The beginning of the season for NFL survivor pools was one marked by chaos, where top favorites lost virtually every week and many pools saw reductions down to 10-20% of the initial field after the first 4-6 weeks. Since then, it's been largely chaos-free, and that includes Week 14. But it hasn't necessarily been sweat-free, as the biggest favorite last week, the Eagles, entered the fourth quarter losing to the Panthers before putting what turned out to be the decisive touchdown on the board.

Now we're down to four weeks left in the season with potentially five gameweeks in survivor pools depending on how the Christmas slate is handled, and it should be relatively easy for any survivors to map out a path to Week 18 with their remaining unused teams. That final week of the season is always difficult as it depends on motivation factors not just for eliminated teams, but also those who have playoff spots locked in with little reason to risk the health of key starters. What happens this week in Bills-Lions and Steelers-Eagles could be huge on that front, as those results could help determine whether those top teams will be fighting over seeding in the final week of the season.

When looking at your options for Week 15, it's important to project out the rest of the schedule (hence the point of this weekly column). It's also important to know the format of your pool, as Circa Survivor adds two standalone slates for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even though options are limited at this point of the season, I would try to avoid taking the Cardinals against the Patriots.

The Cardinals were effectively eliminated from the NFC West race after getting swept by the Seahawks, putting them two games behind Seattle before you even get to the lost tiebreaker. When that happens, a team that was beating expectations and making an improbable playoff push can deflate and have trouble getting up for the next week's game with nothing really on the line, even though Arizona is technically still in the wild-card race. The Patriots are a high-variance team with an improving rookie quarterback who could easily march into this matchup and win a shootout after having two weeks to prepare, and that's if the Arizona offense doesn't fall flat off the loss.

Why listen to me? I went 636-534-34 (+4899) on ATS picks from 2017-23 and did even better with my top five picks each week, going 428-327-25 (56.7%) from 2015-23 in the Las Vegas ATS contests. While this doesn't involve picking against the spread, I do believe by applying the strategies I've developed to have long-term success on those picks to survivor pools, we'll be in the best position to outlast the competition this season.  

Below, you'll find my top options for this week as well as a tiered set of options for every week over the rest of the season, including breakouts for the Christmas slate. Let's dig in.

What are the best options to use in survivor pools in Week 15? And which teams should be saved to use later in the season? ... Join SportsLine right now to see NFL Survivor Pool strategy from the expert who's 636-534-34 on ATS picks from 2017 to 2023, returning almost 50 units!