Run an NFL survivor pool
Pick one NFL team a week. Lose once, you're out. Last survivor takes the season.
Free for groups up to 10. No app, no spreadsheet.
An NFL survivor pool is a season-long, last-team-standing contest: each week you pick one NFL team to win, and you can't reuse a team all season. One wrong pick eliminates you, and the final survivor wins the pool.
How it works
Create the pool
Set your rules - lives, tie handling, auto-pick, when picks lock - and spin up your NFL survivor pool in under two minutes.
Share the link
Drop one link in the group chat or Slack. Players join in a tap with a display name. No accounts, nothing to download.
Pick and survive
Everyone picks one NFL team to win each week - no reusing a team. Picks lock at kickoff; we auto-grade every result. Last survivor wins.
NFL survivor pool rules
An NFL survivor pool (also called an eliminator, knockout, last-man-standing or suicide pool) is the simplest, most brutal format in football: each week you pick one NFL team you think will win their game. Win, and you advance to next week. Lose, and you're eliminated for the season. The last person still standing takes the whole pool.
The catch that makes it agonizing: you can only use each team once all season. Burn the best Week 1 matchup and that team is off your board for the rest of the year - including the playoff push.
The core rules
- One NFL team per week. Choose a single team to win their game. You're not picking a score or a spread - just the winner, straight up.
- No reusing teams. Once you've picked a team, they're gone for the rest of the season. Budgeting your strong teams across 18 weeks is the entire game.
- Lose and you're out. A wrong pick eliminates you. A tie usually counts as a loss (configurable below).
- Last one standing wins. Outlast everyone and the bragging rights are yours. If everyone busts in the same week, the pool can split or roll to a tiebreaker.
NFL-specific things to set
- Bye weeks. From Week 5 on, teams sit out. Fewer teams to pick from each week is part of the squeeze - plan around it.
- Pick deadlines & lock. Picks lock at each game's kickoff by default - including Thursday and Monday nighters - or you can lock the whole slate when the week opens, so nobody picks on later information.
- Missed picks. By default a missed pick eliminates you. Turn on auto-pick and we submit for you 15 minutes before the last kickoff you could still have made, choosing at random from the teams you haven't used that are playing an open game. Random on purpose: we have no odds data, so favouring a team would look like a recommendation while being a coin flip - and handing every forgetful player the same team means one upset wipes them all out together.
- Lives. One loss and you're out is classic. Set two for a "two strikes" pool that survives the Week 2 bloodbath.
- Buyback. Some pools let eliminated players buy back in for a set week. Trofeo.live doesn't have a buyback switch yet, so elimination is final unless your group agrees its own house rule.
- Pick window. By default players can bank picks for any week whose games haven't kicked off. Switch to week-by-week and everyone commits on the same information.
Tiebreakers
When more than one survivor is left at the end of the season - or everyone gets knocked out the same week - you choose in advance how it ends. Leave the tiebreaker off and the survivors share the win, which is how most pools handle it. Or switch it to winning margin, and we rank the survivors by the combined margin of every correct pick they made - so the player who backed their teams to win big edges out the one who scraped through. Set it once and it applies automatically.
NFL survivor pool strategy
Survivor is not a game of picking winners. It's a game of not losing while spending as little as possible - because every team you use is gone for good. Here's the advice that actually keeps you alive past October.
Pick the safest win, not the biggest favourite
Margin doesn't score. A seven-point home favourite against a bad team is worth more to you than a double-digit road favourite in a shootout, because you only need the win. Chase win probability, not the scoreline.
Budget your best teams
Treat the good teams as currency with a fixed supply. Before Week 1, look ahead: which strong teams have soft matchups in November and December? Those are the weeks where every option looks scary, and that's when you'll want them. Spending a contender in Week 1 on a game a mid-tier team could have won for you is the single most common way people lose this.
Look three weeks ahead, not one
From Week 5 the byes start and the board shrinks every week. Sketch your next three or four picks before you lock this one. Most eliminations aren't bad picks - they're weeks where the player had already burned every team that could have saved them.
