With Week 6 in the books, we had to skirt a lot of one-score games to come out unscathed this week. There wasn’t much offense to be had in most of the Week 6 slate, so the sweat was a little heavier than in most weeks. Between my picks of Las Vegas, Cincinnati, the LA Rams, and, unexpectedly, the Buffalo Bills, all final scores were within a touchdown, and those games came down to the last drive or two of their respective games.

The one landmine was the San Francisco 49ers, who likely knocked out a good chunk of Survivor Pools with their loss to backup quarterback P.J. Walker and the defensive-minded Cleveland Browns. We sure hope you avoided that pick — it wasn’t in last week’s article because the Browns scared me despite what we’ve seen from San Francisco this season — and we hope you’re still alive to get your picks in for Week 7!

We will help you get to the promised land one week at a time with our picks, but in case you’re not familiar with Survivor pools, here’s a quick rundown:

Pick a team that wins in each NFL week. Typically, you choose a team just once, so each selection is incredibly important. Some survivor pools have double-elimination so that you can slip up and still be in the running. Make sure you’re checking out our weekly matchup previews and our Survivor League Strategy in the Fantasy Alarm Draft Guide as guides toward picking the best winners for each week and developing a strategy.

Let’s dive right in with Week 7’s picks!

 

2023 Survival Pool Picks Record

Week 6: 5-0 (1.000)

Overall: 24-6 (.800)

NFL Week 7 DraftKings Odds, Implied Totals, Spreads, and Over/Under

*All lines current as of 11:00 PM ET, 10/18/23, courtesy of Vegas Insider*

NFL Week 7 Survivor Picks

Seattle Seahawks

So we’ve gotten to the point in the NFL season where you have to lay your trust in teams that give you some pause. With six teams on bye and typical favorites like the Dolphins and Eagles playing each other, you’ve got to find some uncomfortable plays and trust the process. The Seahawks are one of those teams, and they get the Cardinals at home, where they’re the second-largest favorite of Week 7 and their implied point total is the third-highest.

Seattle’s home-field advantage could be one of the determining factors of this game, as Cardinals quarterback Joshua Dobbs has come back down to earth a bit after a better-than-expected start to the season. The Cardinals couldn’t score a touchdown against a Rams defense that isn’t exactly setting the world on fire. The public knows this as well, as Seattle is likely to be one of the chalkiest picks of the entire Week 7 schedule.

Green Bay Packers

This one could be a bit dicey, but they go on the road to play a Denver Broncos team that is historically bad on defense, with 33.3 points allowed per game. Jordan Love hasn’t been THAT great lately compared to his first couple of starts, but a key is having their Week 6 bye and also the likelihood of getting Aaron Jones back to help balance out their offense and not having to put everything on the shoulders of Love. They’ll also have a good chance to get Eric Stokes, Darnell Savage, and tackling machine Quay Walker back into the fold on defense. Every little bit helps.

The Packers are only 1.0-point favorites in Denver, but again: we have to have some uncomfortable games to get our confidence in. The Packers won’t be a popular pick with consensus, but with the amount of low-scoring, close point spreads on the Week 7 slate, a couple of upsets could thin out the field dramatically.

Buffalo Bills

The Buffalo Bills beat the Giants 14-9 in a sloppy game, but a win is a win. Even the good teams have to win those. Even heading to Foxboro to play the Patriots, the Bills should have little resistance as they’re the largest favorite of the entire slate, facing a New England team with the lowest implied point total. The Patriots are bad, folks. They can’t score points, Mac Jones can’t play a full game without getting pulled for somebody, and they’ve gotten boat-raced by good teams. This should be one of those instances.

While it’s likely you could have used the Bills already, the Bills are an excellent pick to advance to Week 8 if you haven’t. In a week with fewer elite teams available than usual and six others on bye, this is as good of a time as any to use them.

Other NFL Week 7 Survivor Pool Options

San Francisco 49ers

For San Francisco’s Monday Night Football tilt in U.S. Bank Stadium against the Minnesota Vikings, they’ll be angry they gave up such a winnable game and look to take it out on Minnesota. As long as the key components of their offense, especially Trent Williams (ankle) and Christian McCaffrey (oblique), are active, they should be able to overmatch the Justin Jefferson-less Vikings on national television.

The 49ers enter this game as 7.0-point favorites as the road team and one of the higher implied point totals on a slate (25.5) that doesn’t have many of them. This is likely the last time to use San Francisco if you haven’t; they get some iffy matchups with the Bengals, and then after their bye, they won’t have a safe (relatively speaking) time to play them until Week 15 in Arizona.

Cleveland Browns

Colts quarterback Gardner Minshew was a turnover machine against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 6, throwing three interceptions and losing another fumble. He threw the ball 55 times in Week 6 in a negative game script. That’s honestly insane. The Browns should be able to contain a below-average Indianapolis Colts offense and limit some possessions, whether via their suffocating defense or by turnover. The Browns are giving up 121 passing yards per game and 79 rushing yards per game in their five games so far.

While the Colts are at home and just 2.5-point underdogs, defense typically travels pretty well, which benefits the Browns. They just stifled the consensus best team in the NFL, the 49ers; they’ll be riding high with momentum against a team they should be able to smother. My one slight issue is that the Browns get a much better matchup in Week 9 at home against the Cardinals, but you need to get to Week 9 to play them if you don’t use them here against the Colts.