Receiving yards · WR
Ask And You Shall Receive
Pick wide receivers. Receiving yards only — rushing yards, catches and touchdowns don’t move the needle.
Sandman Sports · Survivor
Pick. Survive.
Repeat.
One week at a time. Clear the bar and you live to pick again. Miss it once and your season is over. No second chances, no consolation bracket, no way back in.
NFL and college football. Five games. One survival instinct.
The field, week by week
Nobody is safe twice.
Illustrative opening weeks of a 1,024-entry field. The contest continues through the season until one entry remains, or surviving entries reach the end.
Choose your format
Three ways to survive
Same elimination spine, three different bars to clear. Pick the one that matches how you like to watch.
Classic Survivor
Private contests onlyThe classic. Each week you pick teams from that week’s slate. Meet the survival standard your commissioner set and you advance. Once you use a team, it’s gone for the rest of the contest — so the schedule matters as much as the matchup.
- You pick
- Teams from the weekly slate
- You survive if
- Your picks meet the survival standard
- Reuse
- Never — one week per team
- If entries tie
- No tiebreaker — survivors split the prize
Your commissioner sets the number of teams, the survival standard, and whether eliminated entries can be revived. Every setting is configurable at contest creation.
Create a Classic SurvivorTouchdown Jesus
Public & privateEach week you pick a handful of skill players. If any one of them reaches the end zone, you advance. It doesn’t matter how — rushing, receiving, or a return — one is enough.
- You pick
- QB, RB, WR or TE — each from a different team
- You survive if
- Any one of them scores a touchdown
- Doesn’t count
- Passing TDs and two-point conversions
- If entries tie
- Most total touchdowns across the contest
A quarterback only counts if he runs it in himself. Throwing a touchdown pass does nothing for you. Defensive and special-teams scores by one of your picks do count.
Runs for NFL and college football · No two picks from the same team in a week
Play Touchdown JesusThe Yardage Games
Public & privateThree contests, one idea: pick players at a single position and one of them has to clear the yardage bar. Miss it and you’re out. Every player you spend is gone for good, so the deep weeks get thin fast.
Rushing yards · RB
Mount Rush More
Pick running backs. Rushing yards only. Some versions limit the pool to a defined set of teams or conferences.
Passing yards · QB
Pass The Yards
Pick quarterbacks. Passing yards only — a scrambling quarterback’s rushing total doesn’t help here.
- You survive if
- Any one pick clears the yardage bar
- Reuse
- Never — one week per player
- If entries tie
- Most total yards across the contest
Coming soon
Golf, basketball, baseball and more
Same survival spine, new stats to chase. Get told when each one opens.
See it in action
Touchdown JesusOne entry, week after week
The opening weeks of a Touchdown Jesus run. Watch the picks land, the board empty out, and the field shrink underneath. It keeps going through the season until one entry remains, or surviving entries reach the end.
Illustrative example, not live results. Picks per week, survival standards and eligible pools vary by contest. Six weeks shown; this is not a six-week contest.
Your picks
Week 1- CeeDee LambTouchdown
- Bijan RobinsonNo score
- Travis KelceNo score
Survived week 1
Field remaining
611of 1,024
A third of the field went out in week one. Most of them used a favorite to do it.
Players you’ve used
- CeeDee Lamb
- Bijan Robinson
- Travis Kelce
Every name here is off the board for the rest of the contest.
The real game
The best pick this week is a pick you might need in week ten
Survivor isn’t about being right once. Spend your safest team or your surest player in week one and you’ll feel it in November, staring at a board with nothing left on it. Everyone survives the easy weeks. The contest is decided by who planned for the hard ones.
Ready for week one?
Your next Survivor starts here
Check the current public contest listings, or bring your own group and set the rules.
Browse public contestsSame in every format
Rules that never change
Whichever format you play, these hold. Each contest’s own page carries the full official rules.
One miss ends it
Fall short in any week and your entry is out for the rest of the contest. The only exception is a private contest where the commissioner has turned revivals on.
Two ways a pick can lock
The weekly deadline is Sunday 1:00 pm ET for NFL and Saturday 12:00 pm ET for college football — everything still open locks and is revealed then. But a pick in a game that starts earlier, like Thursday night, locks at that kickoff instead and is revealed when the game begins.
Once you’re safe, the week is closed
As soon as one of your picks clears the bar you’ve advanced, and every other pick you made that week locks immediately — including any whose game hasn’t kicked off. You can’t pull an unplayed pick back off the board to keep that name available for a later week.
A pick that doesn’t play is a zero
Injured, inactive, on a bye or held out — nobody is substituted for you, and a slot you leave empty counts as nothing. An incomplete lineup still gets scored; it just has fewer ways to survive.
Your board never gets restocked
Every pick you use is gone for the rest of the contest. If you run low, field as many eligible picks as you still have — a short lineup isn’t automatic elimination, but the bar doesn’t move for you.
Official stats decide it
Scoring runs on official statistics from SportsDataIO.
Questions
Can I reuse a player or team?
No. Once you use a pick, it’s off your board for the rest of the contest — whether it survived or not. That’s the whole strategic problem: your best options are finite.
Does a quarterback’s touchdown pass count in Touchdown Jesus?
No. Your pick has to reach the end zone himself — rushing, receiving, or on any kind of return. A quarterback who throws four touchdowns and doesn’t run one in does nothing for you.
What if several entries survive to the end?
In Touchdown Jesus and the Yardage Games, the tiebreaker is total touchdowns or total yards accumulated across the whole contest; if entries are still level, they split the prize. Classic Survivor has no tiebreaker at all — every surviving entry splits equally.
Do I see other entries’ picks?
Not until the deadline. Everything is revealed when picks lock — or at kickoff, for a pick in an earlier game.
Can I play Classic Survivor in a public contest?
Classic Survivor runs as a private, commissioner-created contest only. Touchdown Jesus and the Yardage Games are available in both public and private contests.
What happens if a game is postponed?
In Classic Survivor, a game that isn’t completed within the contest week doesn’t survive, and the team counts as used. Player formats treat a player who doesn’t play as a zero.
Where you can play
To enter public contests you must be physically located in an authorized jurisdiction. Private, commissioner-created contests are open to players anywhere in the U.S. — we still confirm your location, but there are no jurisdiction restrictions.
Think you can survive the season?
Enter now.
Sandman Sports contests are games of skill. Must be 18+ (19+ or 21+ in some jurisdictions) and physically located in an authorized jurisdiction to enter public cash contests. Please play responsibly.
