Circa Survivor Week 1 Strategy & Picks (2025)

Breaking down Circa Survivor Week 1 strategy for 2025. Pick popularity, future value, and portfolio approaches to survive early.

by Jason Lisk - Sep 4, 2025

The 2025 Circa Survivor Contest kicks off with Thursday night’s game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys. Signups, however, remain open until Saturday’s pick deadline. Players with the maximum of 10 entries who lose on Thursday can even rebuy entries by the deadline to get back to full strength.

As a result, we won’t know the final entry count until Saturday night. But we can already start thinking Circa Survivor strategy for Week 1. Because no matter how many entries there are, the truth remains: to win this contest, you almost certainly need to go 20-0.

New: Circa Survivor Picks Product

We’re excited to launch our Circa Survivor Picks product, available free at the start of the season (a subscription will be added later). You can now explore tools like the Data Grid (projected pick popularity), Season Planner, Optimal Path, and EV Calculator directly, which means this article can focus more on strategy and less on raw tables.

How Many Winners Should We Expect in 2025?

Over the last four years of the expanded 18-week format (including both Thanksgiving and Christmas slates), the contest has produced:

• 2021: 8 winners

• 2022: 4 winners

• 2023: 2 winners

• 2024: 5 winners

Across those seasons, about 0.56 winners per 1,000 entries emerged — roughly 1 in every 2,000 entries. Last year landed right at that average despite early eliminations.

As of Wednesday, right at 15,000 entries had been registered. With three full days of weekend signups left, the final number will likely climb into the 17,000+ range. If that’s the case, we’d project an over/under of 9.5 winners for 2025.

Circa Survivor Week 1 Projected Pick Popularity

Our Circa Data Grid currently projects the five most popular Week 1 survivor picks as:

• Denver Broncos – 34%

• Arizona Cardinals – 24%

• Washington Commanders – 12%

• Cincinnati Bengals – 10%

• Philadelphia Eagles – 9%

Denver and Arizona project to be even more popular in Circa than in national survivor data, largely because Philadelphia (Thanksgiving) and Washington (Christmas) hold holiday future value, suppressing their Week 1 usage.

Last year, 86.2% of all Week 1 Circa picks landed on the top five teams. This year, we project an even higher 89%. The difference is that the best options are slightly stronger, but there are also fewer viable alternatives.

• 2024 example: Cincinnati was the lone TD+ favorite in Week 1 (-7.5). Several -3.5 to -4 favorites offered contrarian options, and many won, giving early contrarians a big edge when the Bengals lost.

• 2025 landscape: Denver and Philadelphia are both larger favorites than the 2024 Bengals, while Jacksonville (-3.5) is the only mid-range favorite. That makes this year’s Week 1 environment more top-heavy.

Week 1 Projected Future Value

Our Future Value rankings (available in the Data Grid) show the following top six teams entering Week 1:

1. Buffalo

2. Baltimore

3. Kansas City

4. Philadelphia

5. San Francisco

6. Tampa Bay

Several of these are essentially off-limits in Week 1:

• Buffalo vs. Baltimore (don’t pick teams facing each other).

• San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and Kansas City (short road favorites with high future value).

That leaves Philadelphia as the only high-FV team in real consideration this week. Denver (No. 8), Washington (No. 9), and the Rams (No. 10) are also favored and carry moderate future value.

Circa Survivor Week 1 Strategy Breakdown

Instead of prescribing exact picks, let’s look at the case for each contender. I focus on teams favored by three or more points — riskier underdogs will show worse EV and survival odds.

Here is a data table I put together of some things I like to look at, using both the EV numbers in our Data Grid, the EV Calculator tool, and the Optimal Path scenarios for Max Survival Odds.

I list things like EV at Market odds and at our model odds, and odds to go 20-0 starting with each specific Week 1 pick, using both market and our odds. I also list a “Win Circa If Advance” column. That shows you the relative value of the entry, if you can get through with picking that team, based on what is still ahead and who you have available.

FV Rank	Team	Market EV	PG EV	Survive20-Market	Survive20-PG	Win Circa if Advance
4	PHI	1.18	1.19	0.22%	0.22%	0.28%
8	DEN	1.04	1.03	0.26%	0.25%	0.33%
16	ARI	0.97	1.02	0.25%	0.26%	0.35%
9	WAS	1.00	0.95	0.22%	0.21%	0.31%
12	CIN	0.99	0.92	0.22%	0.20%	0.32%
25	JAC	0.96	0.99	0.22%	0.22%	0.35%
3	KC	0.94	0.94	0.19%	0.19%	0.31%
10	LAR	0.91	0.90	0.19%	0.19%	0.32%

Denver & Arizona

• Popularity: Projected top two.

