After a week where the consensus favorite took care of business, Week 5 brought about more chaos as the top two consensus picks lost as double-digit favorites. Both the 49ers and Seahawks were in a lookahead spot with a big game against each other coming up the following Thursday. While some weirdness was at play in both losses (49ers losing their kicker and the opportunity at what probably would've been the decisive field goal; Seahawks having a field goal attempt to tie in the final minute blocked and returned for a touchdown), it's hard to argue either necessarily deserved to win after getting out-gained per play by opponents they were supposed to dominate.

So where does that leave us? In Circa Survivor, only 1.55% of the field remains after just five weeks. In smaller competitions where the initial field was fewer than 100 entries, it's possible a winner is already crowned or two people are head-to-head. The options available for anyone remaining in an NFL survivor pool have to be wildly disparate considering the likely spread of teams that pushed people through each week. For example, the Bears were the most popular team among survivors last week, but the 0-4 Jaguars and the tough-to-trust Broncos were the next two up. The top team alphabetically remaining in Circa has used the Cardinals, Falcons, Broncos, Chargers and Jets -- imagine telling someone coming into the season that group would've gotten you through the first five weeks, while teams like the Bengals and 49ers repeatedly eliminated large portions of the field.

When looking at your options for Week 6, 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. With big favorites falling left and right, I would avoid taking the Eagles against the Browns.

The Eagles should come out of their bye healthy after missing A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smitha and Lane Johnson in the ugly loss to the Buccaneers, so the expectation is that they'll score a bunch of points and run away with this game. But Philadelphia has yet to have a decisive win this season. First, they edged out the Packers in Brazil despite giving up 7.1 yards per play, then the defense flailed again in a loss to the Falcons. The Eagles dominated the Saints statistically but refused to score points in what ended up being another close win, then the defense went back to getting smoked by the Bucs the following week.

In several of those Eagles games, you can see the defense was a major problem, but if the Browns couldn't score points against the Commanders, surely the Eagles defense should put together a good game here, right? You'd think so, but what happens if the Browns offensive line starts to get healthy for this game and does a better job than expected of holding off the Eagles defensive front? Or what if the Commanders defense is just better, which has to be considered with how poorly the Eagles defense ranks across the board in a number of statistical categories? It's also possible Nick Chubb returns and gives the offense a major boost against an Eagles unit that ranks 28th in yards per rush allowed, making Cleveland less reliant on Deshaun Watson.

There are plenty of paths here to the Browns finally playing better than a basement-level offense against what's been a bad defense to date, and if A.J. Brown is a little rusty after sitting out for a month, or if DeVonta Smith can't get cleared and the Eagles passing game isn't as dynamic as expected, the Eagles could be the latest team to disappoint survivor pools that have made it this far against the odds.

Why listen to me? I'm 636-534-34 (+4899) on ATS picks over the last seven years and even better with my top five picks each week, going 428-327-25 (56.7%) over the last nine years 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 Thanksgiving/Black Friday and Christmas slates. Let's dig in.

What are the best options to use in survivor pools in Week 6? 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!