The two top teams selected in Circa Survivor contests lost their Week 5 NFL games Sunday, and a third upset among the five most popular teams picked resulted in a culling of nearly 60% of the 12,400 entries that began the week.
Circa Survivor, which offers a prize of more than $18.7 million this year to anyone who can successfully navigate the NFL season by picking one team to win each week without using that team more than once, is already down to fewer than 5,000 entries. Sunday’s bloodletting fueled by upset losses suffered by the Los Angeles Rams, Arizona Cardinals, and Buffalo Bills eliminated more than 7,400 entries.
It was the first truly rough week this season endured by Survivor contests, whose collective top five selections emerged unscathed in Weeks 1, 2, and 4. Losses by Green Bay and Atlanta in Week 3 claimed more than 3,000 entries.
So what exactly happened?
The drama began with the first game of the week, the Thursday Night Football matchup between the Rams and San Francisco 49ers. Despite rallying from a 13-point deficit in the second half, Los Angeles could not complete its comeback and fell 26-23 in overtime.
Roughly two out of every seven entries — 3,254 in total — were riding the Rams, who were 8.5-point favorites against a short-handed 49ers team missing its starting quarterback and three top receivers.
It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon where things went truly sideways, and it started with a permanently scarring memory for those eliminated by picking Arizona. Emari Demercado failed to carry the ball across the plane of the goal line on a play, negating a 72-yard touchdown run that would have given the Cardinals a 28-6 lead over the winless Tennessee Titans with 12:40 to play.
The Titans’ comeback gained further momentum on another screwball play in which Cardinals defensive back Dadrion Taylor-Demerson intercepted C.J. Ward but fumbled, leading to a scramble in which Titans wideout Tyler Lockett recovered the ball in the end zone to cut Arizona’s lead to 21-19 with 4:51 left.
Joey Slye completed Tennessee’s comeback with a 29-yard field goal as time expired, sending another 3,152 entries — more than 25% of the field entering the week — up in flames.
The New England Patriots put the finishing touches on the volatile Sunday, handing the Buffalo Bills their first loss of the season with a 23-20 upset. Andy Borregalos kicked a 52-yard field goal with 15 seconds remaining, and former Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs totaled 119 of his 146 receiving yards in the second half as 756 more entries were trashed.
More entries alive at this point than last year
Though more than two-thirds of the field has already been eliminated before Week 6, there are nearly 22 times more entries still alive compared to the same point in 2024. The first three weeks of last season were riddled with so many upsets that there were only 642 entries remaining of the 14,266 submitted. Another 421 were eliminated in Weeks 4 and 5, leaving only 1.5% of the field standing.
