Welcome to the 2018 Eliminator Challenge. The rules are simple: Pick one team every week. If that team wins, you move on to the next week. If that team loses, your entry is eliminated. The only caveat is that you cannot use the same team twice. You can find all the rules here.
To determine the best picks each week, I lean heavily upon ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI). For more on how FPI is calculated, click here and here. I also look at the pick percentages for each team on the ESPN Eliminator Challenge page to see which teams the majority of fans are picking.
Week 1 was a wild one, as the New Orleans Saints' loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers knocked out 26 percent of the field. The Lions (12 percent) also lost, while the Packers (10 percent) and Steelers (9 percent) were pushed to the brink. The only chalk team to cover the spread was the Baltimore Ravens.
This week,