Welcome to Week 4 of Betting Life’s NFL Survivor Series! It’s the inimitable Coach Gene Clemons and yours truly, John Laghezza, right here every Thursday with our thoughts, takes and picks to help you outwit, outlast, and outplay the competition.

First up: Laghezza surveys the landscape

The biggest favorites always make the best Survivor starting point. So who’s laying the heaviest Week 4 wood? Four teams (three at home) enter mid-week implying win rates of three out of four…

  • SF vs NE: (-520); 83.9% Implied Probability
  • KC @ LAC: (-425); 81.0% Implied Probability
  • NYJ vs DEN: (-345); 77.5% Implied Probability
  • HOU vs JAX: (-305); 75.3% Implied Probability

So who’s the public on? Four teams aggregate at or near a double-digit selection rate

  • SF vs NE : ~31% Selected — Next 3 vs ARI, @ SEA, vs KC
  • NYJ vs DEN: ~15% Selected — Next 3 @ MIN, vs BUF,  @ PIT
  • DAL @ NYG: ~14% Selected — Next 3 @ PIT, vs DET, BYE
  • HOU vs JAX: ~11% Selected — Next 3 vs BUF, @ NE, vs GB

Note: I pull these numbers and aggregate from several sources, including numberfire, SurvivorGrid, and my own projections.

Takeaways:

The main Week 3 takeaway? Without one iota of exaggeration, that had to be the most destructive single weekend in NFL survivor history. My best description reads like a string of onomatopoeia from the old Batman TV series, BAM! BOOP! ZONK! POWIE! Don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t make it, the shaprest contests are down to under 10% of entrants.

Gene marvels at the carnage

It is like the zombie apocalypse in the survivor world. Believe it or not there are some leagues that are already finished. That's how crazy the first three weeks of the NFL season have been. 

Super Bowl favorites are losing to teams who have been ravaged by injuries. Teams we left for dead are rising like Lazarus to upset teams who were supposed to be can’t miss week three winners. If you're still alive in your league, count yourself among the lucky few — the lucky VERY few — who have waded through the fire and only have some slightly singed areas to show for it. You are the real MVP’s. 

In many survivor formats, Week 4 represents the final week for buy backs, so if you were eliminated and you think you finally have this thing figured out, drop another unit to find out. Besides, if you have, in fact, found the touch, it could be quite lucrative.

Laghezza: “But doctor, I am Pagliacci!” 

Losing’s never funny but in some cases you laugh so not to cry (here's where that Pagliacci joke is from, by the way). But what can you do? The heavy favorites lost. Every one of them. 

We can 20/20 hindsight this thing to death but the fact remains good process is still fallible. You could say the Browns and Raiders entered last week extremely flawed on offense, while the 49ers' injuries mounted too high to bank on — but losing any remaining entries on CIN after that bloodbath tilted me sideways. That Bengals offense, versus that Commanders secondary, at home, coming off an (0-2) start in the world’s most obvious get-right spot in history? It left my mouth agape, staring up at the sky looking for answers.

(Luckily there are leagues with buybacks through Week 3 and other sites like DraftKings that restart every week)

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Gene muses on what went wrong last week

First, let me send a salute to the Giants and the Panthers, who sent a lot of people back to the window. Big Blue was able to make the Browns defense look average and The Red Rocket Andy Dalton took over for Bryce Young and quickly turned the Carolina Panthers into a competent team, sending the Raiders back into realms of the mediocre. 

As my Week 3 choice for survival. I went with the Raiders, believing that their comeback win over the Ravens was a sign that they were turning the corner as a franchise. I also did not believe that the Panthers' issues were all based on who was playing quarterback. 

I was wrong on both accounts.

Instead of using the Ravens game as motivation to come in and crush the Panthers, the Raiders, at home, underestimated Carolina just like the rest of us did. They could not establish a successful run game in the first half like every team the Panthers faced this season have been able to do. They also could not stop the run, as Chuba Hubbard had one of the best rushing performances of his four-year career. That can also be attributed to Andy Dalton’s performance, as his poise and execution of the offense made the Dionte Johnson pickup make a lot more sense. Dalton also made Xavier Legette look like a smart draft pick by the front office. The more success they had passing the ball, the more it opened up lanes in the run game.

Laghezza makes a survivor pick

Give me a mix of vibes and stats for my pick this weekend. Arizona, coming off a tough loss hosts the Commanders in the desert at State Farm Stadium. Rookie Jayden Daniels and the league’s worst defense travel cross-country, where I think Drew Petzing and Kyler Murray will be waiting to scheme them sideways.

Sure, Washington got the win last weekend but you simply can’t play defense like that in the NFL and expect to win games. After three weeks, the Commanders defense ranks 30th or worst in a laundry list of stats including EPA/Play, yards allowed per play, average drive distance, time of possession per drive, opposer passer rating, and drive success rate.

On the flipside, it’s hard not to love the in-out aerial attack of the Cardinals. Through the addition of Marvin Harrison Jr., they’re able to effectively attack any segment of the field. Stretching the defense in this manner makes it impossible to also spy Murray, who’s third in rushing yards at the position. Kyler’s having a fantastic passing season as well, leading the league in TD/INT ratio and second to only Josh Allen in EPA against zone coverage.

The Commanders offense will have their hands full with Nick Rallis’ defense, which frankly isn’t great any anything besides continuously mixing it up. Thing is, constantly throwing stylistic cruveballs leads to the bend-but-don’t-break stands from Arizona holding two experienced QBs on the Rams and Lions to thirty points combined. Cards get back on track (along with my second-chance survivor hopes) this weekend.

(I know it didn’t work last week but I asked A.I. to generate an image of my prediction anyway)

Gene makes a survivor pick

So what now? We fight, that's what! We are gambling — and armed with more information, we look for a must win selection. What we now know is that many teams in the NFL have holes. What we are looking for are the teams who have offensive systems that can take advantage of the defensive holes. 

The Chargers clearly have defensive holes and those holes will be even more evident this Sunday when they face the Chiefs without Derwin James Jr., who is suspended for an illegal hit during the Chargers' 20-10 loss to the Steelers last week.

Not only do the Chiefs have the ability to run the football, their ability to pass the football — which includes a rejuvenated vertical game — makes it more difficult to stop the run. Couple that with the Chiefs' ability to stop the run and rush the passer and this should be a bad matchup for the Chargers.

I'm rolling with a KC Masterpiece!

And man… AI… I'm giving you multiple options below to represent my “KC Masterpiece” — all I wanted was a football player and a referee feeding each other food while hugging by a BBQ. Enjoy!