Badge rules
Rare run
Badges are facts about past picks, given by published rules. A badge is not a recommendation.
The rule
A run of picks right that the market scored at 1 in 50 or longer: the product of each pick's market chance (straight up, from the moneyline without the bookmaker margin; against the spread and on totals, one half). Steps: 1 in 50, 100, 500 and 1,000. Runs follow the same rules as a correct run.
- Holders now
- 2
- 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.
Holders
| Holder | Badge | Since | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bobby Kownack NFL.com | 10 in a row · SU · market odds 1 in 195 · Week 1 Timestamped before kickoff (web archive copy)Matches the outlet's published record | Oct 12, 2026 | Card |
| Ben Natan Bleeding Green Nation | 8 in a row · SU · market odds 1 in 60 · Week 5 Timestamped before kickoff (platform) | Oct 12, 2026 | Card |
How common
Held now by 2 of the 73 forecasters in the badge count.
Our chance check (Oct 12, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rare run | picks recorded or timestamped before kickoff | 41 | 1 | 0.7 |
| Rare run | all picks, including those read after the game | 82 | 2 | 4.8 |
