Circa Survivor Thanksgiving and Week 12 Breakdown (2023)

After the most popular pick in Circa, Washington, went down, the 2023 Circa Survivor Pro Football Contest now has 372 entries alive as we enter one of the most unique rules about the contest, the Thanksgiving pick week. This year, contestants are required to pick one team from among the four games taking place on Thursday or Friday, and then if they advance, turn around and pick a team from the remaining Sunday/Monday games in Week 12.

And while a lot of people focus on the four Thanksgiving games, since you have to make sure you have an option, the rest of Week 12 is actually going to make for some upset stomachs this year with a lot of riskier picks likely to draw attention.

In this week’s post, we are going to cover both pick segments, going through projected popularity and strategy to consider. We are posting the Thanksgiving pick notes on Wednesday, and will update the rest of Week 12 by Friday evening.

Thanksgiving Pick Rate Predictions

Here are the predicted pick rate percentages in Circa for the Thanksgiving slate.

This is largely a “use them if you got them” week for the favorites in the four potential matchups as most entries have only one available from among Dallas, Detroit, Miami, and San Francisco.

There are 16 entries that have none of those four favorites available (4.3% of all entries) so at least that amount will be picking one of the underdogs.

To the extent an entry has an option, this would be the strategic priority recommendations:

• Take Dallas then Miami if available, both are the highest win odds and best EV plays;
• Detroit and San Francisco is debatable if that is the choice, as Detroit is going to be highly popular, but San Francisco will have a lot of value if you can carry them past this week;
• Among the underdogs, the best relative pick is Green Bay. Ideally, you don’t have to pick one, but if you do, at least take the one opposite the most popular pick, that way if an upset does happen, you advance with about half the pool eliminated.

Week 12 Pick Rate Predictions

While the focus is usually on Thanksgiving, it is the rest of Week 12 that presents major risk. Kansas City is the only team favored by more than 3.5 points on the slate, and they have been largely used, and are also important for the Christmas slate of games, especially for any entries that have used Philadelphia.

This analysis is being dropped after the Thanksgiving games, but before the Miami-Jets game is concluded, but that outcome should not impact the analysis. The availability numbers reflect the percentages entering the Thanksgiving picks, and could have changed slightly based on the entries eliminated with the Detroit loss.

Kansas City is an extremely high value play in a week otherwise filled with riskier choices. Our public pick data nationally shows that the Titans and Vikings are very popular this week across all survivor pools. That should be the same in Circa, though we may see some shifts toward other options. The Patriots have very low popularity across all survivor pools, but we should see that rise in this format, due to the options. However, they are +EV as long as their popularity is less than the Titans and Vikings. The Bears, as an underdog, actually have higher EV than Minnesota, if the Vikings’ pick rate approaches these estimates.