NFL Week 4 survivor pool picks and strategy: Selecting 49ers, Chiefs, Vikings, Chargers (2024)

Read The Athletic’s NFL survivor pool picks for Week 12.

If you’re here, you survived a Week 3 for the ages. With approximately 20 percent of players choosing Jacksonville and 17 percent picking Dallas in Week 3, survivor pools got a lot thinner.

It was a great week to go with contrarian picks like Miami (5 percent) or, if you had saved them, Buffalo (1 percent). San Francisco (16 percent) and Kansas City (21 percent) were the popular elite teams to expend last week. Whether you ran the gauntlet successfully or sucked it up and bought back in, let’s face Week 4 together.

Teams previously used: Baltimore, Buffalo, Kansas City. These were the highest percentage rostered teams through Week 3. If you saved these teams to this point, you could consider KC (at the Jets) this week, but we suggest you keep saving Buffalo (vs. Miami) and Baltimore (at Cleveland) for better matchups in the future.

Week 4 strategy

Adam Gretz: Well that was a disaster of a week for some favorites, wasn’t it?

Hopefully you have strategically saved Kansas City and/or San Francisco through the first three weeks of the season because this looks like a week where you are going to need to burn through one of the league’s elite teams. If you haven’t saved at least one of them, you might be looking at a coin flip choice with nearly every game looking close to a 50-50 bet.

As of Wednesday morning, 11 of the 16 matchups this week feature point spreads of five points or less, while most of those games have a spread of three points or less. The only teams favored by a touchdown or more this week are San Francisco (vs. Arizona), Philadelphia (vs. Washington), Dallas (vs. New England), and Kansas City (at New York Jets). Aside from the fact that most people have probably used at least one (or two) of those teams so far, the number of evenly matched games on the schedule makes it seem like a good week to turn to one of the heavyweights.

Obviously “any given Sunday” rules always apply in the NFL (as we saw with Arizona last week), but there is at least one matchup out there that I am feeling really good about.

Renee Miller: When we’re faced with an unexpected setback, two natural instincts emerge. One is to be overly cautious and the other is to be overly reckless; neither is logical and well-reasoned. This is especially true when the action we took that led to the setback was itself safe, flawless in its logic. Most human brains are wired to prevent losses – physical, material and emotional – rather than to optimize gains. Think of any time your full house lost to a straight flush in poker; the ensuing tilt is your brain reacting to the unexpected loss. Since the decision to go all in was probably the logical choice, your brain leaps to the conclusion that logic no longer works and can go a little haywire.

For some, that means taking unnecessary risks in trying to regain what was lost and for others it means retreating to the safest possible strategy to prevent any further losses (at the expense of winning big). In considering how to behave after an unexpected upset like Dallas losing to Arizona in your survivor pool, we have one big advantage over the poker table: time. Our cognitive biases are most detrimental to our decision-making processes when we are forced to react immediately. Given a day or three, the strong emotions we feel over the loss – anger, disappointment, self-doubt and a real sense of injustice – subside. Other experiences we have restore our faith in ourselves and the power of logical thought.

So as with any other week in survivor, you just have to balance the necessity of staying alive this week with the necessity of planning for the future. If you’ve had to buy back in, you’re focused more on making it through Week 4 with your remaining elite team(s), while if you skated through Week 3 with the Dolphins, Chiefs or 49ers, you’re probably thinking of selecting a more obscure option this week.

Week 4 chalk picks

Pick projections from OfficeFootballPool. Lines from BetMGM.

Renee: 49ers over Cardinals

I’ve had this game circled since Week 1. The 49ers are 3-0, at home, and healthy on both sides of the ball. It’s not their style to take any opponent lightly, and after seeing what Arizona pulled off vs. Dallas, that will be doubly the case for this divisional matchup.

Putting aside the fact that Arizona has looked better than expected, though their 1-2 record is pretty much where we thought they’d be, there are still numerous logical reasons to rely on the 49ers in Week 4:

• They are the biggest favorites of the week (-14).
• They are the third-highest scoring team in the league.
• They’re allowing the fifth-fewest points per game.
• Starting in Week 5, they face Dallas, Cleveland, Minnesota, Cincinnati, bye, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay.
• The 49ers have had an extra three days of rest and preparation since they played Thursday night in Week 3.

Is recency bias (thinking the Cardinals are scary good because they upset Dallas) going to keep you from making a logical choice this week? Maybe it’ll help to think of it not so much as a Cardinals win but as a Dallas loss. The Cowboys looked lazy and unoriginal with their playcalling. They were ultimately outplayed by a less talented team and never appeared to take the matchup seriously. Again, the 49ers are too talented and disciplined to do that. Trust the process and burn the 49ers while you can.

