So, NFL Survivor Week 9 rolled around. Man, these weeks get tougher as you go. You’ve burned through all the obvious, big-favorite teams, and now you’re staring at the board, trying to find an angle, any angle.
I remember looking at the matchups, and my head started swimming. You know how it is. You’ve got a few teams left you kinda trust, but they’re playing decent opponents, or they’re on the road. It’s not like Week 1 or 2 where you just pick the Chiefs or the Eagles against some bottom-feeder and don’t sweat it.
My list of “used teams” was looking pretty bare. I was thinking, okay, who’s left? Who’s got a decent matchup? I saw the New Orleans Saints were playing the Chicago Bears at home. Seemed alright on paper. Bears weren’t exactly world-beaters. But then the doubt creeps in. Always does, doesn’t it? “What if it’s a trap game?” “What if the Bears’ defense suddenly remembers how to play football?” My brain starts going a mile a minute, trying to game out every scenario. It’s a whole mess up there.
You might ask why I even bother getting so worked up. It’s just a game, right? But this whole survivor thing, it’s a different beast. It’s not just picking a winner; it’s about, well, surviving. And my process for Week 9, it actually made me think of something totally different.
It reminds me of this one time, years ago. I had this old, beat-up pickup truck. Thing wouldn’t start. Just clicked. I’m no mechanic, mind you. So I did what anyone would do, I guess. I called a buddy, he came over. We checked the battery, the starter, the alternator. Spent a whole Saturday afternoon pulling things apart, getting greasy, cussing at this truck. My buddy was convinced it was the starter, said we’d have to replace it. Sounded expensive. I was about ready to just call a tow truck and be done with it.
Then, my neighbor, old Gus, wanders over. Gus worked on cars his whole life. He looks at this mess of parts we got spread out on the driveway, listens to me complain. He doesn’t say much. Just pokes around under the hood for a minute with his flashlight. Then he reaches in, jiggles one of the battery cables, and tightens the terminal clamp with a wrench he pulls out of his back pocket. Just a simple twist. “Try it now,” he says. I get in, turn the key, and bam! Engine roars to life. Just like that. We’d been looking for some complicated disaster, and it was just a loose connection. Gus just kinda grunted and said, “Sometimes it ain’t the big things, son. It’s the simple thing you overlook ’cause you’re expectin’ trouble.”
So, back to NFL Survivor Week 9. I was doing the same thing with my pick. Overthinking it. Looking for some hidden gem, some sneaky upset-proof team that no one else was on. I was digging through stats, injury reports, expert picks – the whole nine yards. My brain felt like that disassembled engine bay, parts everywhere, no clear solution.
- Option 1: Some risky road favorite I didn’t love.
- Option 2: A home dog I thought might pull an upset.
- Option 3: The Saints, who felt… okay, but not a slam dunk.
I kept coming back to the Saints, but then I’d talk myself out of it. “Too obvious,” I’d think. “The public will be on them.” But then I remembered Gus and that darn truck. What was the simple, straightforward thing here? The Saints were at home. They were favored. I hadn’t used them yet. Yeah, they weren’t the ’85 Bears, but who is, this late in survivor?
So, I stopped all the deep dives. I just went with the Saints. My official pick for Week 9 was the New Orleans Saints. It wasn’t a pick I was screaming from the rooftops about. It felt almost too… easy, after all that mental gymnastics. Like just tightening a battery cable.
And wouldn’t you know it? The Saints won. It wasn’t a blowout, they definitely made me sweat a little bit, especially in the second half. The Bears hung around. But a win is a win in these pools. I survived Week 9. Didn’t need some fancy, complicated pick after all.
It’s funny. You spend all this time trying to be smart, trying to find that edge. And sometimes, the best move is just the simple one, right in front of your face. Just gotta make sure your connections are tight, I guess. That’s my takeaway from Week 9. Keep it simple, especially when you’re running low on options. No need to build a whole new engine when a loose cable is the problem.
