgent game from Kenneth Walker III, the emergence of rookie Tory Horton, who got a ton of preseason love from the Seahawks training camp staff and reporters, as well as solid performances from Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Cooper Kupp. This is a resilient team that might be better on defense this year. They held a healthy 49ers team to 17 points and then did the same to a Steelers team that scored 34 points in Week 1.

Turnovers have been a concern, but they are forcing as many as they are making, which creates a neutral situation. I do think they’ll flip the script against a Saints defense that should struggle to contain the pass. New Orleans has given up the second-most passing touchdowns this season, which bodes well for Sam Darnold, who is coming off a prolific game in Week 2.

Alvin Kamara continues to be a workhorse for the Saints, but Spencer Rattler is still very much in the “figuring things out” phase of his development. No receiver has really emerged as his go-to guy. I expect Seattle to create pressure and force mistakes at home this Sunday, contributing to a relatively easy win … for us all. After Denver and Dallas the first two weeks, I want a no-sweat win! Seeing that 91 percent of the money and 79 percent of the bets are coming in on Seattle boosts my confidence in this W.

Week 3 contrarian picks

Renee: Minnesota Vikings over Cincinnati Bengals

Injury city here! What should have been an exciting matchup between offensive powerhouses is going to be anything but, with myriad injuries derailing these two teams in Week 2. The Bengals managed to pull out a win over Jacksonville after Joe Burrow left the game, but it wasn’t pretty. Minnesota struggled throughout the game against Atlanta Sunday night, not just after J.J. McCarthy was injured, but I still think they could be a viable contrarian pick this week.

This comes down to defense and a particular mismatch. Cincinnati has no defense, if I’m being blunt. Minnesota’s run defense left a lot to be desired against the Falcons, but here’s the mismatch: The Bengals are dead last in the league with only 47 rushing yards per game. That’s not to disparage the Browns’ run defense, which is likely as good as it looked, but the Jaguars, I’m not buying. So if Minnesota can keep Jake Browning in check, they’ve got a decent chance here.

Both backup QBs, Browning and Carson Wentz, will have a full week to run with the starters during practice, which may clean things up. I’ll give Wentz the edge here as this will be nothing new for him, having started for six different teams over the last six seasons. We’ve seen that Justin Jefferson can get things done regardless of who’s under center, and we may finally see a fully unleashed Jordan Mason for the Vikings.

The Vikings are currently three-point favorites, but both the money and the bets are divided evenly between these two teams. It’s a risky move, but Minnesota has a challenging schedule ahead (outside of maybe Cleveland in Week 5), so if you’re hell-bent on not picking a popular team this week, let’s go Vikings!

Adam: Las Vegas Raiders over Washington Commanders

A lot of this comes down to the availability of Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels. He suffered a knee injury in the Commanders’ Week 2 loss to the Packers, and that might force Marcus Mariota into the starting lineup.

Do I love the Raiders?

No. Not really. But this doesn’t have to be your main pick or even one of your top picks for the week. We’re looking at contrarian, against-the-grain teams here in this section.

Having said that, I also don’t love the Commanders without Daniels. They always looked like a team that was set up for a regression this season, even with him, and if you remove him from the equation, or if he’s even less than 100 percent, that is a game-changer in the wrong direction. He is the engine that makes that whole team run, and no disrespect to Mariota, but he is not having that same impact as a passer or runner.

And that doesn't even take into account the injury to starting running back Austin Ekeler.

The Raiders have been really stout against the run through the first two weeks, while the Commanders are giving up more than 100 yards per game on the ground.

Keep an eye on the injury situation with Daniels. If he is out or limited in any way, I could see a scenario where Pete Carroll turns this game into a rock-fight running game and grinds out an ugly win on the road. And the more good teams you can save for yourself, the better you will be in the long run.

(Photo of Micah Parsons: John Fisher / Getty Images)

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