Week 8 NFL Survivor Recap (2026): Green Bay Beats Carolina on Thursday Night

Cincinnati won in overtime, Jacksonville won big, our save-your-studs pick Dallas lost in overtime. Seattle lost Monday with nobody of ours on it.

October 30, 2026 · Updated November 3, 2026

Week 8 is done, and the field came through lighter but mostly intact. Four of the fourteen favorites at our refresh on October 28 lost: Dallas at 75 percent, Seattle at 60, the Jets at 53 and Kansas City at 52. Cincinnati, the most popular pick on every board we track, trailed 13–0 and later 36–29 before beating Tennessee 43–36 in overtime, and Jacksonville and New England, the next most popular, won comfortably. The upset that mattered was Dallas, our own save-your-studs pick, losing 33–30 in overtime at home to Arizona. Chicago’s 34–17 win at Seattle on Monday night was the week’s second-biggest upset by price and touched almost nobody: per Covers, no Circa Survivor entry was on the game, and 610 of 660 entries advance to Week 9.

Thursday night

Green Bay beat Carolina 27–19 at Lambeau Field to open Week 8. The Packers were 62 percent at our refresh on October 28, a 3.5-point home favorite, and by our Tuesday picks article the line sat between -3.5 and -4.5, about -192 to -217. Carolina was 38 percent at our refresh. The favorite won, so this is not an upset.

Per ESPN’s play-by-play, Carolina led 3–0 on a Ryan Fitzgerald field goal and 10–6 early in the second quarter on a Chuba Hubbard touchdown run, after Green Bay’s first touchdown, a 12-yard Jordan Love pass to Tucker Kraft, was followed by a missed extra point. Josh Jacobs scored from a yard out to put Green Bay ahead 13–10, Love found Matthew Golden from 24 yards with 1:46 left in the half, and a 4-yard Love pass to Jacobs made it 27–10 midway through the third. Carolina answered with a 50-yard Fitzgerald field goal and a 26-yard Bryce Young touchdown pass to Jalen Coker with 5:37 left, and the two-point try failed. Neither team scored again.

Love finished 30 of 41 for 288 yards, three touchdowns and an interception; Christian Watson had eight catches for 113 yards, and ESPN reported he returned to the game after a trip to the hospital with a broken rib. Green Bay outgained Carolina 354 yards to 258 while turning the ball over three times to the Panthers’ two. Carolina was sacked six times; Green Bay was not sacked. The Packers converted 9 of 16 third downs to Carolina’s 5 of 18. Green Bay is 5-3 and Carolina is 3-4.

The survivor lens. This game was nearly empty. SurvivorGrid’s consensus board, which averages several public survivor pools, had Green Bay at 2.8 percent of Week 8 entries and Carolina at 0.1 when we checked it Friday morning. ESPN’s Week 8 survivor column, published Wednesday, did not break out either team; it had Cincinnati at 25 percent of ESPN Survivor entries, the Rams at 17, New England and Dallas at 16 each, Jacksonville at 14 and Washington at 1, with 2.3 percent of ESPN’s original entries alive after Week 7. Per Covers, 660 Circa Survivor entries were alive entering Week 8, and Circa’s contests page still showed 660 on Friday morning, consistent with no entry having been spent on Carolina, though we cannot confirm the page had refreshed after the game. We have seen no published Circa count for Green Bay.

Sunday

Twelve games were played Sunday, and three teams that were favored at our refresh lost, led by the one we had recommended. All prices are from our refresh on October 28; lines kept moving through the week, and we note where our Tuesday picks article or later reporting had a different number.

The upsets, ranked by the loser’s price.

1. Dallas, 75 percent, lost 33–30 in overtime at home to Arizona. The Cardinals were 25 percent at our refresh. We had the Cowboys at -7; our picks article had them between -6 and -6.5 by Tuesday, and Covers reported them at -7.5. Per ESPN’s play-by-play, Dallas led 24–10 forty seconds into the fourth quarter after a Dak Prescott touchdown run. Arizona scored three touchdowns from there: Tyler Allgeier from 5 yards, Trey McBride from 14, and Michael Wilson from 13 with six seconds left. The extra point after the Wilson catch failed, leaving the game tied at 30, and Chad Ryland kicked a 42-yard field goal in overtime. Gardner Minshew II took every Arizona pass attempt and finished 17 of 23 for 188 yards and three touchdowns; Allgeier ran 11 times for 147 yards, 63 of them on one third-quarter touchdown. Arizona outgained Dallas 467 yards to 261 and turned the ball over twice. Dallas did not turn it over at all.
2. Kansas City, 52 percent, lost 28–24 at Denver. The Broncos were 48 percent at our refresh, and the line was Kansas City by a point and a half both at our refresh and in our Tuesday picks article. Per ESPN, the Chiefs led 24–13 late in the third quarter. Bo Nix hit Nate Adkins from 2 yards and found Jaylen Waddle for the two-point conversion, and Jonah Coleman ran in from 5 yards with 1:56 left. Patrick Mahomes threw for 321 yards and three touchdowns, Kansas City outgained Denver 399 yards to 294, and neither team turned the ball over.
3. The Jets, 53 percent, lost 38–33 at home to Las Vegas. The Raiders were 47 percent at our refresh. Per ESPN, the Jets led 23–14 at halftime and 30–21 in the third quarter. Kirk Cousins threw three touchdown passes, two of them to Brock Bowers, Dylan Laube returned a kickoff 95 yards for a score, and Matt Gay’s 53-yard field goal with 27 seconds left was the final margin. The Jets outgained Las Vegas 439 yards to 333.