Blend in early, go contrarian late
While the field is big, take the safe, popular win and just don't be the one who busts - there is no prize for being clever in Week 3. Once you're down to a handful of survivors, being right stops being enough: you need everyone else to be wrong. If you have a comparably safe alternative to the consensus pick, take it. When the popular team goes down, you're the last one standing outright instead of splitting.
Don't lose to the calendar
Forgotten picks end more survivor runs than bad reads do. Turn on auto-pick so a missed deadline submits for you instead of eliminating you - and know that it picks at random from your unused teams, so it's a safety net, not a strategy. If your pool leaves auto-pick off, a missed pick is a loss.
Know your pool's rules before Week 1
The same read is right or wrong depending on the settings. Two lives changes everything - you can afford one aggressive early pick. If your group has agreed a buyback house rule, the first month is cheaper to get wrong. Week-by-week picking stops you banking a Week 10 pick now, so plan on the fly. And if the winning-margin tiebreaker is on, backing your teams to win big is worth something at the end.
The long version - including the mistakes that show up every season - is in the survivor pool strategy guide.
Why run it on Trofeo.live
Most NFL survivor pools die in a spreadsheet by October. Someone volunteers to track 40 picks by hand, misses a Thursday game, gets a result wrong, and the whole season unravels. Trofeo.live runs it for you.
- Auto-grading. NFL results are pulled live and scored the second games end. No commissioner math, no arguments over who's out.
- Rules you actually control. Lives, whether a tie eliminates, auto-pick for missed deadlines, kickoff or week-start lock, whether players can bank picks ahead, and how end-of-season ties break. The big free contests hand you one fixed rule set; you set yours and change it mid-season if the pool wants it.
- Live leaderboard. Everyone sees who's still alive, who's out, and who picked what - the moment picks lock.
- Public proof. Wins get gassed up, busts get roasted. Every elimination is screenshot-ready for the group chat.
- No app, no logins for players. You set it up; they join from a link with a name. That's it.
- Run it anywhere. Friends, a fantasy league, or the whole office - same setup, your branding.
What it costs. Trofeo.live is free for groups up to 10 players - the whole season, every week, with no trial and no card. Bigger pools raise the cap with a one-time payment for that pool ($15 up to 25, $25 up to 50), never a subscription and never a per-season renewal. The free tier covers most survivor pools outright; an office-wide one is a single $15, once, for the whole season.
Set the rules, share the link, and let the eliminations do the talking all season.
NFL survivor pool apps, compared
The big free contests are ESPN's Eliminator Challenge and Yahoo Survival Football; RunYourPool is the paid host for large custom pools, and Splash Sports runs real-money survivor contests, which is a different thing entirely. Here is the honest side by side.
| Trofeo.live | ESPN Eliminator | Yahoo Survival | RunYourPool | Splash Sports | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free up to 10 players, then a one-time $25 for 50 | Free | Free | Paid, per pool | Paid entry (real money) |
| Players need an account | No - one link to join | ESPN account | Yahoo ID | Account required | Account + eligibility check |
| App to download | No - any browser | Web or app | Web or app | Native apps | Native apps |
| Sports | Any sport or tournament | NFL only | NFL only | Major US sports | Major US sports |
| Private pool for your group | Yes | Yes, inside the public contest | Yes, inside the public contest | Yes | Yes |
| Money involved | None - bragging rights | None (free contest) | None (free contest) | You run any money yourself | Real-money entries, eligible US states |
What you get free, compared to the other self-host tools
Those four are where you play a survivor pool. If what you want is to run one for your own group, the comparison that matters is how many players each tool hosts before it asks for money.
| Trofeo.live | Sunday Survivor | FootballPools | OfficePoolStop | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free up to | 10 players | 10 entries | 5 members | No published cap |
| After that | One-time $25 for up to 50 | $19 for up to 25 entries, one flat fee for the season | $2 per member for the season | Premium adds branding and removes ads |
Sunday Survivor charges $19 for a 25-entry pool. That is the size Trofeo.live hosts for nothing. OfficePoolStop publishes no cap at all, so if a free pool of any size is the only thing you care about, it is a fair option - ours is the better one if you also want auto-grading, a live leaderboard and no account for players. Figures read from each provider's own pricing page in August 2026.
