Circa Survivor Week 8 Breakdown (2024)

We dive into Week 8 of the 2024 Circa Survivor contest, focusing on pick popularity, future value and pick strategy.

Denver gets Carolina, starting Bryce Young, this week (Kevin Langley/Icon Sportswire)

For two weeks straight, nearly everyone survived in the Circa Survivor contest, as all the big favorites won again. Of the 216 entries that entered last week, only two were eliminated (one each picking Atlanta and Minnesota).

That leaves 214 entries remaining, with 13 picks still to go. Now, let’s look ahead to Week 8.

Here’s what you will see in the Week 8 article:

Circa Survivor Week 8 Projected Popularity
Projected Contest Size by Week
Circa Survivor Future Value Rankings (subscriber-only content)
Circa Survivor Optimal Path Analysis (subscriber-only content)
Week 8 Pick Strategy Thoughts (subscriber-only content)

Circa Survivor Week 8 Estimated Popularity

Last week, the Rams ended up being the most popular pick, at nearly 38% popularity, even though they were third in national survivor pool data. Although we anticipated high popularity for the Rams, the final number exceeded our expectations.

We recommended using some combination of the Commanders, Rams, Jaguars, and Bengals, and saving Buffalo. Entries that got through without using Buffalo are now in better shape for some future weeks.

We continue to see that the higher EV plays based on national survivor pick data tend to be more popular in Circa, while those with a worse relative EV are picked at a lower rate—sometimes actually making them value picks in the end.

Washington was last week’s prime example, as they ended up being an excellent EV play in Circa at a lower-than-nationwide pick rates.

Now to the estimates for pick popularity this week:

Team	Opponent	Circa Projected	Public	EV at Projected
DET	TEN	25%	34%	1.03
DEN	CAR	35%	24%	0.98
BAL	CLE	11%	13%	1.04
PIT	NYG	8%	7%	0.94
NYJ	NE	6%	5%	1.00
KC	LV	3%	5%	1.09
LAC	NO	8%	4%	1.01
GB	JAC	2%	3%	0.87
HOU	IND	1%	2%	0.93
MIN	LAR	1%	2%	0.79

We project that Denver will have more popularity, and Detroit a little less than public pick rates. Detroit plays on Thanksgiving at home, increasing the potential value in saving them.
The New York Jets can only be used by a maximum of 9% of entries in the Circa Survivor contest, as they are the most used team to date on surviving entries.

Subscribers can see our pick analysis for the Week 8 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.

The first milestone was “end of Week 6,” and our weekly projections were 240.5, 220.5, and 160.5 (after the big Seattle and San Francisco losses in Week 5). As it turns out, 216 entries made it through Week 6, so close to our middle projection after Week 4.

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.

Here are the most commonly used teams in Circa Survivor, and what percentage of entries still have them available:

New York Jets: 9% available
Houston: 29%
San Francisco: 30%
Seattle: 36%
Philadelphia: 48%
Washington: 61%
Chicago, Buffalo, and LA Rams: 62%

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 “SEA-HOU-NYJ-SF-CHI-PHI-LAR” right now would be 2.7% to make it through Week 18 alive, by the way.)

Here are our projections entering Week 8:

Contest Week	Current Projected Entries, Over/Under	Last Week's Projection, Over/Under
Week 8	158.5	120.5
Week 10	84.5	62.5
Week 12	45.5	35.5
Week 14	20.5	12.5
Week 16	12.5	6.5
Week 18	3.5	1.5

The odds of this contest going all the way through Week 18 continue to rise after a second consecutive week of nearly 100% survival. We now project about 45.5 entries to make it to the Thanksgiving pick week, and an over/under of 3.5 entries making it through Week 18.

Circa Survivor Future Value Rankings

Now, let’s look at the Future Value estimates for Circa Survivor Week 9 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.