Week 6 NFL Survivor Recap (2026): Denver Beats Seattle in Overtime on Thursday Night
Top pick Rams lost at 85 percent and the save-your-studs Colts lost too. Alternative New England won; avoid calls on Seattle and Baltimore held.
October 16, 2026 · Updated October 20, 2026
Week 6 is complete, and it took out more than half of the Circa Survivor field. Arizona beat the Rams 18–16 and Tennessee beat Indianapolis 26–20 on Sunday, the two most popular picks of the week, and six teams that were favored at our refresh lost on Sunday after Seattle’s overtime loss on Thursday. San Francisco closed the week by beating Washington 23–17 on Monday night, so the 119 Circa entries VSiN counted on the 49ers survive, which by our arithmetic puts about 1,277 entries into Week 7.
Thursday night
Denver beat Seattle 17–14 in overtime at home to open Week 6. Seattle was priced at 54 percent at our refresh on September 29, a 1.5-point road favorite, and our grid was not repriced again before kickoff. The market held roughly there: our picks article had Seattle at -3 on Tuesday morning, and VSiN reported the Broncos closed as 2.5-point home underdogs. By any of those numbers this is an upset, and Denver was 46 percent at our refresh.
Denver led 14–3 at halftime on two touchdown drives. Seattle scored 11 points in the final six minutes of regulation, and Jason Myers tied it with a 34-yard field goal with three seconds left. In overtime, Ja’Quan McMillian intercepted Sam Darnold on Seattle’s first possession and Wil Lutz kicked a 53-yard field goal for the win. Per the AP, Denver had five sacks and took the ball away three times. Per ESPN, Bo Nix had no completion longer than 16 yards, and the Broncos played without Pat Surtain II and Talanoa Hufanga. Denver is 4-2 and Seattle is 3-3.
The survivor lens. This game was nearly empty. SurvivorGrid’s consensus board, which averages pick distribution across Yahoo and ESPN pools, had Seattle at 0.4 percent of Week 6 entries and Denver at 0.1. The same board had the Rams at 38.9 percent, New England at 18.8 and Indianapolis at 17.4. ESPN’s Week 6 survivor column did not mention the Thursday game at all; it listed the Rams at 33 percent of ESPN Survivor entries, the Patriots at 21, the Colts at 15, the 49ers at 8, the Chiefs at 5 and the Bills at 4, and said 9.7 percent of ESPN entries were alive entering the week. We have seen no published Circa Survivor count for Seattle or Denver; VSiN’s Thursday piece gave only the 2,910 live entries as its base.
In a pool that locks at the first kickoff, every Week 6 pick froze at 8:15 p.m. ET Thursday. The crowd’s week is still ahead of it.
Sunday
Twelve games were played Sunday, one in London, and six teams that were favored at our refresh lost, including the two most popular picks of the week. All prices are from our refresh on September 29; our grid was not repriced again before kickoff, so these are look-ahead numbers, and we note where the line had moved by our October 13 picks article.
The upsets, ranked by the loser’s price.
- The Rams, 85 percent, lost 18–16 at home to Arizona. The Cardinals were 15 percent at our refresh, and books had the Rams at -12.5 to -13.5 on Tuesday, the highest-priced loser of the day. Per the AP, a Matthew Stafford touchdown pass put Los Angeles ahead with 47 seconds left, and Chad Ryland kicked a 43-yard field goal as time expired, his sixth of the game.
- Philadelphia, 71 percent, lost 25–14 at home to Carolina. The line had narrowed to Philadelphia -1.5 by Tuesday. Per ESPN, Tanner McKee made his third career start for the Eagles.
- Baltimore, 69 percent, lost 13–10 at Cleveland. The Ravens were -3.5 to -4.5 by Tuesday. Per ESPN, Lamar Jackson was inactive for a second straight week, and Andre Szmyt won it with a field goal on the final snap.
- Indianapolis, 63 percent, lost 26–20 at home to Tennessee. The Colts were about -7 on Tuesday and led 13–0 at halftime. Per ESPN, Tennessee scored the next 20 points, one touchdown on a blocked punt, for its first win of the season.
- The Giants, 56 percent, lost 34–27 at home to New Orleans, and Tampa Bay, 53 percent, lost 26–19 at home to Pittsburgh. The Saints and Steelers were both favored by Tuesday, so by the later lines these were favorites winning. By our recorded price they are upsets, and we file them that way.
