NFL Week 5 survivor picks: Looking to the NFC North

Last week’s column was a mixed bag. We stayed away from a position on the Green Bay Packers due to a high projected ownership – which proved to be the case – and were nearly rewarded with a huge New England Patriots upset. Oh, what could have been.

Our picks on the Philadelphia Eagles and Indianapolis Colts delivered differing results. The Eagles won comfortably despite making our buttholes pucker after falling behind 14-0 in the first quarter, while the Colts trailed wire to wire, confirming Matt Ryan’s washed status. Half my survivor entries fell by the wayside with Indianapolis, while the other half live on thanks to the Eagles’ overwhelming rushing attack. 

Our picks to avoid also delivered differing results, with the Los Angeles Chargers taking care of business in Houston, while the Detroit Lions were upset at home by the Seattle Seahawks. The Lions weren’t as popular of a pick as expected either, likely for the reasons I stated in the column, centered around their worrying injury report and miserable defense. 

However, it was a game we didn’t touch on – one we had no interest in picking – that did the most damage, with the Pittsburgh Steelers losing late to Zach Wilson’s New York Jets. With 11.4% of remaining Circa Survivor contestants on Pittsburgh, it proved to be Week 4’s biggest casualty.

As we look ahead to Week 5, the landscape changes drastically from the previous two, with an abundance of big favorites to chose from. There are six favorites of at least a touchdown, and 10 with an implied winning probability of 69% or higher. This typically means ownership will be fairly spread out, but we can project certain teams to be higher or lower based on what we know up to this point. 

Before we get into some of my favorite picks, as well as ones to avoid, here’s a look at the Week 5 schedule, with moneyline prices (from Circa, as of Wednesday morning) and implied win percentages.

Pick: Green Bay Packers

I’ve been waiting, patiently, for an opportunity to fade the Giants. This is it.

This is not a good football team – one oddmakers believe is about on par with the Chicago Bears, considering they closed just three-point home favorites against them in Week 4. The schedule has been a joke thus far for the Giants, who played the Tennessee Titans in Week 1, before three consecutive home games against the Carolina Panthers, Cooper Rush’s Dallas Cowboys, and the Bears. Despite that, their underlying metrics are hardly inspiring and they boast a point differential of just plus-five.

The passing game is an unmitigated disaster and is trending the wrong way. Sterling Shepard is out for the year and Kenny Golladay will miss the trip to London, while Wan’Dale Robinson, Kadarius Toney, and Daniel Jones are all battling injuries as well. If early reports are true, Jones is on the right side of questionable for this game, but who’s he going to throw to, Richie James and David Sills? Gross. Even if Toney and Robinson play, this offense is incredibly one-dimensional. This is a significant step up in class for the Giants, who have yet to play anyone close to Green Bay’s caliber. 

The Packers didn’t look all that convincing in beating the Patriots, but got the job done nonetheless. I’m wondering how much of that had to do with them coming off a huge win in Tampa the week prior. Either way, this is a Packers team that’s a consensus top six or seven team in the league right now – likely top five on many people’s power rankings. Simply put: This is a mismatch all over the field for the Giants. 

Now we can say that about a handful of games this week, so why should we be picking the Packers? Well, not many others will, for starters. We know for a fact that 689 of the remaining 1222 Circa contestants picked Green Bay in Week 4. Therefore, at the bare minimum, 56.4% of remaining entries don’t have the Packers available to choose from here. Now that’s completely ignoring the fact that 778 people selected Green Bay in Week 2. We don’t know how many of those 778 survived the two following weeks, but even if it’s just a third we are looking at 259 additional people to the 689 who picked them last week, meaning 78% of the remaining entries do not have the Packers available to them, give or take. I like those numbers.

Pick: Minnesota Vikings

That being said, if we like those, let me paint you another picture: You take the Vikings this week, while another contingent of people – say 15% – take the Packers. Next week rolls around and you’re looking at the options on the board, only to notice Green Bay is hosting the Jets, and just about everyone and their mother has now used the Packers through the first five weeks. Are you intrigued?

It’s not a foolproof plan, of course, because we need to assume a somewhat sizeable contingent picks the Packers this week – hardly a guarantee against the 3-1 Giants – and that’s also assuming a large group of those who already picked Green Bay in Week’s 2 and 4 can survive Week 5. That’s also assuming the Vikings beat the Bears.

We haven’t seen a ton from the Vikings – a team I was very high on coming into the year – to be able to say with any confidence this is a good football team. However, we know a big part of what has plagued them this year is their issues in the secondary. The Bears are perhaps the least equipped team in the NFL to take advantage. This is also a good spot for the Vikings to get their ground game going against a Bears defense that was just gashed for 262 yards (6.0 yards per carry) by the Giants, which would in turn help alleviate some of the pressure on Kirk Cousins.

Based on what we’ve seen from the Vikings through the first month, don’t expect ownership to be high here, either. The truth is we don’t know if this is a good football team. They might be very pedestrian, in fact. If that does prove to be the case, how comfortable will we be picking them down the road? What we do know is this is a very good matchup for them on paper, and the easiest remaining game on their schedule (though home dates with the Jets, Colts, and Giants aren’t terrible, either).

You can’t go wrong this week with the Packers or Vikings. The decision is yours.

Avoid: Buffalo Bills

I’m not going to sit here and try to fabricate reasons why the Bills could lose to the Steelers this week, but there are two very valid reasons to avoid them here:

1. They’ll almost assuredly be the week’s most-picked team.
2. Their future value is greater than any other team, especially considering they play the Lions on Thanksgiving.

For those of you playing in pools that treat Thanksgiving Thursday as its own separate week, saving the Bills until then is ideal. There are so many options to use this team, so why pick them on a week they’ll have the highest projected ownership, while there are a lot of other comfortable favorites on the board. Even if you play in a smaller home league where ownership isn’t an issue and the Thanksgiving slate isn’t its own week, the Bills still should be saved for future use. In weeks where we have options, it’s better to keep the league’s best teams in our hip pocket.

Avoid: Jacksonville Jaguars

I picked against Jacksonville last week, writing how I wasn’t actually sure how good this team really was. The Jaguars looked good through three weeks, but there was a lot working in their favor. I think we learned a lot more about them in Week 4’s loss – this likely is a good football team. They jumped out to a 14-0 lead over the Eagles before turnovers derailed their upset bid in a weird game where weather was a driving force. They were gashed on the ground but the offense was more than respectable against a suffocating Philadelphia defense – though Darius Slay’s injury certainly helped in that regard.

Back home against the Texans this week, it feels like a bit of a letdown spot coming off two emotional and physical road games against the Chargers and Eagles. I keep talking about how the Texans scare me a bit, and while they’re really not doing a whole lot to prove me right, they have the pieces to pull of an upset here. Davis Mills’ home/road splits are stunning, but I’m not ready to put much stock into his miserable road numbers just yet. The variance is very high in this game, with a Jaguars blowout and a Texans outright win both very much in the realm of possibility, so I’m happy to look elsewhere here with there likely to be plenty of support for Jacksonville this week as contestants aim to save teams like the Packers, Buccaneers, and Chiefs. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the Jaguars as the second-most picked team of the week. In fact, I sort of expect it.