It looked a little dicey through the first half, but Green Bay hung on to beat Chicago, ensuring that unlike any time last year, all five of us survived the survivor pool.

It’s not going to be any easier in the second week. Man, there have been some tough games to predict through these first couple sets of games. Here’s what we all came up with this week.

This week’s pick Previously used
Maggio New Orleans New England
Vomhof New Orleans Green Bay
Andy Arizona Green Bay
Tony Pittsburgh Green Bay
Rich New England NY Jets

Explanations:

Anthony Maggio – Fantasy editor: The Saints have a whole lot of work to do, but I don’t hold a road loss against a tough offense against them too much. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay looked awful at home in losing to Tennessee, so I don’t see them looking much better on the road against even more superior competition. And like last week, there aren’t many games on this schedule I’d be comfortable with as a lock.

Andy – Co-founder, editorial director: This is a road game for the Cardinals, which makes me nervous, and Chicago was a bit pluckier against Green Bay than I expected, but I don’t see how the Bears’ defense keeps up with the multi-receiver attack they’re going to see this weekend. At the end of the day, they Bears will be who we thought they were.

Tony – Co-founder, web guru: This is a tough week for Survivor pools, as there aren’t really any lopsided matchups—most of the terrible teams from week 1 are playing other terrible teams, and a lot of the teams that looked good don’t have easy matchups. It was tempting to go St. Louis over Washington or Tennessee over Cleveland, but I don’t think I trust either of those teams quite yet. Pittsburgh, though, while not winning, didn’t look terrible against New England—and they are at home, with a west coast team traveling to them. Odds are in their favor.

John Vomhof Jr. – Senior contributing writer: The Saints are a better team at home in the Superdome, and they shouldn’t have any trouble rolling past a Bucs squad that looked totally lost last week against the Titans. Drew Brees should be good for three or four TDs, and Jameis Winston will probably pitch in with at least one pick-six.

Rich Larson – Contributing writer and publisher and editor of SouthernMinn SCENE magazine: Rob Gronkowski beat the Steelers on Thursday night. The 49ers don’t have anyone even remotely resembling Rob Gronkowski.