About William Flaiz

I have played NFL survivor pools for 20 years. I have won more than 10 of them, in small office pools and in large fields with hundreds of entries. The two formats are not the same game, and learning that the hard way is most of why this site exists.

Survivor looks simple. Pick one team to win each week, never reuse a team, outlast everyone else. The trouble starts when you realize the obvious pick is also everyone else's pick, and surviving is not about being right. It is about being right when the field is wrong. That gap between picking winners and picking differently is where pools are actually won, and it is where most players never look.

So I started running the numbers. I built statistical models around win probability, public pick percentages, and expected survival in different pool sizes. I track how strategy shifts when 12 people are left versus 1,200. I look at when to burn a strong team early and when to save it, how to think about future weeks instead of just the one in front of you, and when the contrarian pick is smart instead of just reckless. The math is not a gimmick here. It is the reason the wins stack up.

I am also, by any honest measure, a rabid football fan. I watch games I have no stake in. I read injury reports for fun. That obsession is not separate from the analysis, it feeds it, because the model tells you the odds and the football knowledge tells you which odds to trust.

More recently I turned the same approach toward NFL parlays and built a statistical model for finding value in a bet type that is designed to take your money. Same philosophy as survivor: ignore the hype, respect the math, bet differently than the crowd.

Everything I publish here comes from those two decades of playing, losing, adjusting, and winning. No hot takes, no guarantees, no "lock of the week." Just the strategy I actually use, explained plainly, so you can outlast your pool too.

Where to start

If you're new, begin with the survivor pool basics. Ready to sharpen your edge? Dig into the NFL survivor pool strategy hub, or see how I'd map an entire season in the weekly matchup guide.

Connect with William

• LinkedIn
• X (Twitter)
• Bluesky