NFL model vs the closing line

This season. The 2026 row is the Model record: the model's own margin, frozen before kickoff each week, against the closing spread, on every game it had a number for. It is the same number shown on the record page, the calls page and calibration.

Source. Every pregame prediction from the model's history, joined to the official nflverse schedule for the closing spread and final score. Games without a result or a closing line are left out. Playoff games for all eight past seasons were added on May 23, 2026, with the same model.

Totals are not scored. The model's own game total tracks the final score much less closely than the closing total does (a correlation of about 0.13 against the market's 0.33), so we don't publish a totals pick. Totals are shown as a range on the NFL totals page instead.

Intervals. The range after each combined percentage is a Wilson 95% interval: the band the true rate plausibly sits in, given the sample.

What is graded in 2026. The model's own spread as frozen at the Thursday freeze, from the model we serve only (test versions running alongside it are left out). This changed on October 1, 2026: before then the data feed graded the betting line published at the freeze, and some test-version rows, in place of the model's number. The disagreement table includes these 2026 games.