The favorites that held, and one that nearly did not. Cincinnati (80 percent) beat Tennessee 43–36 in overtime at home. Per ESPN’s play-by-play, the Bengals trailed 13–0 after the first quarter and 36–29 with 3:46 left, tied it on Joe Burrow’s 18-yard pass to Tee Higgins with 1:17 to go, and won on a 9-yard Burrow run in overtime. Burrow finished 38 of 48 for 462 yards, five touchdowns and three interceptions; Cincinnati turned the ball over four times and still outgained the Titans 510 yards to 440. Tennessee had been 20 percent at our refresh.

Jacksonville (80) beat Indianapolis 42–7 at home and led 28–0 at halftime, with a 92-yard Rayuan Lane III interception return among the four first-half scores; Trevor Lawrence threw 14 passes and three of them went for touchdowns. New England (73) won 24–19 at Miami after trailing 13–3 at the half; Drake Maye was 16 of 20 with two touchdown passes. The Rams (72) beat the Chargers 24–9 at home. Washington (68) beat Philadelphia 27–10 on Sunday night; Tanner McKee, whose start we flagged in the picks article, was sacked five times and threw an interception. Pittsburgh (63) beat Cleveland 27–6 at home. Buffalo (61) beat Baltimore 36–10 at home. Per ESPN’s box score, Lamar Jackson attempted one pass, Tyler Huntley four and Joe Fagnano 21, and Baltimore finished with 144 yards of offense and three turnovers. Detroit (60) beat Minnesota 19–15 at home on a 7-yard Jared Goff pass to Jameson Williams with 4:35 left. Tampa Bay (55) shut out Atlanta 16–0 at home.

The survivor lens. SurvivorGrid’s consensus board, which combines Yahoo, ESPN and USA Football Pools, showed Week 8 on Monday morning with Cincinnati at 37.8 percent of entries, Jacksonville at 19.5, New England at 14.7, the Rams at 11.7, Dallas at 6.7, Green Bay at 2.4, Buffalo at 1.9, Washington at 1.2 and Pittsburgh at 0.7. Kansas City and the Jets were at 0.2 and 0.1. Adding the three losers together, about 7 percent of consensus entries went out Sunday, nearly all of them on Dallas. ESPN’s Week 8 survivor column, written Wednesday, had Dallas at 16 percent of ESPN Survivor entries, tied with New England and a point behind the Rams, so pools that look like ESPN’s lost a larger share than the consensus number suggests.

Per Covers, 660 Circa Survivor entries were alive entering Week 8, and 350 of them, more than half, were on Cincinnati. Washington was the second-most selected team with 81 entries, Dallas was fifth with 49, and one entry was on the Jets. Covers reported that the Bengals, Jaguars and Patriots together advanced 459 entries, that no entry had selected the Monday night game, and that 610 entries advance to Week 9, 2.4 percent of the original 25,017. Fifty eliminations is our arithmetic from those figures, not a reported count.

Monday night

Chicago beat Seattle 34–17 at Lumen Field to close Week 8. The Seahawks were 60 percent at our refresh on October 28, a 3-point home favorite, and our Tuesday picks article had the line between -3 and -3.5, about -170 to -182. Chicago was 40 percent at our refresh. By price this was the second-biggest upset of the week, behind only Dallas at 75.

Per ESPN’s play-by-play, Chicago led 7–0 on a 1-yard Caleb Williams pass to Luther Burden III and 13–3 late in the half on two Cairo Santos field goals. Sam Darnold found Jaxon Smith-Njigba from 43 yards with 30 seconds left in the half, and the extra point failed, leaving it 13–9. D’Andre Swift scored from a yard out in the third quarter, and after Darnold hit Cooper Kupp from 7 yards and Tory Horton for the two-point conversion to make it 20–17 with 11:46 to play, Swift scored twice more from 5 yards, the second with 4:41 left. Williams finished 24 of 34 for 247 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions; Swift carried 27 times for 69 yards and three scores. Darnold was 17 of 34 for 188 yards, two touchdowns and an interception, and was sacked three times. Chicago outgained Seattle 363 yards to 252 and held the ball for 35 minutes; Seattle converted 1 of 11 third downs. Chicago is 6-2 and Seattle is 4-4.

