NFL Survivor: Week 12

Last week:
Carolina, W, 31-22
Indianapolis, W, 33-27
Miami, W, 17-15

Not pictured here is the Philadelphia tie, which knocked a bunch of people down from perfect to 10-0-1, essentially eliminating them. We lost 19% of the "perfect" entries, and are down to 5,259.

Teams used (LVSC rank): Philly (13), Tampa (8), NY Giants (1), Jacksonville (20), Dallas (4), Minnesota (16), Houston (25), NY Jets (T6), Chicago (22), San Diego (5), Carolina (9).

Best five teams left: Pittsburgh (2), Tennessee (3), Indianapolis (T6), Arizona (10), Washington (11).

Here are this week's most popular ESPN selections:

Pittsburgh (LVSC #2, vs. CIN)

The table above indicates that nearly one third of the ESPN contestants are on Pittsburgh this week. While that may be the case at the moment, there's no way it ends up being true when all the picks are submitted; the timing of the game is having a huge impact here. The people who have already submitted their picks are more likely to take them, since that's probably the reason some of them made their selection ahead of time. And after their game starts tomorrow night, nobody will even have the option of picking them, so their percentage is bound to decrease significantly. When all is said and done, the Steelers will be this week's most popular team, but I'm guessing they'll end up at somewhere around 24%, with everyone else getting bumped up a bit.

With that in mind, Pittsburgh is the team most likely to win this week. There are some comparable point spreads to their -10.5, but if you look at the money lines, nobody else is close to -625.

Denver (LVSC #18, vs. OAK)

Their are three other spreads over a TD this week (DAL, TB, and CHI), but the Broncos are the only one I have left. Denver is favored by 9.5 and getting about split action; the Bengals are actually getting a decent amount of public love against the Steelers, partially because they played the Eagles to a tie last week as a 9.5 point dog.

As the ESPN consensus numbers currently stand, these two picks are pretty much equal; the Steelers are more likely to win, but they're also a much more popular pick. But when their ESPN % goes down, starting at 8:15 EST on Thursday, there will be more and more value in having taken them. It's kind of strange to think about it that way, since all that will happen after they've won or lost (or tied), but the only number that really matters, in terms of consensus, is the one on Sunday afternoon.

The only thing left to think about is their remaining schedules. Denver hosts the Chiefs in Week 14, but there are various other more appealing games that week, including STL @ ARI, CIN @ IND, and CLE @ TEN. The Steelers play at home against the Browns in the final week of the regular season. Other relevant games that week are STL @ ATL, DET @ GB, and SEA @ ARI. All those games are comparable, although who knows what each of those teams will be playing for; there are always some wacky lines in Week 17.

The Steelers are probably more valuable to save, but it's close, and the difference isn't big enough to cancel out the advantage gained by taking them this week, so I'm going to go with Pittsburgh here.