Last week in this space, we pointed to the Baltimore Ravens as the big favorite to avoid, noting that the Browns had a wide range of outcomes after turning to Jameis Winston following the season-ending injury to Deshaun Watson. Good Jameis showed up against the Ravens, who were missing key personnel in the secondary, and the Browns won as big underdogs.

Fortunately, it appears the few people able to survive through the wildness of the first seven weeks of the 2024 NFL season were able to pretty easily sniff that one out, as Baltimore eliminated less than 3% of the remaining field in Circa Survivor. The Jets and Dolphins each eliminated slightly more, and had most of the field not already used Aaron Rodgers' team, they would've led this column as the team to avoid. I don't know how they could be trusted to beat anyone on the road right now.

When looking at your options for Week 9, 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 Bills against the Dolphins.

While the Bills have put together two seemingly easy wins over the last two weeks, neither featured them playing particularly well in the first half. They trailed against the Titans at halftime after four of their five first-half drives went nowhere, and then they were a few Seattle miscues near the Buffalo goal-line away from that one being tied at halftime as two Seahawks drives that got inside in the 5-yard line resulted in a total of three points.

The Dolphins offense finally returned to functionality with Tua Tagovailoa back at quarterback last week, but the Miami defense couldn't hold up its end of the bargain in the second half, turning a two-score lead in the fourth quarter into a loss. That doesn't bode well against an offense as strong as Buffalo's, but when you have a potent passing attack like Miami has when things are going right, its opponent can lose a shootout regardless of how good a team it is. The final score of this game could be 41-20 either way and I wouldn't be that surprised.

If you're a survivor who still has the Bills available, better to save them for later in the season and deploy them against the Patriots in Week 16 or possibly even the Jets in Week 17 depending on how that team looks at the end of the season.

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 Thanksgiving/Black Friday and Christmas slates. Let's dig in.

What are the best options to use in survivor pools in Week 9? 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!