Can AI predict NFL games?

2026 NFL season · straight-up record

The date under each week is when its picks were last set. A pick can be updated until its game kicks off, then it locks and never changes. One game the AI called this season ended in a tie, which voids every pick, the AI's included, so it counts as neither right nor wrong.

What this record does and does not prove

The AI's team ratings started from the betting market. Before the season, each team's rating was solved from the bookmakers' moneyline prices for every game, and the early weeks were called from those ratings. Since November each re-fit also learns from the games already played, with the bookmakers' prices for the games still to come as a guide. The ratings are re-fitted from time to time, not after every game, which is why several weeks above share one call date.

So a 61% hit rate tells you how often these ratings picked the winner, with every pick locked before its game. Because the ratings lean on the bookmakers' prices, it is not evidence that the AI beats the bookmakers, and we do not claim it does.

Calibration · were the probabilities honest?

Accuracy only asks whether the call was right. Calibration asks the harder question: when the AI said 60%, did it happen about 60% of the time? Below is every graded game, sorted by the chance the AI gave the team it picked, and how often that team won. 135 games so far.

The Brier score is the standard measure of forecast quality. Lower is better, and 0.250 is what you would score by calling every game a coin flip. The average gap is how far, across the bands, what the AI said sat from what happened, in percentage points.

Honest limits: this is one season so far, and the thinner bands hold only a few games, so read those rows loosely. The probabilities are the ones the AI stored before kick-off, unrounded.

How the NFL AI works

Every team has an Elo-style rating. The gap between two teams, plus a home-field edge measured from the bookmakers' prices, turns into a win probability for each side, and the AI picks the side above 50%. An NFL pick is two-way: there is no draw to call, and a tie voids. Each pick can be updated until its game kicks off. From then it is locked and never changed.

This model is separate from the one behind the Premier League and Champions League calls, and it is scored on its own. The Premier League and World Cup record and the Champions League record are separate pages, and the three are never added together.

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