How NFL survivor pools work

01The basics

Every week of the NFL season, each entry picks exactly one team to win its game — straight up, no point spreads. If the pick wins, the entry survives to the next week. If it loses, the entry is eliminated (or loses a life, in pools that allow strikes).

The twist that makes survivor pools great: a team can only be used once per season. Burn the Chiefs in week 2 and they're gone for the rest of your run, no matter how tempting their week 14 matchup looks. Winning is less about picking favorites and more about spending 18 weeks of inventory wisely.

The last entry standing wins. If every remaining entry is knocked out in the same week, the pool's tiebreaker decides — most pools simply split the prize among the final survivors.

02Picking and deadlines

Picks lock so nobody can react to games already underway. Pools on Outlast Pool use one of two deadline styles:

Per-game locking (the default): each pick locks when its own game kicks off. Pick a Sunday team and you can still change your mind on Friday, even though Thursday's game has been played.

First-game locking: every pick in the week locks at the week's first kickoff — usually Thursday night. Stricter, simpler, and the way most office pools have always done it.

Commissioners also choose whether picks can be changed at all before they lock, and whether everyone's picks stay hidden until the deadline passes — so nobody piggybacks on a sharper player's pick.

03Strikes and lives

Classic survivor is sudden death: one loss and you're out. Many pools soften that with multiple lives — commonly two or three — so a single upset doesn't end your season in week 1.

Each loss costs a strike. Run out of lives and the entry is eliminated. With 2 lives, your first loss stings but your second one ends you.

04Mulligans

A mulligan forgives a loss entirely — no strike, no elimination. It's typically a once-per-entry courtesy for the first bad beat of the season.

A forgiven pick still burns the team you used. Mulligans protect your survival, not your team inventory, and they never cover a missed pick — only an honest loss.

05Buybacks

Some pools let eliminated entries pay to re-enter — a buyback — usually only through the first few weeks of the season. After the buyback deadline week passes, eliminations are final.

Commissioners set whether buybacks are allowed, the deadline week, the fee, and how many times a single entry can come back. A pool isn't over while someone could still buy their way back in.

06Tie games

NFL ties are rare — but they happen, and a survivor pool needs an answer. Pools handle a tied game one of three ways: it counts as a loss (the strictest and most common), it counts as a win, or it's a push.

A push means the week simply doesn't count against you: no strike, no advancement drama — but the team you picked is still used.

07Missed picks and auto-pick

Forgetting to pick is the most common way people go out. Pools choose what a missed pick costs: automatic elimination (the default), a strike — treated like a loss, except mulligans can't save you — or an automatic pick made on your behalf.

Auto-pick pools assign the best available option once the week's first game kicks off — typically the biggest remaining favorite that the entry hasn't used yet. In per-game pools you can still swap an auto-pick for your own choice before that game starts.

08How a pool ends

Most pools run until one entry remains — last one standing wins it all. If the field goes down together, the final cohort shares the result per the pool's tiebreaker.

Pools can also end on a schedule: at the end of the regular season (week 18) or at a fixed week the commissioner picks. Everyone still alive at the finish line splits per the posted payout structure.