Circa Survivor Tracker: Entries Remaining and Week 10 Selections

How the 20-leg Circa Survivor contest works

Circa Survivor is an NFL survivor pool. In the 2026 contest an entry makes up to 20 selections. Eighteen legs are the regular NFL weeks, Week 1 through Week 18. Two more legs are holidays: the Thanksgiving leg and the Christmas leg.

Each leg you pick one NFL team to win its game. A loss eliminates that entry. Circa grades a tie as a loss, so a tie eliminates the entry too. Each NFL team can be used once per entry. After you use a team, it stays used for the rest of that plan.

This page is a look-ahead planner for that survivor pool. You can try a build, choose a contest leg, and see which teams are still available. The Cold Line does not register an entry or submit official picks. Circa Sports’ official rules, schedule, and deadlines govern the contest.

Path to win it all: five ways to plan your Circa Survivor picks

The Path to win it all panel lays out a full route through every leg you have left: one team per leg, each team once, around the picks you have already made. It offers five perspectives, so you can see what each strategy costs before you choose one.

Max survival is the route with the highest chance of surviving every remaining leg. Holiday insurance keeps the two strongest Thanksgiving teams and the two strongest Christmas teams out of the regular weeks, so one injury or line move is less likely to strand a holiday leg. Next 8 weeks plans only the next eight legs and fills the rest with the teams left over, because far weeks are uncertain. Pool EV weighs your survival against the projected picks of the rest of the Circa field. Safest each week takes the strongest available team every leg in order, which is what many entrants do, and shows what that habit costs over a season.

Under Max survival the panel also lists the other full paths, so you can see how close the alternatives are. A sticky week strip keeps the current leg in view, the matchup panel names the team you are looking at, and teams you have already used are greyed out.

How the path is computed

Every NFL team gets a power rating built from this season’s results and the point spreads posted by sportsbooks. Each rating starts near league average, game results and posted lines pull it from there, and each rating also keeps track of how unsure it is. Older results count for less, and very large margins are capped so one blowout cannot rewrite a team.

For a game with a posted line, the win chance comes from that line. For a game further out, it comes from the two ratings plus home field, and the uncertainty widens with each week ahead. Because Circa grades a tie as a loss, a small tie chance is counted against every pick.

Choosing one team per pick with no team used twice has one exact answer, and the planner finds it exactly (it uses the Hungarian method), so Max survival really is the highest chance of surviving every pick under these numbers, not a week-by-week guess.

The survival figure is an estimate, not a promise. The planner plans the season again a few hundred times with slightly different team ratings and shows the range where 8 out of 10 of those results land. A wide range means the far weeks could easily change.

Spend now or save: future value of a survivor team

A strong team is worth something this week and something later. Spend now or save ranks the options for the current leg and prices each one against the highest-survival path: if you use this team now, how much of your season survival chance is left? That share is the team’s future value.

A team with a high win chance today and little use later is a good spend. A team that the highest-survival path needs for a hard week or a holiday leg costs more to burn now than its win chance alone suggests.

Field forecast and pool EV

Survival is not the only goal in a big pool. If you survive with thousands of other entries, your share of the prize is small. The field forecast estimates the picks it expects from the remaining Circa entries for a leg and how many entries are likely to be eliminated that leg.

The forecast is fitted from Circa’s published pick sheets, which show the field herding on favorites. Pool EV uses it to value being different. That value only matters while many rivals could still survive with you, so the Pool EV path moves back toward Max survival as the field thins. When field data is not loaded, Pool EV equals Max survival.

Use your own win chances and field shares

You do not have to accept the planner’s numbers. On any open leg, Set % replaces the planner’s win chance for a game with yours, and in the field forecast you can enter your own share of the field for a team. The path, Pool EV and the survival range are recalculated around your numbers for that build only, and every number you enter is marked User wherever it shows. Final games keep their real result.

Plan several Circa builds together

Entries in the same contest share the same games, so planning them one at a time can leave them all standing on the same teams. Sign in, save more than one build, and the Portfolio below the path evaluates up to 10 builds together: the chance that at least one is still alive, the expected number of builds alive, how many of your builds lean on the same team in a leg, and any builds that are identical. Plan them together suggests changes that spread the builds out under one of two goals, At least one alive or Total value, with a cap on how many builds may share a team. Nothing changes until you tap Plan it on a build. Without an account you plan one build at a time and nothing is saved.

Holiday games tracker

The holiday tracker follows Thanksgiving Eve, Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Christmas. For each holiday leg it counts how many of the teams that play in that window are still unused in your build, with a count for each day.

Once 30% of a holiday leg’s teams are spent in other weeks, the tracker shows a scarcity warning with the teams you have left. You can hold a team for a holiday leg so the path keeps it out of the regular weeks, or switch to Holiday insurance to keep two backups for each holiday.

Thanksgiving leg

The Thanksgiving leg is its own required selection. It covers Thanksgiving Eve, Thanksgiving Day, and Black Friday as one leg, not three separate picks. You still choose one team for that holiday window.

On the 2026 sheet this planner models, that window is November 25–27 and the deadline is Wednesday, November 25, 2026, 4:00 PM Pacific, or the selected kickoff if Circa’s rules make the deadline earlier. Confirm the deadline with Circa before you lock a pick. A team you use on the Thanksgiving leg cannot be used again later, including on the Christmas leg.

Christmas leg

The Christmas leg is a separate required selection. It is not the Thanksgiving leg, and it is not folded into the regular NFL week that overlaps those dates. You pick one unused team for the Christmas window.

On the 2026 sheet this planner models, that window is December 24–25 and the deadline is Thursday, December 24, 2026, 4:00 PM Pacific. Confirm that time with Circa. If every official Christmas team is already used on the entry, that holiday leg cannot be survived.

Circa Millions is a different contest

Circa Millions is Circa Sports’ season-long football contest. It is not this survivor pool. This planner is only for Circa Survivor: one team per leg, a loss or a tie ends the entry, and the season is 20 legs including the Thanksgiving leg and the Christmas leg.