What FFSurvivor is

The problem it solves

A survivor pool looks simple. Pick one team a week, never reuse a team, and the last entry standing takes the pot. The difficulty is that every pick spends a resource you cannot get back. Take the biggest favourite in week 1 and that team is gone in week 9, when it might have been the only safe option on the board. Most people plan one week at a time, and most people are eliminated by the middle of the season.

There is a second problem that the standard advice ignores. Surviving is not the prize. The pot is, and it is split among everyone who lasts. Clearing a week alongside four hundred entries that made the same pick leaves your share exactly where it started. A good plan has to weigh the chance of surviving against how many people you survive with, and that is not a calculation anyone does in their head.

What it does

• Reads the market every morning. Win probabilities come from real sportsbook prices, collected daily with the bookmaker's margin removed, so every number reflects what people with money on the line believe.

• Plans the whole season at once. Every strategy builds a full-season plan under the same rules: one team once, distinct games within a week, your locked picks kept. Optimal solves the whole schedule together, so no week steals from another.

• Prices what surviving is worth. Survival is computed exactly. Equity, your expected share of the pot, is simulated against a modelled field, so a plan that dodges the crowd can be compared honestly with one that follows it.

• Throws away stale answers. A line move, a new pick, an override, or simply a week passing invalidates a stored result, so you are never shown a number the current data would not produce.

Principles

Market first, guesses never.

A consensus of real sportsbooks is the best available estimate of a game, and nothing outranks it except a number you type yourself. Where nobody has priced a game, the site shows a dash rather than inventing a figure.

Exact where exact is possible.

A fixed plan's survival rate is computed in closed form, not sampled, so it carries no noise. Simulation is reserved for the question that has no closed form: what your share of the pot is worth against a field.

Honest about uncertainty.

Survivor pools are lottery-shaped, and most entries in most seasons win nothing. The results panel leads with the payout rate and labels the multiplier as value against a typical entry, never as a return.

Checked against reality.

The model is calibrated against real data and re-checked as the season runs, so a number that drifts gets noticed.

What it is not

FFSurvivor is not a sportsbook, a betting exchange, or a pool operator. You cannot place a wager here, no money moves through the site, and it is not a party to any pool you enter. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the National Football League, any of its teams, ESPN, or any sportsbook whose prices it reads. Team names and marks belong to their owners and are used to identify the games being analysed.

Nothing on the site is gambling advice or a prediction of a real outcome. A recommendation is the output of a model with stated inputs and stated limits. Whether a survivor pool is legal where you live, and whether you should enter one, are your decisions.

Where it stands

FFSurvivor is an independent project, currently in alpha and free to use. It is a ground-up rebuild of an earlier version of the same tool, and it is under active development through the 2026 season. Features change, rough edges exist, and the terms of service say so plainly.

The blog carries the written analysis, and the contact page explains how to reach us. If you find a number that looks wrong, we want to hear about it.