Week 3 NFL Survivor Recap (2026): Green Bay Falls on Thursday Night
Top pick Kansas City, alternative San Francisco and save play Detroit all won. Green Bay, the Thursday game we flagged, lost.
September 25, 2026 · Updated September 29, 2026
All sixteen Week 3 games are final, and eight went to the team the market priced under 50 percent: Atlanta on Thursday, six more on Sunday and Chicago on Monday night. The costliest for survivor players was Washington’s 33-31 win over Seattle, a 72 percent favorite at our refresh on September 22 and the most popular pick to lose this week. Kansas City, carrying 40 percent of consensus entries, won 24-10, and all three of our recommendations won.
Thursday night
Atlanta beat Green Bay 35-14 on the road to open Week 3. The Packers were priced at 71 percent at our refresh on September 22, a six-point home favorite, and lost by 21. That makes it the first upset of the week, and a lopsided one: the team the market gave about a three-in-ten chance won by three touchdowns. Atlanta had lost 34-3 at home to Carolina four days earlier.
The survivor lens is wider than it was for either of the first two Thursday games. SurvivorGrid, which averages pick distribution across Yahoo, ESPN and other public pools, had 12.2 percent of Week 3 entries on Green Bay as of Friday morning, the second-largest share on the board behind Kansas City at 39.5 percent. Atlanta registered at 0.0 percent. Circa Survivor had 8,610 entries still alive entering the week, per VSiN, and its count of Green Bay entries had not been published as of Friday morning.
The structural note is timing. In a pool that locks at the first kickoff of the week, every Week 3 pick was frozen at 8:15 p.m. ET Thursday, so entries on Kansas City, San Francisco and Detroit were locked in alongside the Green Bay entries before this result existed.
Sunday
Fourteen games were played Sunday, and the favorite won eight of them. All prices below are from our refresh on September 22.
The favorites that held. Kansas City, the widest number on the board at 86 percent, won 24-10 at Miami. San Francisco (79 percent) beat Arizona 36-30. Buffalo (74 percent) beat the Chargers 24-16. Detroit (72 percent) beat the Jets 31-24. The Giants (62 percent) beat Tennessee 12-7, Jacksonville (59 percent) beat New England 35-6, and Minnesota (53 percent) won 23-16 at Tampa Bay. Baltimore (58 percent) beat Dallas 34-31 in Rio de Janeiro, a neutral-site game.
The upsets, ranked by the loser’s price.
- Seattle, 72 percent, lost 33-31 at Washington. The Commanders were priced at 28 percent. Per Covers, Washington went ahead 33-24 in the final minutes on a 50-yard interception return by Kain Medrano before Seattle scored again.
- Cincinnati, 62 percent, lost 30-27 at Pittsburgh.
- New Orleans, 61 percent, lost 35-27 at home to Las Vegas.
- Carolina, 58 percent, lost 21-18 at Cleveland.
- Houston, 56 percent, lost 19-17 at Indianapolis.
- The Rams, 55 percent, lost 30-26 at Denver on Sunday night.
Only one of those six was priced above 70 percent. The other five sat between 55 and 62, the range where a loss is close to a coin flip going the other way.
The survivor lens. SurvivorGrid’s consensus board, which averages pick distribution across Yahoo, ESPN and other public pools, had Kansas City at 40.0 percent of Week 3 entries as of Monday morning, followed by Seattle at 10.8, Detroit at 9.3, San Francisco at 9.1 and Buffalo at 7.6. The four of those five that won account for 66 percent of the board. The Sunday losers add up to roughly 19 percent of it: Seattle 10.8, Houston 3.7, Cincinnati 1.9, New Orleans 1.8, Carolina 0.5 and the Rams 0.1.
Circa Survivor tells the same story at a smaller scale. Per Covers, 8,110 entries were alive entering Sunday, and 12.9 percent of them were on Seattle, a little over 1,000 entries. Just over 100 more were on Cincinnati. Nearly 4,400 Circa entries, more than half the remaining field, were on Kansas City and advanced. Covers put the field at fewer than 7,000 after the early games.
