NFL 2025 Survivor Pool Journey - Mapping Out The Season And Your Week 5 Pick
We move on to Week 5 with our single survivor pool entry left. Easy going Monday Night victory for the Broncos which felt good considering every popular ticket Sunday at least had to sweat it out in the first half. Until the Saints called the sad Phaily Special at the goal line, the slam dunk sure-fire winning Bills were pretty much playing down to their opponent. This is hard to do when that opponent is the New Orleans Saints. Then you had the Texans only up 6-0 on the "we ass" Titans until the 4th quarter, and even the Lions didn't start super amazing at home vs the Browns.
Thank god we shifted from Chargers at Giants. That was your big bust of the week - although nothing in comparison to Green Bay in Week 3. Still big enough to knock 54 people out of my league.
Shout out to the six people in here that are probably still behind on the Joe Burrow injury thing. As for Green Bay - I'm not sure what the norm is for dealing with ties, but this league doesn't eliminate you outright. Instead - you're just kind of a dead man walking. Anyone picking them now has to pick three games in Week 5 and get them all correct. All with the penalty of not being able to pick any of those teams moving forward.
But let's get to this. Here's the possible game selections we have going on this week.
LIONS at Bengals
This would certainly be the most popular pick had 29% of leagues not picked the Lions vs the Browns just last week. I still can't help but think it might be the most popular pick again in Week 5 in spite of it. That's how lopsided this matchup has presented itself to be with the ineptitude of the Bengals offense being the ugliest, most stomach turning thing anyone saw on Monday Night Football.
Seeing as the Lions have proven themselves as Super Bowl contenders through four weeks, this would be a nice game to fade in the event of "NFL makes no sense" magic coming once again to fruition. But I'm going to be honest. It's going to hard not to take this "easy" win.
COLTS vs Raiders
It's been a little difficult figuring out what the Raiders are so far, but I think we can finally say this team is not playable and you can fuck with them. So I'm keeping them right there for the foreseeable future. And with that - let's revise those team tiers accordingly.
The Bengals and Titans are the clear rear-runners of the league separating themselves handily from extremely bad teams like the Dolphins and Saints. But from here on, we should probably just pick all the teams playing them. At least for until Joe Burrow comes back. Which will be while.
VIKINGS vs Browns (London)
Well, I circled this one before making/referring to the tier chart and it appears both these teams are not playable, but don't fuck with certified. So I guess I'm laying off even though the Browns are just an absolute mess on offense. The problem is they might have a Ray Lewis era Ravens level defense and that means wild things can happen. Especially when Carson Wentz is on the field. You know what, the more I try to talk myself into taking the Vikings the more I actually start thinking about taking the Browns.
That's not a good feeling to have. Let's stay away from this game. Far away. Like, across the Atlantic far. Add to all this Dillon Gabriel being announced as starter for the Browns and we now once again come to our rule of not taking teams playing against a terrible team who changes their quarterback. Hard to prep for that in a week and weird things happen.
RAMS vs 49ers
Matt Stafford remains underrated as an elite quarterback. I don't know why. Maybe we just need one more year to see his game play out. 17 years isn't quite enough. And the 49ers are a mess. Purdy is back, but is he really? Injuries galore for the 49ers which somehow, some way doesn't include McCaffrey (yet). This is a good spot for the Rams. Problem here though is it's a divisional game. And Shanahan has the upper hand vs McVay in head to head records. I could just see this being the game Purdy gets better and we all look back and hate ourselves for not taking the slam dunk. Because this one sure isn't.
Week 5 PICK!
LIONS vs Bengals
I know. I know. Safe pick with little to gain and lots to lose. But here's the deal. This Bengals team is really bad. And there's no rule about taking team's to lose only once so giddy up. I'm saving my Rams week for a home matchup vs the Saints in Week 9 as it stands now.
Here's our road map for the rest of the season. Not much changed since last week. Maybe Week 16 I think. But this might be the ticket that goes all the way!
See you on the other side. Or maybe not.