The Circa Sports Million IV NFL handicapping contest hits the halfway point with Week 9 of the 18-week season, but this also concludes the second “Quarter” that includes Week 5-9.
The current overall leader is TAIL PARTY-2 at 32-8 (a whopping 80%) with MERCILESS916-1 trailing by 1.5 points at 30-9-1 (76.9%). For those who don’t know, CSM entrants make 5 picks a week against the contest lines and receive 1 point per win and 0.5 per push.
TAIL PARTY’s plays this week are the Bears +5 vs. the Dolphins, Packers -3.5 at the Lions, Chargers -3 at the Falcons, Raiders -1.5 at the Jaguars and Cardinals -2 vs. Seahawks. MERCILESS916’s plays are the Bills -12.5 at the Jets, Bears +5 vs. the Dolphins, Commanders +3 vs. the Vikings, Falcons +3 and Cardinals -2 vs. the Seahawks. It’s interesting that they have common plays on the Bears and Cardinals, but are opposite in the Chargers-Falcons game.
The Top 5 Most-Selected Teams from the complete field of 4,691 entrants were the Seahawks +2 at the Cardinals, Raiders -1.5 at the Jaguars, Falcons +3 vs. the Chargers, Vikings -3 at the Commanders and Bears +5 vs. the Dolphins, so both went against the No. 1 pick as they both used the Cardinals. In addition, TAIL PARTY was with the Top 5 on the Bears and Raiders but against them with the Chargers, while MERCILESS916 was with the consensus on the Bears and Falcons, but against them on the Commanders.
It should be an interesting Sunday at the top of the leaderboard with another 17 contestants within 2 points of second place.
The Circa Sports Million Top 5 picks are 22-17-1 (56.4%) on the season after going 3-2 last week to rebound from a 1-4 mark in Week 7. The No. 1 plays are 6-2 (75%).
In the race for the “2nd Quarter” prizes, Enut34-1 leads at 17-3 (85%), with VODKA ROCKS-2 at 16-3-1 and another 11 players at 16-4 entering the weekend. For the “2nd Quarter Booby Prize” for worst record, SERGIOS-2 leads at 3-17 with four at 3-16-1.
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In Circa Survivor III, there were 123 live entries entering this weekend after only two were eliminated in Week 8 (one on the Jaguars in their 21-17 loss to the Broncos and one on the Colts in their 17-16 loss vs. the Commanders).
The Chiefs were the most-selected team this week with 47 of the 123 live entries (38.2%) taking them vs. the Titans on Sunday Night Football. The second choice was 24 taking the Eagles, so they’re already through to Week 10 with the Eagles’ 29-17 win at the Texans on Thursday night.
Completing the Top 5 were the Bengals (24), Patriots (18) and Bills (7), though we might as well give the complete list as there were only a season-low 7 teams used this week with 2 on the Dolphins and 1 on the Cardinals.
Circa owner Derek J. Stevens, in his usual spot as a weekly guest on VSiN’s “The Football Contest Show,” pointed out that Bob DeLuca (using the alias CrushEmSports.com) – the last Survivor with all 6 original entries and a recent guest on “A Numbers Game” with Gill Alexander who said he was planning to go all-in on one team this week – did indeed do that with all 6 of his entries on the Bills.
Despite the lack of carnage last week, 98% of Circa Survivor’s starting field of 6,133 has been eliminated with each of the remaining entries having an inherent value of $49,861.78 from the $6.133 million prize pool as each entry cost $1,000. In the inaugural Circa Survivor in 2020, 76.19% of the field had been eliminated after Week 8 while 70.88% were gone at the same point last year.