• Win odds: Strongest survival paths (Denver slightly ahead on market odds, Arizona on PoolGenius model odds).

• EV: Solid but suppressed by high popularity. Contest EV remains strong thanks to long-term survival rates.

• Risk: Could get steamed even higher in popularity by Saturday.

Philadelphia

• Immediate EV: Highest of all Week 1 options.

• Contest EV: Lowest if they advance, since burning Thanksgiving flexibility lowers your future path odds.

• Verdict: Fine as a sprinkle/diversity play, but a poor anchor pick.

Jacksonville

• Line move: Up to -3.5 and 64% win odds.

• Future Value: Outside the top 20 — the only “burnable” team this week.

• Contest EV: Matches Arizona for best “if advance” survival odds.

• Verdict: Riskier now, but an excellent portfolio option for flexibility and high value entry if they get through.

Cincinnati & Washington

• Market odds: Solid favorites.

• Model odds: Lower, reducing EV in our view.

• Future Value: Both have some; Washington carries Christmas utility.

• Verdict: Reasonable picks, but weaker paths than Denver/Arizona.

Kansas City & LA Rams

• Future Value: Both top 10 (KC 3rd overall).

• Win odds: Only ~60%, too low to justify burning that value in Week 1.

• Verdict: Not viable.

Picking a Portfolio

With six optimal teams to consider, the key is avoiding over-diversification. Spreading across 5+ teams dilutes your upside and mirrors the pool too much.

• Historical note: Among the Top 10 finishers over the last four years, entries starting with 5+ entries averaged 3.0 teams used in Week 1, with over half of entries concentrated on the top option. Several players who made deep runs also concentrated on one team in Week 1.

For 10 entries, in addition to concentrating if you want to take on the total elimination risk, reasonable allocations include:

• 7–3 (seven on your top option, three on your second)

• 5–3–2 (spread across three, weighted toward top pick)

• 4–4–2 (if undecided between two leaders)

• 4–3–2–1 (four teams, with one contrarian flyer)

Arizona, Denver, Both, Neither?

Denver and Arizona look like the two strongest survival picks. But using both means you’ll be aligned with the two most popular choices in the contest, limiting your leverage. Some of their EV advantage comes from benefiting if the other popular team loses.

• Playing both: Still viable, but you risk being tied to the chalkiest combo in the contest.

• Fading both: Contrarian, but dangerous — Arizona in particular could mirror 2023 Washington, a low-FV team that showed up on nearly every deep run entry as the Week 1 pick (all four winners, and 12 of the 13 that reached Week 15 or beyond had Washington to start).

Philadelphia & the Buy-Back Factor

How many will pick Philadelphia on Thursday, knowing they can rebuy eliminated entries? That’s the unknown.

• Pros: Best immediate EV, potential peak value if Sunday chaos wipes out other popular picks.

• Cons: Lowest long-term value — any entry surviving with Philly is the weakest positioned moving forward.

Verdict: Philadelphia is fine as a diversity sprinkle, but too costly to be your main anchor.

Addendum: Week 1 Picks and Pool Size Announced

The Circa Survivor contest closed with 18,718 entries entering this year, for a total prize pool of $18,718,000.

Here are the announced pick rates for Week 1:

Here was every team picked by 2.0% or more of the entries:

• Denver 38.4%
• Arizona 22.3%
• Philadelphia 9.7%
• Jacksonville 8.8%
• Cincinnati 6.6%
• Washington 6.1%
• Pittsburgh 2.6%

We got 24 no picks this year, and 38 others have also been eliminated (36 on Kansas City and 2 on Dallas). Meanwhile, 1,823, or nearly 10% of the pool, has already advanced with the first two game results. Most of those were on the Eagles, but 12 entries did pick the Chargers.

Denver, as we expected, were the most popular pick for Week 1, and Arizona was second. We were slightly low on Denver and slightly high on Arizona, but the projections overall were pretty good on those two. We were also within a percent on Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, the biggest surprise was how many people picked Jacksonville. It is a low future value pick that makes sense in this contest, but it is still surprising to see that many entries roll with the Jaguars. The Bengals and Commanders, meanwhile, were underpicked compared to national data, and our projections.

So our biggest miss in projecting was on those second tier options, as Jacksonville emerged as a top choice compared to Cincinnati and Washington.