After five weeks of chaos in NFL survivor pools, anyone making it through that period still alive has gotten a break the last two weeks, with no notable upsets to knock out more than a few contrarian plays. In Circa Survivor, the first five weeks eliminated 14,045 of the 14,266 entries; over the last two weeks, only seven of the remaining 221 were knocked out, with the Falcons and Vikings causing the only two losses in Week 7.

With a number of big favorites on the board in Week 8, survivors will have to determine whether the last two weeks are the new normal or if the chaos of the first five weeks is ready to return.

When looking at your options for Week 8, 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 Ravens against the Browns.

The Ravens look like the clear best team in football, so you can argue it's worth taking them any week you want. But even though they're one of the bigger favorites out there at -9, this isn't the week to play them. For starters, they're on the road in a divisional matchup on a short week, and even in severe mismatches that's the type of spot we should be trying to avoid.

The bottom-tier team they're up against also added some variance to their outcomes with Jameis Winston taking over at quarterback. With Deshaun Watson we knew what we were getting and could feel confident the Browns would have trouble scoring. With Winston, he could throw three touchdowns or three pick-sixes in a given game, and I can always see a game he starts end in a 30-point loss or a win no matter how much of an underdog his team is.

The Browns defense has also stepped up over the last two weeks to keep the team in lower-scoring games against the Eagles and Bengals as massive underdogs. If we get that type of effort again knowing the offense may be able to finally have some success, this could turn into a game where Baltimore scores in the low-to-mid 20s and the Browns are able to steal it with few big plays from Winston.

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 8? 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!