Circa Survivor Week 3 Strategy & Picks (2025)

Circa Survivor Week 3 has us sleepless as we think about Seattle, and which way to go with strategy. Plus pick projections and portfolio thoughts.

by Jason Lisk - Sep 19, 2025

The 2025 Circa Survivor Contest has been full of sweaty moments, but most entries are still intact. The biggest sweat producer last week was Dallas, picked by nearly 20% of entries. The Cowboys were at risk of losing from the start and needed some late heroics to survive. Arizona, the most popular pick, also turned what looked like a blowout against Carolina into some late drama. While over 90% of entries dodged elimination for the second week in a row, and all of the popular picks won, about half of the pool was in danger late.

As we head to Week 3, there are still 16,963 entries left, just over 90% of the total starting pool. Given this start, we’ll cover the current expectations below. 

We’ll have a section breaking down the main Circa Survivor contest in detail, with a separate section at the bottom for some quick Circa Grandissimo thoughts.

Announcement: Circa Survivor Product Now Features Both Premium and Free Tools

Our Circa Survivor Picks Product is now for sale (more on the packages below). Some of the features will still be free to everyone, but others will be behind the paywall for premium subscribers.

Free Access Includes

• My Entries: Load and track your own entries (or others) throughout the contest.
• Multi-Entry Survival Tool: Run scenarios with different pick combinations to see expected outcomes.
• Pick History: Research tools showing standings and results from past years, as well as the current contest.

Premium Access Includes

Premium access gives you all the free features above, along with these additional features:

• Data Grid: Popularity estimates, future value projections, and more.
• Optimal Path & Season Planner: Identify the best long-term routes through the season.
• EV Calculator: Quantify expected value on your picks.
• Full access to all Circa Survivor articles.
• All of these premium tools integrate with “My Entries” so you can apply them directly to your loaded entries.

Subscription Options

• All-Access & Pool Picks PLUS Subscribers: If you’re already an All-Access or Pool Picks PLUS subscriber, you automatically get full access to Circa Survivor Picks at no additional cost.
• Standalone Circa Survivor Product: This product is available separately for $99 for anyone interested only in Circa Survivor and not playing in other pools throughout the year.
• Existing Pool Picks Subscribers: If you are a subscriber to a different product, you can also upgrade your subscription to a Pool Picks PLUS package. The difference between the Circa product and getting the Pool Picks Plus is just $49, so if you play in other sports pools, including not only our football picks but also things like Golf One and Done pools and March Madness pools, then you can maximize your full-year sports pool edge across a variety of sports. Important Note: If you are upgrading to Pool Picks PLUS from an existing Pool Picks recurring subscription, you will get a pro-rated price for the first year, depending on how much time is left on your existing subscription.

You can view all the subscription options here.

If you are unsure which category you fall into or how to get access, email support@teamrankings.com, and we will help you out. 

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’s estimate was 12.5 winners, and then we had another week of extremely high survival.

So just how many winners should we expect? To try to answer that, I looked at the Circa Survivor results since 2020. Across all the years, we’ve had exactly 100 weeks of data, with 18 of those coming on a holiday split week.

Here are some quick observation notes:

• 39% of all “weeks” in Circa have had a 90%+ advancement rate;
• Another 10% of all “weeks” have been between 80% and 89.9%, so the median is near 80% advance rate;
• On the other hand, 15% of all “weeks” have seen fewer than 50% advance, including multiple below 20% advance rates.

So, yes, we have had two high-survival-rate weeks in a row, and it’s kind of unusual because they were the first two of the year. But getting a fair amount of high survival weeks is not unusual, including back-to-back. Last year featured 9 of the 20 pick weeks with a survival rate of 89% or better. Still, there were only eight winners out of 14,221 entries last year.

To test this, I ran some simulations for the remaining 18 weeks and got a wide range of outcomes. It all depends on how big the wipeout weeks are (it only takes a couple to drastically shift the pool). Nearly 40% of the sims still produced a single-digit number of winners (though a solo winner is extremely unlikely), but another 25% had over 50 winners. Less than 10%, but a non-trivial number, got over 100 winners in non-chalky years without any massive wipeout weeks.

So heading into Week 3, I am setting the Over/Under on eventual Circa winners at 22.5.

On those sims, the mean was 34.5, but the median was closer to this number.

Circa Survivor Week 3: Projected Pick Popularity

Our Circa Data Grid currently projects the five most popular Week 3 survivor picks as:

• Seattle Seahawks – 38%

• Buffalo Bills – 16%

• Tampa Bay Bucs – 13%

• Green Bay Packers – 13%

• Atlanta Falcons – 8%

• Kansas City Chiefs – 4%

• Indianapolis Colts – 4%

Seattle is going to be very popular in Circa, and the only question is just how much. They could realistically hit the 40% range. We saw a mild surprise last week with Arizona moving above Baltimore. This Seattle pick profiles similarly to Arizona last week, holding major future value implications. It would be a true shocker if the Seahawks weren’t the most popular pick by a healthy margin.

Week 3 Projected Future Value

Our Future Value rankings (available in the Data Grid) show the following top six teams entering Week 3:

1. Baltimore

2. Buffalo

3. Detroit

4. Green Bay

5. Philadelphia

6. LA Chargers

7. Kansas City

8. Denver

Some of the biggest moves that matter in our Future Value rankings include:

• Detroit UP to No. 3 (from No. 7) with the big win over Chicago;
• Cincinnati DOWN to No. 18 (from No. 12) with QB Joe Burrow’s injury;
• Atlanta UP to No. 12 (from No. 19) with road win at Minnesota and ratings increase;
• New England UP to No. 15 (from No. 22) with road win at Miami and slight ratings increase.

Circa Survivor Week 3 Strategy Breakdown

Instead of prescribing exact picks and who you must take, I will discuss reasonable options and arguments for picking them (as well as identify teams I think you should avoid for clear strategic reasons).

But first, I am going to talk about the low future value teams in general, because it is key to evaluating how you feel about picking a team like Seattle this week.

Where to Select Low Future Value Teams