If you made it to Week 6 of your NFL survivor pools, you probably made it to Week 7. Despite nine of the 13 non-London games featuring a road favorite, only one underdog was able to pull off the upset, with the Titans falling to the Colts at home. Anyone dead-set on avoiding road favorites may have gotten caught with the Titans, but it's unlikely they were the preferred option for many people as the lowest home favorite on the board.

One big favorite that made it interesting was the one we said to avoid last week, the Eagles, who were tied in the fourth quarter against the abysmal Browns but pulled out the win. The 3-2 Eagles haven't had an easy win all year, even in matchups where they otherwise statistically dominate, so it's going to be tough to trust them against basically anyone if they couldn't easily put away the Browns at home.

When looking at your options for Week 7, 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 they're relatively large favorites, I would avoid taking the Jaguars against the Patriots in London.

The Patriots have been one of the worst teams in the league through six weeks, but so have the Jaguars, who were the last winless team in the league before eking out a win over the Joe Flacco-led Colts in Week 5 in a game that saw the fourth quarter start 20-13 Jaguars and end 37-34 Jaguars on a last-minute field goal. The defense couldn't stop Caleb Williams at all last week, and I wonder if Drake Maye can find similar success despite the Patriots' issues on the offensive line. 

Then we get to the non-matchup related concerns around this game. Rain is expected to be a factor, and when combined with the reported new field in place at Wembley Stadium it makes it hard to anticipate whether the action on the field will look like a regular NFL game or more like the Brazil game with players slipping all over the surface. Variance is the enemy when selecting a team for NFL survivor, and the unpredictable nature of how the elements will affect the game make it a stayaway.

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 7? 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!