Win probabilities come from our market-based NFL model. Flip the Win column to Custom to type your own number for any team \u2014 the field starts at the market\u2019s number and your numbers are saved on this device. The field column is a projection of how many entrants pick each team, anchored to SurvivorGrid's national consensus. EV runs 10,000 simulations of the full slate in your browser: in each one, we play out every game, see which entrants survive, and split the pot among survivors. Your EV for a pick is your average share of the pot across all simulations, shown as a multiple of an even split — anything over 1.00× means the pick earns more than your fair share of the pot. Picking a slightly worse team that far fewer people are on is often the higher-EV play, and that's exactly what this surfaces. If everyone left is eliminated in the same week, the simulation splits the pot among all of them, the most common pool rule.

Why a lower-probability team can be the right pick. Your share of the pot is 1 ÷ survivors, and that is averaged across every way the week can go — the money you'd collect in each world at that world's probability, not the pot divided by the average number of survivors. Worlds where a heavily-picked favorite loses shrink the field a lot and pay far more than their weight, which is why a team the field is avoiding can be worth more than the chalk even though it's likelier to lose. The head-to-head line shows the trade: the risk ratio is how much likelier you are to be the one eliminated holding the top pick instead of the alternative; the reward ratio is how much more a survivor gets paid when the alternative is the one left standing. The top pick is right when reward covers risk. No extra discount for "risk" is applied — the risk is already netted in the equity.

Once a game has kicked off, both teams are greyed out and can't be picked. Entrants who already won with them are locked in, so from then on the 1.00× line is measured against the entries that still have a pick to make.

Field percentages are national consensus, so if your pool skews different (homers, one office, sharp friends), lean on the win and field columns and your own judgment. This is a tool, not a promise.