Short version: if you want a private NFL survivor pool for your own group with nothing to install and nobody making an account, Trofeo.live is the pick. If you would rather drop into a huge public NFL contest with a national prize, ESPN Eliminator and Yahoo Survival are both free and well established. Full survivor app comparison.
Survive the season
Make it past Sunday and you've earned the right to gloat. Get knocked out and the group chat will never let you forget the team that did it. Every pick, every elimination, every comeback - public and screenshot-ready.
FAQ
What is an NFL survivor pool?+
An NFL survivor pool is a season-long elimination game. Each week you pick one NFL team to win their game. Pick right and you advance; pick wrong and you're eliminated. You can only use each team once all season, and the last person still standing wins the pool.
How does the NFL season work for survivor?+
You make one pick per NFL week across the regular season. From Week 5 on, bye weeks shrink the pool of available teams - and you still can't reuse any team you've already picked - so the field thins fast. Most pools run the regular season; you can extend into the playoffs if you want.
What happens if someone forgets to pick?+
By default a missed pick eliminates you, the same as a wrong one. Turn on auto-pick and Trofeo.live submits for them 15 minutes before the last kickoff they could still have made, choosing at random from the teams they haven't used yet that are playing an open game. It's random deliberately - we don't have odds data, so picking a favourite would look like advice while being a coin flip, and giving every forgetful player the same team means one upset eliminates all of them at once.
What happens on a tie or a bye week?+
A tied game counts as a loss by default, and you can flip it so a tie lets the player survive. Bye weeks just mean those teams aren't pickable that week - the no-reusing-teams rule still applies, which is what makes late-season picks so tight. If more than one player survives the season, they share the win unless you've set the winning-margin tiebreaker, which ranks them by the combined margin of their correct picks.
How do you win an NFL survivor pool?+
Take the safest available win rather than the biggest favourite, since margin doesn't score. Budget your strong teams across the season instead of spending them in September, and look three or four weeks ahead so bye weeks don't leave you with only coin flips. While the field is large, pick with the crowd and simply avoid busting; once only a few survivors are left, take a comparably safe alternative to the consensus pick so a popular upset eliminates your rivals and not you.
Is a suicide pool the same as a survivor pool?+
Yes. Survivor pool, eliminator pool, knockout pool, last man standing and suicide pool all describe the same format: one team pick per week, no reusing a team, and one wrong pick ends your season. Only the name changes - the rules and the strategy are identical.
Is it free?+
Yes - running an NFL survivor pool is free for groups up to 10 players, for the whole season, with no card and no trial. If your pool outgrows that, raising the cap is a one-time payment for that pool - $25 up to 50 players, $50 up to 100 - not a subscription and not a per-season renewal. Custom branding and anything above 10,000 players is the Brands plan.
What is the best free NFL survivor pool app?+
For a private pool for your own group, Trofeo.live is the best free option - free for up to 10 players, no app, and players join from one link without making an account. If you would rather join a big public NFL contest, ESPN's Eliminator Challenge and Yahoo Survival Football are both free and well established. RunYourPool is the paid choice for large, heavily customised pools, and Splash Sports is a separate real-money contest platform available only in eligible US states.
Can I run an NFL survivor pool for my office?+
Absolutely. A survivor pool is one of the easiest ways to get a workplace engaged across the whole NFL season - share one link in Slack or Teams and let the weekly eliminations fuel the trash talk. Free to set up and workplace-friendly.
Predict it live
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Run an NFL survivor pool
Pick one NFL team a week. Lose once, you're out. Last survivor takes the season.
Free for groups up to 10. No app, no spreadsheet.