Three weeks out from kickoff, our three-entry season-long plan for Splash Sports’ $3M “The Big Splash” NFL Survivor contest is mostly holding steady — but one fresh camp injury lands right on top of our most urgent lock of the three, Entry A’s Week 1 Las Vegas pick. Nothing gets swapped this week; the whole point of a season-long build is not overreacting to a single unresolved practice injury three weeks before kickoff. But it’s the first item on our board that’s genuinely live and unresolved, so it gets top billing.
What Changed
- Raiders C/OG Jackson Powers-Johnson left Monday’s (Aug. 17) practice with an apparent injury; severity still unknown. Multiple outlets (Yahoo Sports, The Washington Post, NBC Sports) confirmed he was escorted off the field and that his status for the team’s upcoming joint practices and preseason game against Houston was in doubt as of publication. No diagnosis has been reported yet. This is the one to watch most closely on our whole board: Las Vegas is Entry A’s Week 1 pick, the single soonest-locking selection of any of our three entries, and every reserve team we could pull forward as a replacement is already earmarked for a specific later week in the season-long solve. So what: we are not swapping on an unconfirmed, undiagnosed injury. If a real multi-week diagnosis lands before Week 1 locks, we’ll re-solve Entry A’s early-season window as a set, not as a one-for-one swap, since pulling any single reserved team forward ripples into two or three other weeks.
- Jaguars OG Patrick Mekari underwent back surgery and is expected to miss time (Yahoo Sports, Aug. 18). This is a real escalation from the general Jacksonville O-line soreness (Walker Little, Chuma Edoga, Cole Van Lanen) we flagged on Aug. 11 to an actual surgical procedure for a projected starter. Wyatt Milum and third-round rookie Emmanuel Pregnon are getting first-team reps at right guard in the meantime. So what: this is a real markdown on Jacksonville’s Week 1 offensive line, but it’s partially offset by the next item below.
- Correction on Cleveland’s QB competition, and an update. Last week we wrote that Cleveland was “easing toward a settled Watson-led offense” and cited a Week 12 timeline for Shedeur Sanders — that was wrong, sourced from an article about the 2025 season, not 2026. Striking that claim and correcting the record here. The real 2026 picture as of this week: Deshaun Watson took every first-team rep in Tuesday’s (Aug. 18) padded practice, while Sanders had his lightest throwing day of camp (13 passes, second-team reps). In the Aug. 15 preseason opener, Watson went 11-of-15 for 126 yards but lost a fumble on a strip-sack, while Sanders went 6-of-11 for 79 yards with an interception — CBS Sports called it a slight edge for Watson but said neither performance inspired confidence. Sanders gets a full look in Saturday’s (Aug. 22) preseason game against Buffalo, and Browns GM Andrew Berry has said the Week 1 starter won’t be named until closer to the Sept. 13 opener against Jacksonville — our Entry C pick. So what: this is a genuinely open competition, not a settled advantage for Jacksonville. We’re not leaning on Cleveland’s QB situation to offset Mekari’s surgery anymore; see the entry discussion below for where that leaves the pick.
- Chargers LT Rashawn Slater is now up to five straight missed practices (as of Aug. 16), still without a confirmed structural setback. Slater himself said he “tweaked the same knee” that underwent patellar tendon surgery last year, while head coach Jim Harbaugh has characterized the issue as muscular rather than structural. Slater described his knee as “strong and stable” and said he’s proceeding day-to-day. So what: the Chargers aren’t an immediate lock for either entry that has them reserved (Entry C, Week 11; Entry A, Week 16), so there’s no decision to make yet, but the absence count climbing from three to five practices is worth tracking more closely than a one-day rest story. Trigger for a real change is unchanged from Aug. 11: a confirmed structural setback plus market compression relative to the alternatives.
- Micah Parsons’ Week 6 return timeline was independently reconfirmed, not revised. Multiple August outlets (ESPN, Pro Football Rumors) now frame his return as “at least mid-October,” which lines up with, rather than contradicts, the Week 6 target we already priced into Entry B’s Week 3 Green Bay pick on Aug. 11 (66% win probability, discounted from 76%). No further change to that number this week.