So the Sunday that matters most for most pools is not the six upsets. It is that the chalk held: the team 40 percent of the field chose won by 14, and the damage fell on the second tier of picks rather than the first.
Monday night
Chicago beat Philadelphia 27-7 at Soldier Field to close Week 3. The Eagles were priced at 60 percent at our refresh on September 22, a three-point road favorite, and lost by 20. That is the eighth upset of the week and, by the loser’s price, the fourth largest, behind Seattle, Green Bay and the 62 percent Bengals.
Per ESPN, the Bears started their third-string quarterback, Case Keenum, with Caleb Williams out with a hamstring injury. It was Keenum’s first game since 2023. Per NBC Sports, he completed 24 of 34 passes for 247 yards with two touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown, and Chicago held the ball for 36:53.
The survivor lens is narrow. SurvivorGrid’s consensus board, which averages pick distribution across Yahoo, ESPN and other public pools, had Philadelphia at 0.3 percent of Week 3 entries and Chicago at 0.1. Almost nobody in a public pool was exposed. A Monday night pick is also the last of the week to lock in pools that lock game by game, so anyone on the Eagles had the whole Sunday slate and the Bears’ quarterback news in hand before committing.
How our picks did
All three of our recommendations won. Our Week 3 picks article made Kansas City the top pick at about 86 percent, and the Chiefs won 24-10 at Miami. The alternative, San Francisco at home against Arizona, won 36-30, a six-point margin against an 8.5-point line. The save-your-studs play, Detroit at home against the Jets, won 31-24.
The trap watch was mixed. The Thursday note on Falcons at Packers covered the game that went wrong first: Green Bay lost by 21. The ownership warning on Kansas City did not come into play, because the Chiefs won; it would have mattered only on a loss. The Giants, the team we told readers to be careful with after their quarterback change, won 12-7 as a 62 percent favorite. The same segment listed the quarterback situations in Seahawks at Commanders, but it did not single out Seattle as a pick to avoid, and Seattle was the most popular pick to lose this week. That game was not a recommendation of ours in either direction, and we will not claim it as a hit.
Monday night’s Eagles at Bears was not one of our picks either way. The trap watch did name Caleb Williams’s hamstring injury and the Bears’ move from look-ahead favorites to home underdogs as a number that could keep moving. Williams did not play, and Chicago won by 20 anyway. That note described a line risk, not a side, so it is neither a hit nor a miss.
What this week teaches
Upsets cluster where the prices are close. Eight teams priced under 50 percent won this week, and five of the six Sunday losers were priced between 55 and 62 percent. That is roughly what those numbers say should happen across a full slate. A 71 or 72 percent favorite still loses about three times in ten, which is how Green Bay and Seattle both went out. The expected value guide covers how to weigh a number in that range against a wider one elsewhere on the board.
Concentration cuts both ways. Forty percent of consensus entries sat on one team this week. When that team wins, the field survives together and nobody gains ground; when it loses, a pool can lose half its entries at once. This week the damage landed on the 10.8 percent on Seattle instead. Knowing where the second-largest share sits tells you which result can separate you from the field.
The first game of the week settles the most information-poor picks. A Thursday pick in a first-kickoff pool is made before Friday’s injury reports and before any other Week 3 result. That is a property of the lock rule, not of Thursday football. The trap games piece covers what it means when news breaks after your pool has already locked.
Week 3 is in the books. Survivor Caddy is the planner we are building for weeks like this one: tracking which teams you have spent, which are worth holding, and how each result reshapes the rest of your season. Join the waitlist to get it when it ships.
Plan the rest of your season in the app.
Survivor Caddy keeps every pool and entry straight: used teams, upcoming picks, and the deadlines that sneak up on you. Free for the 2026 season on the App Store. Prefer email? Leave yours and we'll send the occasional update, nothing more.