The NFL is back for Week 5 and while we’re not in the dog days of the season, things are looking good for a long time. It seems that once we enter October, the next benchmark will be the Thanksgiving slate. The trade deadline happens before that, but it’s not the same as the MLB or NBA trade deadlines as the main benchmark of the season. Once we get to Thanksgiving, we hit the playoff race in earnest.
We have a pretty tough schedule for most of Week 5, but the latter part of it could be interesting. The slate later in the afternoon is light, but highlighted by 49ers-Seahawks up in Seattle. Sunday Night Football features the Ravens against a suddenly interesting Falcons team. Monday Night Football wraps up the Bills-Rams week, which is a preseason Super Bowl pick for many people.
I’m back with my week 5 Survivor picks ahead of Bucs-Cowboys Thursday Night Football. Survivor involves picking a team each week to win. If you win, if you lose, in most cases, you’re out. I’m in a pool with four entries, but it’s also a double-elimination pool. I lost one entry after taking the Chargers and Bucs in the first two weeks. I lost to the Bucs in another one but it was only one strike, so I’m still alive with that one and no strikes in my other two. I made two Vikings picks and a Ravens pick last week to keep chugging along.
Below I have a look at the safest picks, best value picks, and then trap picks. I’ll post my own picks at the end. I’ll update on Sunday once I’ve locked in my three picks for the weekend.
I’ve included odds for the favorite in each game, courtesy of FanDuel.
Cowboys (-8) over Buccaneers
The Bucs gave the Packers a hard time last week, but for now it’s safe to say that Jalon Daniels isn’t a good answer while Baker Mayfield is on the sidelines. This will be a very popular pick even in the short week, but it makes sense in the matchup.
Cowboys over Bucs will be popular, so if you want to get really crazy, you can roll the Falcons if Lamar Jackson doesn’t play. He sprained his ankle on Sunday and has an “outside chance” to play. If you want to get some peanuts at this stage, pick the Falcons if Lamar is inactive. The one downside to this option is that the game is Sunday Night Football. If we don’t know before the 1 pm games exactly what Jackson’s status is, you should probably stay away.
The Eagles will be without both Saquon Barkley and Tank Bigsby. With DeVonta Smith also questionable for Sunday, it’s easy to see why people will be rooting for the Jaguars this weekend. It’s a London game, so it raises all sorts of red flags taking the favourite.
I don’t want to spend all three picks on the Cowboys, but there is a non-zero chance that will happen. The short week offers a banner, but the Bucs are really bad right now. If the Cowboys go down in this game, this could be the week that blows up a lot of Survivor pools.