The favorites that held. New England (78 percent) beat the Jets 26–19 at home, Buffalo (70) won 33–30 at Las Vegas, Green Bay (60) beat Dallas 23–13 at home on Sunday night, Chicago (58) won 31–23 at Atlanta, and Kansas City (56) beat the Chargers 22–6 at home. Houston beat Jacksonville 34–31 in London, a neutral-site game we had at 50 percent each way, so it is neither an upset nor a favorite win by our price.
The survivor lens. SurvivorGrid’s consensus board, which averages Yahoo and ESPN pick distribution, finished Week 6 with the Rams at 39.9 percent of entries and Indianapolis at 16.9. Adding its other Sunday losers (Jacksonville 2.6, Baltimore 0.8, the Giants 0.8 and a few at a tenth of a percent or less), a little over 61 percent of consensus entries were on a team that lost Sunday. ESPN’s Week 6 column had the Rams at 33 percent of ESPN Survivor entries and the Colts at 15. New England, third on the consensus board at 18.6 percent, won.
Per Covers, 901 of the 2,908 live Circa Survivor entries were on the Rams and 703 were on the Colts, and those two losses eliminated 1,604 entries, more than half the field. Per VSiN, 1,158 entries are safely through to Week 7, with 119 more riding on San Francisco against Washington on Monday night. The few dozen entries those counts leave unaccounted for would be on Sunday’s other losers; that is our arithmetic, not a report.
Monday night
San Francisco beat Washington 23–17 at home to close Week 6. The 49ers were 69 percent at our refresh on September 29, a 5.5-point favorite, and our grid was not repriced again before kickoff; by our October 13 picks article the line had moved to San Francisco -7.5. Washington was 31 percent at our refresh. The favorite won, so this is not an upset.
Per ESPN’s play-by-play, Brock Purdy found George Kittle for an 11-yard touchdown on the opening drive, and Christian McCaffrey ran in two 1-yard scores, the second with 13 seconds left in the half, for a 20–3 lead at the break. An Eddy Pineiro field goal made it 23–3 in the third quarter. Jayden Daniels then threw touchdown passes to Stefon Diggs and Rachaad White, the second with 9:22 left, and neither team scored again. Washington had no turnovers to San Francisco’s one, and the 49ers outgained the Commanders 375 yards to 314. San Francisco is 6-0 and Washington is 1-4-1.
The survivor lens. Per ESPN’s Week 6 survivor column, 8 percent of ESPN Survivor entries were on the 49ers, and Yahoo’s pick page had them at 12.8 percent on the Tuesday before the week. Per VSiN, 119 Circa Survivor entries were riding on San Francisco, and all of them advance. We have seen no published pick share for Washington; with the Commanders at 31 percent at our refresh, we would expect it to be small, and that is a proxy, not a count.
How our picks did
Our Week 6 picks article had a bad Sunday. The top pick, the Rams at home against Arizona, lost 18–16; we called them the pick in every pool size at -12.5 to -13.5. The save-your-studs play, Indianapolis against Tennessee, lost 26–20 after leading 13–0 at halftime. The alternative, New England against the Jets, won 26–19. Two of our three recommended teams lost.
The avoid list held up better. Seattle lost Thursday, and Baltimore, which we said to avoid until Jackson’s status was settled, lost with Jackson inactive. Kansas City, which we told most pools to skip, won, and so did Buffalo, the contrarian option we raised for large pools. The first item in our trap watch, ownership concentration on the Rams, is the one that mattered: a miss took out 31 percent of the Circa field per Covers. Flagging the risk does not change the result. San Francisco, which we suggested holding for Week 9 rather than spending as a 7.5-point Monday night favorite, won 23–17, so that call cost nothing either way this week.
What this week teaches
An 85 percent favorite loses 15 times in 100. Taking the biggest favorite every week means stacking a string of 80-something percent bets, and the chance of clearing all of them is far lower than any single week looks. The expected value guide treats the price as a probability, and Sunday was the probability showing up.
Concentration cuts both ways. When a third of a pool sits on one team, a win changes nothing between those entries and a loss removes them in one afternoon. Circa lost more than half its field to two games. That asymmetry is the core argument in our complete strategy guide for leaning away from the crowd as pools grow.
Use the number at your lock, not last week’s. Our September 29 look-ahead had Philadelphia at 71 percent and Kansas City at 56; by Tuesday the lines were Philadelphia -1.5 and Kansas City -8.5. Our trap games guide covers information timing as a structural risk you can plan around.
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