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Survival Football Advice: The path to surviving Christmas goes through KC

Kevin Kaduk

Resources: Yahoo survival pool pick distribution • SurvivorGrid.com
Week 15’s biggest killer: San Francisco over Tennessee (1.3 percent)
Week 15’s biggest success: Baltimore over Cleveland (52.72 percent)
My picks so far: Buffalo – Oakland – New England — Seattle — Philadelphia — Atlanta (x) — Minnesota — New Orleans — Jacksonville — Detroit — Kansas City (x) — Cincinnati — LA Chargers — Green Bay/Pittsburgh — Carolina/Baltimore

While Week 14 featured a large-scale wipeout in our $100,000 survival football contest, the remaining players mostly stayed dry in Week 15. Thanks to favorites getting the job done, only 44 people were eliminated from the big money contest.

That means 1,103 people are left to pick four teams over the next two weeks in an attempt to get a nice slice of the money pie. The end finally looks like it’s in reach.

There are options here in Week 16 if you have them. Numberfire lists seven teams with 70 percent or better odds to win and six of them are playing at home (no small concession given that it’s Christmas weekend and one can only assume that complicates the issues of travel).

What’s more, only four of the 16 games feature two teams that still have playoff hopes.

The Panthers over the disappointing Buccaneers is the most popular pick heading into the weekend seeing as how Carolina hasn’t been a size pick at any point this season (though I did pick them against the Packers last week.) There’s a lot to like there as the Panthers need the win in the ultra-tight NFC South heading into a Week 17 matchup with Atlanta.

While the Patriots, Ravens and Jaguars might not be an option for most of you any more, the other big favorite that is likely still available to most are the Kansas City Chiefs. The only time this season the Chiefs were taken at a high rate was Week 11 when they led 55 percent of the pool off the ledge with an unbelievable loss to the woeful Giants. So if you’re still alive, you likely still have them.

The Chiefs host the Dolphins this week and they’re coming off a two-game winning streak against the Raiders and Chargers that put them in firm control of the AFC West. The Dolphins, meanwhile, don’t have much to play for and likely want to get on a plane and back to their families as quickly as possible. It’s an easy pick, in my opinion.

And what about the Browns, you say? If you have both the Chiefs and Panthers available to you, sit back and hope Hue Jackson can go 2-0 in Christmas Eve games with the Browns.

But if you don’t? Well, I don’t think there’s much risk in picking the seven-point favorite Bears in Chicago over the Browns. Yes, John Fox is 0-7 as a favorite with the Bears and no, they haven’t been a good team this season. But Chicago has been good at home while Jackson and DeShone Kizer appear not to be in the same library, let alone on the same page. The 0-16 express will roll on.

Who are your picks this weekend? Let us know in the comments below.

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