Circa Survivor Week 14 Strategy & Picks (2025)

We cover Circa Survivor Week 14 picks and strategy, recovering from the aftermath of a wild week and taking stock of the remaining 45 entries.

by Jason Lisk - Dec 5, 2025

Well, that was quite the week. Exactly 900 entries started in Circa Survivor last week, and only 45 remain as we head into Week 14.

The contest was flipped on its head with a Thanksgiving set of games that saw the underdogs go a perfect 4-0. The biggest wipeouts involved the two most popular picks losing. First, it was Baltimore on Thanksgiving night, and then Philadelphia fell to Chicago on Friday. Over half of the other entries in the contest entering Thanksgiving had picked Philadelphia, while only 3% were taking Chicago.

While some will cast the Circa advancers up as reckless or lucky, our EV Calculator and Optimal Path tools have been, for pretty much the whole year, listing picks like Chicago and Cincinnati, opposite really popular favorites on a concentrated week, as part of the Optimal Path to Maximize EV.

In fact, we got questions throughout about how the Max Survival path could list Philadelphia as the Thanksgiving pick while listing their opponent, Chicago, on the Max EV path for many entries. We wrote an article on it: Max Survival vs. Max EV Paths: Why Underdogs Pop Up in Holiday Weeks.

In it, I explained why the special holiday weeks, with only a few games, were the one place it was viable to pick an outright underdog, particularly one opposite a very popular favorite.

After last week’s results, we now have 10 teams with a 30% or higher pick popularity on Thanksgiving over the first six years of Circa Survivor. Those favorites are now 5-5. There have also been eight different underdogs with +EV (1.01 or higher EV) based on their win odds and the pick distribution on Thanksgiving, and four of them have now won.

That article also featured this note:

Fun fact: In the first five years of Circa Survivor, 7 of 79 entries that picked a Thanksgiving underdog went on to win Circa Survivor (8.9%) vs. 47 of 756 that picked a favorite (6.2%).

That split between underdogs and favorites picked on Thanksgiving should widen, considering everyone left in 2025 picked an underdog.

After the Thanksgiving wipeout, the remaining entries had to pick another team. The carnage did mostly stop, but unfortunately for those who picked the Rams, who were the 2nd-highest EV play of the week, they lost, busting teams that got through on a big upset call only to fall victim to a bigger upset.

You can see the remaining entries and who they picked each week on the Pick History page of our Circa Survivor Picks Product.

Circa Survivor Strategy Show: Week 14

Jason Lisk breaks down Circa Survivor strategy for Week 14 and gives an overview of the strategy needed to finish the contest.

Subscribe to the PoolGenius YouTube channel for more NFL Survivor & Pool Picks content.

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Circa Survivor Week 14: Projected Pick Popularity

Our Circa Survivor Data Grid currently shows our projections for Circa Survivor Week 14. Always refer back to that grid for the most updated numbers.

Because we are now down to 45 entries, we are projecting the actual numbers (within a half-pick, to reflect picks we think are likely among those available) based on what each entry has left.

Week 14

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 20.0 (44%)
• Cleveland Browns – 5.5 (12%)
• Los Angeles Rams – 3.5 (8%)
• Buffalo Bills – 3.5 (8%)
• Baltimore Ravens – 3.5 (8%)
• Denver Broncos – 2.5 (6%)
• Green Bay Packers – 2.5 (6%)
• Seattle Seahawks – 2.5 (6%)
• Miami Dolphins – 1.5 (3%)

How Many Winners Should We Expect in 2025?

Each week, we’ll update this section with an Over/Under on the projected number of winners (or the projected finishing week if the contest looks likely to end before anyone reaches 20-0).

Last week, we projected 19.5 winners, with 900 remaining, a number many probably thought was way too low. We posted a list of nine key games where we were likely to see heavy pick concentration, and said at the time, “[t]hat number will likely change, either way, once we know the results from this two-pick week. If Baltimore, Philadelphia, and the LA Chargers all win, that will be 3 of those 9, and we will be trending toward a much bigger pot split.”

As it turns out, they did not go 3-0, and the two losses have totally changed the outlook.

So, where do we see it now? Lower, much lower.

I am now setting the projected number of winners at an Over/Under of 3.5.

The entries that advanced were in a slightly better future-value shape than the pool overall entering Week 13, but they still have a lot of risky weeks ahead.

This group was also a little less heavy on the “popular” picks and EV-conscious, but there will still be weeks where picks get funneled toward one or two teams, and a couple of upsets could chop the pool significantly. We currently have seven teams projected to have greater than 25% popularity in a given future week.

Can we get a solo winner or a pot split before getting to 20-0? Yes. What seemed inconceivable a week ago is now in play. It would probably involve something like a relatively low number (12 or fewer) showing up to Christmas, the results of the Dallas-Washington game eliminating a chunk of those, and then a really tough Week 17B, resulting in some key upsets.

Week 14 Projected Future Value

With the chop down to 45 teams, no one in the contest has Indianapolis. Other teams could join them this week as no longer being available in Circa Survivor.

Here is the Future Value ranking of teams after this week, and we list the number (out of 45) that have that team remaining in parentheses.