Badge rules
Consistent weeks
Badges are facts about past picks, given by published rules. A badge is not a recommendation.
The rule
On one market, NFL weeks with five or more scored picks: at least 4 such weeks, and market-adjusted points above zero in at least 75% of them (3 of 4, 4 of 5, 5 of 6 and so on).
- Holders now
- 3
- Window
- season
Picks that count. Picks we recorded before kickoff; picks whose time before kickoff was set by the publishing platform (timestamped by the publishing platform) or shown by a web archive copy of the page (archive record); and, for ESPN, CBS Sports and NFL.com, picks read after the game where the outlet's own published record for that expert matches our recount (per the outlet's published record). Any other pick read after the game can only lower a record, and any known loss ends a run. Points use the fair market price at the moment of each pick, with the bookmaker margin taken out; a straight-up pick without a two-sided price at that moment is left out, a spread or total pick without a price on its own line counts at even odds, and a pick read after the game counts as a miss (−1).
Holders
| Holder | Badge | Since | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dave Richard CBS Sports | Positive market-adjusted points in 4 of 5 weeks · SU · 2026 Matches the outlet's published record | Oct 13, 2026 | Card |
| Mike Clay ESPN | Positive market-adjusted points in 4 of 5 weeks · SU · 2026 Timestamped before kickoff (web archive copy)Matches the outlet's published record | Oct 13, 2026 | Card |
| Jeremy Fowler ESPN | Positive market-adjusted points in 4 of 5 weeks · SU · 2026 Timestamped before kickoff (web archive copy)Matches the outlet's published record | Oct 13, 2026 | Card |
How common
Held now by 3 of the 73 forecasters in the badge count.
Our chance check (Oct 13, 2026): the same picks, with every game's score drawn again at random around the market line, 40 times. If a badge shows up about as often by chance as in the real record, it is a fact about the past, not a sign of skill.
Show as table
| Variant | Picks used | Qualifying | Held, real record | Held by chance, average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATS | picks recorded or timestamped before kickoff, archive records and checked outlet records | 12 | 1 | 2 |
| SU | picks recorded or timestamped before kickoff, archive records and checked outlet records | 23 | 3 | 4.5 |
