Friends in football,

After yet another disastrous Week 10, Commish is left with one question...

WHAT DID WEEK 10 DO TO YOU, SURVIVOR GODS?!

The Bengals (69% pick in BIG Survivor) lost. As did the Bills (13%) and Ravens (6%). Suddenly, we're down to just 301.
Check if any of your friends are still alive. Check how your Squad is doing. It just got VERY real.

RESULTS SUMMARY

The BIG Survivor (BFIG) results

• Survival record: 301 survive. 1,427 eliminated
• Worst loss: Bengals (69%) to Texans
• Best Squad: NO squads left with 3+ survivors. Six squads have 32 wins (so, two survivors plus one who went 1-1 in Week 10)

Weekly Pick'em (WeeWoo) results

• Weekly winner: How do you go 13/14 in a week like this, @earlthesnake?! Earl only missed CLE over BAL
• Best Squad: What? A back-to-back leader?! All hail "Mom Said So" - still on top with 299 wins
• Overall leader: @Jricci1491 and @otis held the top spot by each going 9-5. @LuckyStrikes moved within 1 by going 11-3

Survivor #2 results

• Survival record: 366 survivors. 1,230 eliminated
• Best Squad: Also ZERO perfect squads. Five have 26 wins (two survivors, plus one who went 1-1 in Week 10)

Survivor #3 results

• Survival record: 1,761 survivors. 742 eliminated
• Best Squad(s): After two weeks, 75 squads have 3+ survivors

QB One-and-Done results

• Top passer: Dak (and his backup) put up 472 against a woeful Giants effort (422 picks)
• Weekly average: 315 yards per pick (73 yards above the average QB performance - our second best week ever)
• Best Squad: "BLOODGATE" isn't letting up. They're at 9,860 yards - 527 above "Blindfolded Dart Throwers"
• Overall leader: @dcwiek is back on top (by TWO yards over @RM5589) thanks to a solid Burrow week (347 yards)
• Interval 2 leader: @Redslurpy has an absurd 1,690 yards through four of Interval 2's six weeks

Loser Survivor Brought to You by The OddsBreakers results

• Survival record: 27 survivors. 101 eliminated
• Worst win: Browns (53%) beat Ravens
• Best Squad: The two squads atop the standings have ZERO survivors left. So it's very likely we see a new squad or two rise to the top. "Lake Meaders" is in pole position

"All 32" One-and-Done results

• W/L record: 3,048-1,912
• Overall leader: Down to just 6 perfects. If any of them go 2/2 this week, Commish's "zero perfects by Thanksgiving" prediction will be wrong!
• Best Squad: "Buter squad" is on top for another week at 43 (out of a possible 48) wins. Impressive!

COMMISH COMMENTARY

The Bengals were just a 9% pick in Survivor #3, which speaks to the power of saving teams.

As Commish wrote in the Week 10 PICKS email, a whopping 89% of BIG survivors who had Dallas available, used the Cowboys.

Dallas was a massive favorite over the hapless Giants, and the game was over by halftime.

The huge spread between Bengals pick rates in BIG Survivor (69%) and Survivor #3 (9%) tells you that we weren't NEARLY as confident in the Bengals beating the Texans as the BFIG pick rate suggested.

In any case, the carnage combined with the number of losses in brutal fashion makes Week 10, 2023 one of our toughest weeks ever.

Those brutal losses:

• Bengals: WR Tyler Boyd (who had a great game otherwise) dropped a late 4th quarter TD that would have forced the Texans to score a TD instead of a FG to win.
• Bills: The Broncos missed the potential game-winning kick but the Bills (clearly) had 12 men on the field. Denver kicker Will Lutz made the second attempt.
• Ravens: Baltimore coughed up a 14-point lead midway through the 4th quarter in large part thanks to a tipped pass that went RIGHT to a Browns DB running at full speed toward the other end zone. Pick 6.

All three of those teams were heavily picked. (It's not funny anymore, Survivor Gods!)

Commish wants to hear your takes on Weekly Pick'em strategy if you're 5-10 games back of the Overall lead.

I ask because we've done enough pick'ems to know that, at this stage, the Overall leaders just pick the Vegas favorites in ~every matchup, every week.

That's a sound strategy, after all, if you're simply trying to not lose ground. Let your chasers take the risks, and go down if/when those risks misfire.

This leads to Commish's question: If you're 5 to 10 games back, then, and picking all Vegas favorites won't help you (because you'll just have the same picks as the leaders), what's the optimal strategy? Is it...

Pick one week to "make your move" and pick 4-5 upsets, hoping you crush it and gain 3-5 wins on the leaders?

Aim to slowly gain 1-2 wins every week, by getting "toss-up" games right and/or correctly picking 1-2 mild upsets (2-4 point underdogs)?

#2 sounds better (right?), but in practice I think it's REALLY hard to outperform like that 3, 4, 5 weeks in a row. And if you MISS on those 1-2 upset picks, you're even farther back.

Thoughts? Theories? Did I miss an option? Reply with your take!

Commish joked in the Week 10 PICKS email that if Jameis Winston entered the game Sunday, we were doomed.

I AM SO SORRY.

I feel like I spoke it into existence. Jameis replaced the injured Derek Carr, IMMEDIATELY introduced massive chaos into that Saints-Vikings game (2 TDs and 2 INTs in one half), and ensured y'all didn't forget that Jameis = Survivor destruction.

Jameis, literally in any form. If you ever see Jameis Winston and he looks you in the eye, kiss your survivor season goodbye. Might as well not pick.

BFIG pays 700 places and 1,222 of you tied for 302nd by going 1-1 in Week 10.

Per the official rules - and every pool has this rule in a very similar form - in the event a massive number of people tie for the final places (this qualifies!), we can either split the 302nd-700th money ($9,970) between all 1,222 of you, or run a tiebreaker pickoff to determine 302nd through 700th (the pickoff would be the Weekly Pick'em for Week 11).

I will send the 1,222 of you a separate email dedicated to this, confirming our decision and what is required of you.

Yours in football,
The Commish