The Picks: Entry by Entry
Entry A — Las Vegas Raiders (vs. Miami Dolphins, Week 1, 69% modeled win probability). This pick was never about Las Vegas being the single best Week 1 team on the board — it’s about which teams we can afford to spend in Week 1 versus which ones need to be held back for the double-pick gauntlet in Weeks 12–16. Denver, Detroit, Buffalo, Baltimore and Philadelphia were all in the mix for Week 1 on raw matchup strength, but every one of them is already doing more valuable work later in the season under our 1.7x double-pick weighting, and pulling any of them forward now would mean re-solving three or four other weeks to backfill the hole. Las Vegas at home against a Miami team we don’t need to see again this season was the cleanest way to bank a Week 1 win without touching the reserve. The Jackson Powers-Johnson injury is the one real threat to this logic right now — it’s unresolved, and we’re watching it directly, not guessing at it.
Entry B — Tennessee Titans (vs. New York Jets, Week 1, 65% modeled win probability). The lowest single-week win probability of our three Week 1 picks, and deliberately so — Entry B is carrying more of its season-long risk in the double-pick weeks (Philadelphia and Indianapolis in Week 6, Detroit and San Francisco in Week 9) and needed a Week 1 team that wasn’t going to be missed later. The alternative we weighed hardest here was Houston, which is a stronger team overall but is already Entry B’s Week 7 pick against a much softer Giants matchup — using it in Week 1 against a tougher Jets team would have been strictly worse value. No new information this week changes this calculus.
Entry C — Jacksonville Jaguars (vs. Cleveland Browns, Week 1, 81% modeled win probability). Still the highest-confidence single pick anywhere on our Week 1 board, even after the Mekari news. The offensive line is genuinely thinner than it was in July, and — correcting what we said above in the original version of this post — Cleveland’s Week 1 starter is still a genuinely open competition between Watson and Sanders, not a settled edge for us to lean on. That removes one leg of support for this pick, though Jacksonville still holds up on its own baseline strength; we’re just carrying less certainty about Cleveland’s side of the ball than we implied last week. We seriously discussed Detroit here too (also on our board, reserved instead for Entry A/B in Week 3 and Week 9) — the honest answer is Jacksonville’s matchup is simply the better Week 1 value of the two once you account for what Detroit is doing later in the season.
The Full 18-Week Roadmap
Modeled no-vig win probability per pick — illustrative, not predictive. Real sportsbook lines don’t exist this far before kickoff. Treat Weeks 1–3 as the most actionable; everything past Week 4 is a sequencing plan that gets rewritten as camp battles resolve and real lines post.
| Wk | Type | Entry A | Entry B | Entry C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Single | Las Vegas Raiders (vs Miami Dolphins, 69%) | Tennessee Titans (vs New York Jets, 65%) | Jacksonville Jaguars (vs Cleveland Browns, 81%) |
| 2 | Single | Tampa Bay Buccaneers (vs Cleveland Browns, 74%) | Los Angeles Chargers (vs Las Vegas Raiders, 84%) | Atlanta Falcons (vs Carolina Panthers, 61%) |
| 3 | DOUBLE | New Orleans Saints (vs Las Vegas Raiders, 72%) San Francisco 49ers (vs Arizona Cardinals, 89%) |
New York Giants (vs Tennessee Titans, 66%) Green Bay Packers (vs Atlanta Falcons, 66%)† |
Detroit Lions (vs New York Jets, 88%) Kansas City Chiefs (@Miami Dolphins, 81%) |
| 4 | Single | Minnesota Vikings (vs Miami Dolphins, 84%) | Chicago Bears (vs New York Jets, 82%) | New York Giants (vs Arizona Cardinals, 79%) |
| 5 | Single | Cincinnati Bengals (@Miami Dolphins, 79%) | New England Patriots (vs Las Vegas Raiders, 84%) | Pittsburgh Steelers (vs Indianapolis Colts, 63%) |
| 6 | DOUBLE | New England Patriots (vs New York Jets, 85%) Los Angeles Rams (vs Arizona Cardinals, 93%) |
