Zoneblitz Survivor Pool: Week 2

Playing in an NFL Survivor Pool? Zoneblitz has you covered. Our four writers are playing a slightly modified version to help you make your weekly decisions, and hopefully we’ll all make it through Week 17 unscathed. However, in our version, we’re giving each writer ONE strike to make things more interesting. Whoever’s left standing at the end will be declared the winner.

Three of us head into week two 1-0, as John and Maggio rode the Jets to wins while Andy flew with the Eagles. The Bears ate Tony up last week, but he gets a mulligan with our two-strikes-and-you’re-out policy on this pool. Here are this week’s picks.

Tony: Record: 0-1
Team used: Chicago

New Orleans over Cleveland: After a rough first week, I’m a bit gun shy this week—not good when there’s a tough slate of games ahead. There’s one game that jumps out as a bit lopsided, though, and I suspect I won’t be the only one to pick the Saints over the Browns. Cleveland actually kind of impressed in week 1—as much as a team can when they lose—but they came back and made it a game after being down 27-3 at half. And thank Tebow they did it without Johnny Football seeing the field. But I don’t see any way they hold up against the Saints, who themselves let a 20-7 lead slip away. And if the Browns pull it off, one less thing for me to think about, I guess.

John: Record: 1-0
Team used: NY Jets

Denver over Kansas City: Ugh. I really hate to waste Denver so early in the season, but this week’s schedule is filled with potential land mines. I’m going the safe route while buying myself another week to assess the rest of the field. The Broncos are a near-lock to win at home against a Chiefs team that looked pathetic last week.

Maggio: Record: 1-0
Team used: NY Jets

Green Bay over NY Jets: I’d like to save the Packers for later, but there are a lot of close calls out there I don’t want to mess with. The Jets got me by last week by barely beating Oakland at home, so my confidence is high in that same group struggling mightily to slow down Green Bay.

Andy: Record: 1-0
Team used: Philadelphia

San Francisco over Chicago: I approach these pools perhaps a bit differently than some. Are there teams I would like to save until later in the season? Perhaps. But the goal is to advance until next week and early on in the season it’s hard to know who is still good or bad carrying over from last year. So I’ll take the few gimmes there may be now and figure out the latter part of the season when I’ve figured 2014 out a bit more. What do we know? Chicago was terrible against the run last year and bad on defense overall. Last week Buffalo got 191 yards rushing and EJ Manuel looked like a real NFL QB. San Francisco loves to run the ball and Colin Kaepernick is better than Manuel. The Bears may improve in 2014, but it ain’t happening this week.

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