Game Picks

The bar on each card is one number line from the away team (left) to the home team (right): the dot is the model's projected margin, the tick is Vegas's spread, and the shaded stretch between them is the gap the pick comes from. A bigger gap isn't a safer pick, though — in last season's backtest, big-gap picks covered no more often than small ones, so no game here is flagged as a sure thing. Team ranks (#1 = best) are the model's blended efficiency ratings, which lean on last season early in the year.

Moneyline is a bet on who simply wins the game. A negative number is the favorite — e.g. −148 means you'd bet $148 to win $100 (plus your $148 back). A positive number is the underdog — e.g. +124 means a $100 bet wins $124. Spread handicaps the favorite by a point margin so both sides are roughly equally likely to "cover" — the favorite (shown negative, e.g. KC −3.0) must win by more than 3 to cover; the underdog (shown positive, e.g. DEN +3.0) covers by losing by less than 3, or winning outright. Total (over/under) is a bet on the combined score of both teams, over or under one number. Each Model pick below is the side of the spread our model favors: if the model's projected margin beats the spread, it takes the favorite; if it falls short, it takes the underdog with the points. When the two match exactly, there's no lean.