Philadelphia Eagles (vs Carolina Panthers, 79%) Indianapolis Colts (vs Tennessee Titans, 68%) |
Buffalo Bills (@Las Vegas Raiders, 79%) Baltimore Ravens (@Cleveland Browns, 77%) |
| 7 | Single | New York Jets (vs Miami Dolphins, 67%) | Houston Texans (vs New York Giants, 76%) | Tennessee Titans (vs Cleveland Browns, 61%) |
| 8 | Single | Pittsburgh Steelers (vs Cleveland Browns, 74%) | Dallas Cowboys (vs Arizona Cardinals, 86%) | Green Bay Packers (vs Carolina Panthers, 78%) |
| 9 | DOUBLE | Seattle Seahawks (vs Arizona Cardinals, 92%) Kansas City Chiefs (vs New York Jets, 85%) |
Detroit Lions (@Miami Dolphins, 85%) San Francisco 49ers (vs Las Vegas Raiders, 84%) |
Chicago Bears (vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 64%) New Orleans Saints (vs Cleveland Browns, 70%) |
| 10 | Single | Indianapolis Colts (vs Miami Dolphins, 81%) | Los Angeles Rams (@Arizona Cardinals, 87%) | Houston Texans (@Cleveland Browns, 71%) |
| 11 | Single | Dallas Cowboys (vs Tennessee Titans, 76%) | Kansas City Chiefs (vs Arizona Cardinals, 89%) | Los Angeles Chargers (vs New York Jets, 86%) |
| 12 | DOUBLE | Jacksonville Jaguars (vs Tennessee Titans, 79%) Washington Commanders (@Arizona Cardinals, 68%) |
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (vs Carolina Panthers, 68%) Cleveland Browns (vs Las Vegas Raiders, 60%) |
Cincinnati Bengals (vs New Orleans Saints, 71%) Indianapolis Colts (vs New York Giants, 61%) |
| 13 | DOUBLE | Denver Broncos (vs Miami Dolphins, 89%) Philadelphia Eagles (@Arizona Cardinals, 82%) |
Minnesota Vikings (vs Carolina Panthers, 69%) Cincinnati Bengals (@Cleveland Browns, 68%) |
Washington Commanders (@Tennessee Titans, 52%) Seattle Seahawks (vs Dallas Cowboys, 74%) |
| 14 | DOUBLE | Chicago Bears (@Miami Dolphins, 78%) Detroit Lions (vs Tennessee Titans, 85%) |
Baltimore Ravens (vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 76%) Seattle Seahawks (vs New York Giants, 82%) |
Denver Broncos (@New York Jets, 75%) Philadelphia Eagles (vs Indianapolis Colts, 75%) |
| 15 | DOUBLE | Green Bay Packers (vs Miami Dolphins, 90%) New York Giants (vs Cleveland Browns, 68%) |
Denver Broncos (@Las Vegas Raiders, 72%) Washington Commanders (vs Atlanta Falcons, 61%) |
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (vs New Orleans Saints, 63%) Los Angeles Rams (vs Dallas Cowboys, 75%) |
| 16 | DOUBLE | Baltimore Ravens (vs Cleveland Browns, 87%) Los Angeles Chargers (@Miami Dolphins, 82%) |
New Orleans Saints (vs Arizona Cardinals, 81%) Pittsburgh Steelers (vs Carolina Panthers, 68%) |
New England Patriots (@New York Jets, 75%) Minnesota Vikings (vs Washington Commanders, 64%) |
| 17 | Single | Buffalo Bills (@Miami Dolphins, 86%) | Jacksonville Jaguars (vs Washington Commanders, 71%) | Dallas Cowboys (vs New York Giants, 69%) |
| 18 | Single | Houston Texans (vs Tennessee Titans, 81%) | Buffalo Bills (vs New York Jets, 89%) | San Francisco 49ers (@Arizona Cardinals, 81%) |
† Green Bay’s Week 3 number was revised 76% → 66% on Aug. 11 (Micah Parsons’ Week 6 return target); reconfirmed, not further changed, this week. Cumulative modeled survival odds and week-by-week detail live in nfl-survivor-2026-entry-tracker.xlsx (Survival Odometer tab), which recalculates automatically off the Weekly Picks tab.
What’s Next
Three weeks to kickoff means our Week 1 picks are the only ones that actually lock soon, and right now exactly one of them — Entry A’s Las Vegas pick — has a real, unresolved question mark hanging over it in Jackson Powers-Johnson’s practice injury. We’ll have an update the moment there’s a real diagnosis, rather than reacting to an “apparent injury” headline. Everything from Week 4 on remains a sequencing plan, not a lock, and will keep getting rewritten as camp battles resolve, depth charts settle, and actual sportsbook lines start posting closer to Week 1. If you’re setting up your own multi-entry board for Splash Sports‘ Big Splash, the double-pick weeks are the whole ballgame — plan your reserves around them first.