Adam: Chiefs over Jets

I have been holding off on picking the Chiefs for myself for a couple of reasons. The first was the simple fact they opened the season without Travis Kelce and Chris Jones in Week 1 and had what looked to be a somewhat difficult start to the season with Detroit and Jacksonville in the first two games.

I resisted the urge to take them against Chicago in Week 3 because I saw what looked to be an even bigger lay up with Dallas playing Arizona (oops) while the Chiefs had another potentially lopsided matchup looming this week with the New York Jets. That is why I am using this as my week to take Kansas City.

Yes, the Jets do have a great defense, and it might even give the Chiefs some problems and slow them down a little, but Kansas City’s offense seems to be finding its rhythm after stomping on the Bears and Kelce now has two games under his belt. It is also worth noting that for as dangerous as Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense can be, the defense is also playing out of its mind over the past two games. It is going to get an opportunity to feast on a Jets offense that can not get out of its own way with Zach Wilson playing like … well … Zach Wilson. One three-and-out or a poorly thrown interception is going to lead to anarchy from Jets fans in MetLife Stadium and it isn’t difficult to see this whole thing unraveling pretty quickly. I know the Jets already pulled off one shocker with Wilson beating another AFC Super Bowl contender in Week 1, but I don’t know if the Jets are going to intercept Mahomes four times and get a special teams touchdown on top of it this week.

I do like San Francisco against Arizona as well, but I also have some healthy fear of the Cardinals because they have been a thorn in the side of every team they have played so far. They were beating Washington late, had a three-score lead on the Giants and looked great against Dallas. You can debate whether or not the front office is tanking this season all you want, but the players certainly are not. That team is pesky and might have some confidence.

Renee: That’s one for the commenter who wants us to write up teams that are on our “already spent” list based on the highest percentage picked.

Week 4 contrarian pick

Adam: Vikings over Panthers

Do you realize how much of an absolute maniac you have to be to willingly choose to rely on the Vikings, even when times are good for them? Imagine how big of a maniac you have to be to willingly choose to rely on them when they are 0-3.

Well, here we are.

There was always going to be some sort of regression for the Vikings this season after the crazy run of good luck they had last season in one-score games. The regression gods are showing themselves with a vengeance this season by handing them three straight one-score losses to open the season. If you go back to last year’s Wild Card game it is actually four straight one-score losses.

Having said that, this team is better than this. It is better than 0-3, it is better than what we have seen so far, and it is better than the Carolina team it is playing on Sunday. I also think this is a good opportunity to maybe get ahead of the rest of your league with a contrarian pick. Minnesota does have its two NFC North games against Chicago still ahead, but the first of those comes in Week 6 when you also have matchups like Philadelphia playing the Jets and Kansas City playing Denver to choose from (if you still have those teams) that week.

They do not play the Bears again until Week 12. Those two games, as well as the home game against Green Bay, figure to be the only games the rest of the way where Minnesota looks to be a clear favorite. If you are feeling truly maniacal, this could be an opportunity.

Renee: Chargers over Raiders

It’s funny that our contrarian picks both come from a Week 3 fantasy fiesta of a game. The Chargers ultimately prevailed but one thing was clear, and it’s that defense isn’t a factor for either LA or Minnesota. That’s really what makes the Chargers a contrarian pick this week. Their offense is undeniable, even with Mike Williams lost for the season to an ACL tear. Josh Palmer and/or Quentin Johnston will step up to fill that gap for Justin Herbert. Keenan Allen is having the season of his life and there’s a slim chance Austin Ekeler returns for this matchup. But their defense is awful, giving up the fifth-most points and most passing yards per game to opponents.

The good news for LA is two-fold. First, the Raiders don’t boast much of a defense either (ninth-most points allowed, 25.7 per game). Second, the Raiders don’t boast much of an offense (tied for fourth-fewest points scored, tied for third-most turnovers). It gets worse if Jimmy Garoppolo doesn’t make it through concussion protocol for Week 4, which is very likely going to be the case.

There is no clarity at this time whether veteran Brian Hoyer or rookie Aidan O’Connell would start, but in either case it puts the Raiders offense in unfamiliar territory. With the Garoppolo news the Chargers are nearly favored by a touchdown.

The Chargers are on bye Week 5, followed by Dallas and at Kansas City. You could hold them until Week 8 (Chicago) or Week 9 (at NY Jets) if you have one of the elites to deploy this week. If not, I really like their chances to pick up win No. 2 at home and differentiate you from the pool if one of SF or KC goes down.

Tonight marks the return of a certain other Survivor…let us know in the comments if you also play in a “Survivor” survivor pool (and if I can get in)!

(Photo of Christian McCaffrey: Michael Owens / Getty Images)