CIRCA MILLIONS
For the year-to-date:
Top-five consensus picks are 15-10
Consensus picks are 48-31-1
Overall record is 53,068-46,491-1891 (53.3 percent)
The losses for the top two consensus teams really did a number on the contest as a whole, as the field had its first losing week of the season.
Let’s see if the contestants can get back on track this week.
Here are the Week 6 Circa Million lines and pick counts (* denotes home):
1 Bucs 189
2 Eagles* (+ 6.5) 146
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3 Dolphins 270
4 Jaguars (+ 3.5) 880
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5 Colts* 319
6 Texans (+ 10) 618
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7 Packers 1439 (consensus #2)
8 Bears* (+ 4.5) 352
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9 Chiefs 1231 (consensus #4)
10 Washington* (+ 6.5) 241
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11 Vikings 1107 (consensus #5)
12 Panthers* (+ 1) 519
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13 Ravens* 706
14 Chargers (+ 2.5) 985
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15 Bengals 505
16 Lions* (+ 3.5) 908
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17 Rams 638
18 Giants* (+ 9.5) 475
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19 Browns* 1695 (consensus #1)
20 Cardinals (+ 3) 579
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21 Broncos* 620
22 Raiders (+ 3.5) 616
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23 Cowboys 1409 (consensus #3)
24 Patriots* (+ 3.5) 800
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25 Steelers* 822
26 Seahawks (+ 5) 503
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27 Bills 894
28 Titans* (+ 6) 734
The top-five consensus is the Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs and Minnesota Vikings.
There are a lot of half-point lines on the board and one game theory element to the contest is taking half-point spreads because the risk-reward of going for a full point outweighs the potential benefit of a half-point with so many people in the contest. The Browns still wound up being the top consensus pick on the flat 3, but that also has a lot to do with the circumstances surrounding the game and the line move.
Check back each week with a Saturday preview of the Circa Million III to keep up with the pick counts, consensus, standings and more.
We’re also following along with the Circa Survivor each week. A lot of entries barely survived last week, as the Vikings kicked a game-winning field goal for 1,343 of the 2,333 entrants that were still alive. The Patriots were also taken 443 times and led for 15 seconds of game play, but the most important ones. The Ravens were the third-most popular team and also gave Survivor players a scare.
As it turned out, the field only lost 65 contestants in Week 5, but it could have been a whole lot more than that. We’ve got 2,268 still alive for the $6 million prize pool.
The top pick for Week 6 is the Indianapolis Colts with 1,185 selections as the biggest home favorite on the board. That is over 52 percent of the field. The Rams were taken by 385, followed by the Steelers with 277 and the Chiefs with 238. No other team was taken more than 58 times. One brave soul took the Jaguars in London this week, while seven are on the Dolphins.
Ten entries failed to submit a pick for the Survivor and have been eliminated.