It's been a wild year in the Circa Survivor, a competition I bowed out of early (thanks Jaguars!) this season. We've seen one entrant put in the wrong Thanksgiving team by mistake and the survive all the way until the final four, per the Las Vegas Review-Journal. We've seen a potential chop allegedly flushed down the toilet by a professional poker player who then went on to be one of six people eliminated when the Patriots upset the Broncos. And, after rumors of a negotiated split of a portion of the $9.267 million pool by the final four, we just watched all four survive despite all taking different teams in Week 17.

Circus Master had the easy path last week by backing the Browns, who had no issues pounding the Jets on Thursday. IndianaJet cruised through by backing the Texans, who blew out the Titans. Jax Jags went with the Colts, who were in control of their game the entire way even if the final three-point margin of victory didn't reflect it. And LAJoneser, the entrant who accidentally backed the Packers to topple the Lions on Thanksgiving, made it through by being the only survivor to trust in the Broncos after they were upset the previous week and benched Russell Wilson.

Though we don't know the details, those four survivors have plenty to play for in Week 18. Hopefully you do as well, and we'll do our best to set you up with the right options below. All four of our potential plays last week made it through with virtually no sweat (Browns, Texans, Bears, Jaguars), but now we get to the most difficult week of the season to predict. Last year, three survivors made it to the final week in the Circa contest but only two split the prize after one entrant backed the Texans to lose their way to the No. 1 overall pick, which they did not do.

When looking at your options for Week 18, it's no longer important to project out the rest of the schedule (hence the point of this weekly column), as there is no rest of the schedule. It's also important to know the format of your pool, as Circa Survivor adds two standalone slates for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and other pools may have some tiebreakers in place you need to know heading into the final week. We'll get into our top options below, but I would avoid using the Steelers against the Ravens.

Whether you've managed to save the Steelers is an open question; we were knocked out of our last remaining survivor pool backing them to beat the Cardinals in Week 13 rather than trusting one of our four other options we thought were not as strong, all of which won close games. The only two games they've won since then were the last two weeks as underdogs, so I believe it's possible a decent number of people still have them available, even though only one of the four remaining Circa survivors is in that boat.

But I wouldn't use them this week, even with Mason Rudolph finally making the offense look halfway respectable as the Steelers chase a playoff spot. This is one of those classic games where the market expects the Ravens to field a preseason roster against a team with everything to play for, and it may have swung the spread too far toward the Steelers. Yes, Lamar Jackson will likely sit in this game, leaving Tyler Huntley to make his ninth career regular season start. He's a respectable 3-5 in those games and only lost one by more than a field goal, and he has a familiarity facing Pittsburgh, which has been his opponent for three of those eight starts.

However, Huntley's experience isn't the biggest factor in this matchup. It's that this isn't a preseason roster (which, to be fair, John Harbaugh does very well managing with years of undefeated preseason records to his credit). The Ravens will still have to play plenty of their regulars, as you can only make seven players inactive and the depth chart is only so deep. The corners are likely to be the same group that shut down Tyreek Hill and the Dolphins' scheme last week, while resting Marcus Williams just means you see more of the extremely talented Geno Stone at safety. This Ravens squad is deep at many positions, and even the offensive line is unlikely to be a major problem if certain players rest.

In 2019, the Ravens rested starters, including eventual MVP Lamar Jackson, in the final week of the season, and they went out and scored 28 points in a rout of the 8-7 Steelers anyway. Don't rule out a similar result here, even if the Steelers offense looks better now than it did on that day with Duck Hodges at quarterback.

Why listen to me? Well, I was 535-450-30 (+3532) on ATS picks over the last six years and even better with my top five picks each week, going 376-290-24 (56.5%) over the last eight years in the Westgate SuperContest. While this doesn't involve picking against the spread, I do believe by applying the strategies I've developed to have long-term success on those picks to survivor pools, we'll be in the best position to outlast the competition.

Below, you'll find my top options for this week as well as a tiered set of options for every week over the rest of the season. Let's dig in.

What are the best options to use in survivor pools in Week 18? And which teams should be saved to use later in the season? ... Join SportsLine right now to see NFL Survivor Pool strategy from the expert who's 535-450-30 on ATS picks from 2017-22, returning $3,532 to $100 players!