Circa Survivor Week 10 Breakdown (2024)

We dive into Week 10 of the 2024 Circa Survivor contest, focusing on pick popularity, future value and pick strategy.

The Vikings will try to kick the Jaguars while they are down in Week 10 (Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire)

Last week, we had only one favorite lose, but it turned out to be the second-most popular Circa pick. New Orleans had a 21% pick rate, with 40 picks. As a result, there are now 151 entries remaining as we enter Week 10.

Here’s what you will see in the Week 10 article:

• Circa Survivor Week 10 Projected Popularity
• Projected Contest Eliminations by Week
• Week 10 Future Value Rankings (subscriber-only content)
• Optimal Path and Entry Values (subscriber-only content)
• Week 10 Pick Strategy Thoughts (subscriber-only content)

Circa Survivor Week 10 Estimated Popularity

Last week, we projected the Saints, Bengals, and Ravens to have similar popularity and be the most popular picks in Circa. We got the ordering slightly wrong but were pretty close on all three. Cumulatively, we had them projected for 62% of all Circa picks, and they ended up making up 64%.

We continue to see that Circa contestants this year exhibit sharper behavior. The Saints didn’t work out, but they were a strategic pick based on low future value and relative win odds. We also suggested Cincinnati because we did anticipate they would be a little less popular (and the Saints moreso) than public pick data showed.

Here are the estimates for pick popularity this week:

• We anticipate the Chargers will be the most popular pick in Circa, just as they are publicly, though we could see them coming in a little below that public 34% number (Then, again, given other dynamics, they could be really popular).
• All three current projected favorites on Christmas (Kansas City, Chicago, and Baltimore) are survivor options this week. We think that holiday factor will lead to them being a little less used this week than across public data.
• We project the Vikings, in light of the news that Mac Jones will start for Jacksonville, and the Giants to be the next most popular picks, unlike what we are seeing in public data.

Subscribers can see our pick analysis for the Week 10 options below.

Projected Contest Eliminations by Week

After Week 3 and the high eliminations early in Circa Survivor, we started projecting the number of entries to be alive at various milestones.

Here is our analysis for future milestones. This is based on our review of the most common picks and upcoming potential paths, as well as based on historical weekly elimination rates.

We used our Optimal Path and Season Planner tools to see survival rate estimates for various potential paths for entries that had used all or some of those teams. Those estimates also accounted for the two extra holiday picks.

(Our Optimal Survival Path for an entry that has already picked the most common surviving pick each week of “SEA-HOU-NYJ-SF-CHI-PHI-LAR-DEN-CIN” right now would be 4.8% to make it through Week 18 alive, by the way.)

Here are our projections entering Week 10:

Even with the Saints loss, we have had an above average survival rate in the contest for a month straight, and we continue to slightly increase our estimated survivals over time. Our current projection is for 4.5 entries to get all the way through to splitting the prize. We project around 60 entries to make it to the Thanksgiving slate of games, and about 13 to be alive for Christmas picks right now.

Circa Survivor Future Value Rankings

Now, let’s look at the Future Value estimates for Circa Survivor Week 11 and beyond. This Future Value estimate is specific to the Circa contest and looks at how many weeks each team is a survivor option and how likely they are to rank highly in relative win odds for that week.

We have availability percentages in the contest for each team, and put asterisks on teams that appear on a Thanksgiving or Christmas game schedule.