Last week, we recommended avoiding a relatively big Thursday favorite in survivor pools and passing on the Commanders. Washington wound up being the team to eliminate the most participants in at least one big Vegas pool after Washington surrendered 40 points at home to Chicago. The two clear options for survivor last week were the Dolphins and Lions, and while we initially planned on rolling with the latter, a surprisingly bad injury report for Detroit had us pivot to Miami. Both easily came through, but the decision means we can't use the Dolphins this week against an awful Panthers team. 

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. We may have three double-digit favorites to pick from this week, but I would avoid using the Chiefs out of that pool against the Broncos on Thursday.

The Chiefs should absolutely win the game, considering they have the defending MVP going up against what's been one of the worst defenses ever to start the season. But extremely windy conditions could be in store for Thursday night, and that could be the great equalizer in this game. The Broncos are better at defending the run than the pass, while the opposite is true for the Chiefs, and Denver's run offense has actually looked pretty good for much of the season.

If the windy conditions somewhat neutralize the Chiefs passing attack, which may or may not have a limited Travis Kelce with the quick turnaround, we could see a game with fewer possessions than expected as these teams grind out first downs. The total for the game has been crashing all week, and these types of games have the potential to be much closer than expected.

If you haven't used the Chiefs yet, there will be plenty of good spots to use them this year; I'd pencil them in for Week 16 even if you don't have a separate Christmas Day slate to worry about.

Why listen to me? Well, I was 535-450-30 (+3532) on ATS picks over the last six years and even better with my top five picks each week, going 376-290-24 (56.5%) over the last eight years in the Westgate SuperContest.  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.

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 535-450-30 on ATS picks from 2017-22, returning $3,532 to $100 players!