The survivor lens. Almost nobody was here. SurvivorGrid’s consensus board had Seattle at 0.4 percent of Week 8 entries and Chicago at 0.1 on Tuesday morning. ESPN’s Week 8 survivor column did not break out either team. Per Covers, no Circa Survivor entry selected the Monday night game, so the 610 entries that advanced on Sunday are the 610 that go to Week 9.

How our picks did

Two of our three recommendations won and the third lost, and the one that lost was the one we sold as low-risk. Our Week 8 picks article made Cincinnati the top pick, Jacksonville the alternative and Dallas the save-your-studs play.

Cincinnati won, and anyone on the Bengals is alive, but the 80 percent price did not look like 80 percent for most of the afternoon: down 13–0 after a quarter, down seven with under four minutes left, and tied with 77 seconds to go before winning in overtime. We wrote that the Bengals were “healthy where it matters” and in their “best remaining spot.” The result went our way; the game did not go the way that sentence implied. Jacksonville was the clean one, 42–7, and the trap-watch note about Anton Harrison’s absence at right tackle reads differently next to a box score in which the Jaguars allowed three sacks and scored 42.

Dallas is the miss. We wrote that a 3-4 team “costs almost nothing to spend,” which was true and beside the point: it still had to win, and it led 24–10 in the fourth quarter and lost 33–30 in overtime. We also noted that the line had fallen from near -10.5 to -6.5 with no public explanation and told readers to check Wednesday’s injury report. That was a flag, and it should have been a downgrade. Per SurvivorGrid, 6.7 percent of consensus entries were on the Cowboys, and per Covers, 49 Circa entries went out with them.

The avoid list cut both ways. Carolina lost and Green Bay won, so avoiding both cost nothing. But the Rams, Buffalo and Washington, which we told readers to hold or avoid until the news settled, all won by double digits, so anyone who followed those calls sat out three winners. Of the coin flips we told readers to skip, Kansas City and the Jets lost, and Tampa Bay, Detroit and Pittsburgh won.

Seattle, at -3 to -3.5, sat in the tier we listed without recommending, and the Seahawks lost 34–17 to Chicago on Monday night. Nobody following our list was on them.

The trap watch had three items. The ownership concentration on Cincinnati was real, 350 of 660 Circa entries per Covers, and an overtime finish is as close as that risk comes to landing without landing. The quarterback item resolved in both directions: Lamar Jackson attempted one pass and Baltimore lost by 26, Gardner Minshew II took every Arizona pass attempt and the Cardinals won, and Tanner McKee’s Eagles lost by 17. The Drew Lock item never came into play: per ESPN’s box score, Sam Darnold took all 34 of Seattle’s pass attempts, and the Seahawks lost anyway.

What this week teaches

Half the field on one team is a variance you chose, not a safety. Per Covers, 350 of 660 Circa entries were on Cincinnati, and the Bengals needed a tying touchdown with 77 seconds left and an overtime score to pay off. An 80 percent price loses one week in five over the long run, and the week it happens with half the pool on the team is the week the pool changes shape. The inverse held Monday night: Seattle was 60 percent, lost by 17, and per SurvivorGrid held 0.4 percent of consensus entries, so the loss cost the field almost nothing. Four of the week’s fourteen favorites lost, none priced above 75 percent, and a pool concentrated on the top five prices gave up only its Dallas share. Our expected value guide is about pricing that trade before kickoff, not after.

“Low future cost” is a reason to prefer a team among equals, not a reason to lower the bar. Dallas was 75 percent, below Cincinnati, Jacksonville and New England, and we recommended the Cowboys because they would be cheap to lose later. An entry that took them is not thinking about later. Our strategy guide ranks win probability first for a reason, and Week 8 is the reminder.

A line that moves four points without a public reason is information, whether or not you can read it. We saw Dallas go from near -10.5 to -6.5, said so, and recommended them anyway. Our trap games guide treats unexplained movement as a signal to reweight, and the right response was to move the Cowboys down the list rather than to tell readers to check the report themselves.

Quarterback news keeps breaking after pools lock. Lamar Jackson threw one pass, every Arizona pass went through Gardner Minshew II, and both games were on our trap watch for exactly that reason. The two favorites resolved in opposite directions, and Seattle lost with Sam Darnold taking every pass attempt, which is the point: the information is worth having, and it is not a prediction.

The rest of Week 8 is still ahead. 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.

Get updates

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.