Every league has the same arguments. You're sure he's a must-start, your buddy is sure he's a bust, and by Tuesday nobody remembers who said what.
We keep the receipts. Our model projects every NFL player, every week, with a floor and a ceiling, in your league's scoring. Use it to set your lineup, work the waiver wire and settle the start/sit calls. Think you can do better than the model? Make your own picks, and after the game they'll be graded against both our model and the crowd.
Updated October 14 with what's new since launch: My teams, a rebuilt Compare page, new Trends and Waivers pages, and kicker and D/ST projections.
The house line
Every player gets a projected stat line from our model. It builds that line one stat at a time from the player's history, then adjusts for this week: whether he'll play, changes in his role, teammates who are in or out, a player coming back from injury, the opponent, etc. The projection moves all week as the injury reports and news come in, and more often in the two hours before kickoff, when inactives are announced.
At kickoff it freezes. That frozen number is the house line, and it's what every pick on the site is measured against. Each projection also has a floor and a ceiling: the range his week usually lands in. Quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, tight ends, kickers and defenses are all projected, and the PPR / Half / Standard switch in the header puts every number on the site in your league's scoring.
Note
Nothing went into the model on a hunch. Every input was tested against past seasons, and it stayed in the model only if it improved the accuracy of the projections.
Set your lineup
Add the teams you play in your real leagues under My teams: ESPN, Yahoo, Sleeper, CBS or anywhere else, with your league's size, lineup and scoring. Each team gets this week's projections in its own league's scoring. Optimize roster puts your best projected lineup in one tap, and Undo puts it back. Waiver advice shows what adding a free agent would do to this week's lineup against each player you could drop, and saves the claim until your league's waivers have run. You can keep up to three teams.
Stuck between two players? Compare puts up to three side by side. Running backs, receivers and tight ends can be mixed for a flex call; everyone else is compared within their position. You get a lean and the reasons for it, each player's range on one scale, his role, quarterback, matchup, recent form and expert rank. Every comparison is a link you can send to whoever keeps asking.
Research for this week
You don't need to make a single pick to get something out of the site. The week bar under the header holds this week's pages:
| Tab | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Overview | The top projected players at each position, start/sit signals, featured challenges and the news that moves them |
| Rankings | Every player on the slate, sortable, in your league's scoring |
| Slate | Every game this week, who carries each side, and the weather |
| Waivers | The widely available players who could start for you, scored for your league size, with a preview of each on your own team |
| Matchups | Which defenses give points away at each position |
| Edges | Who this week's venue, weather, spread and opponent have suited before |
| Trends | Whose role changed and why, who's scoring more or less than his touches were worth, new quarterbacks, and whose schedule turns easier or harder |
| Signals | Where our numbers and the expert consensus disagree, the toughest and easiest matchups, and the injury watch |
| News | Every recent story, filtered by category, position and whether it helps or hurts |
The luck check: points against what the touches were worth.
Trends is the page to check before you trade. Its luck check sets each player's points against what his touches were worth. Smith-Njigba tops this week's "due to cool off" list: 27.9 points a game on volume worth 17.9, with 3.8 more touchdowns than expected.
Under Research you'll find the season's stat leaders and risers, Compare, and the full schedule with a page for every game, before and after.
The radar: further out is better, and the dashed line is a typical starter.
Every player has a page too: this week's matchup and what's moving his projection, his news, his game log, and a radar that ranks him against the rest of his position. Pick the comparison you care about, a typical starter in your league size or this week's opponent, and see where he stands.
Think you know better? Prove it
The pick screen. Everything you need to make the call, with the sliders right below.
Pick any player and set his stat line yourself. The sliders start on the house line; move them to where you think he'll land. Picks lock 10 minutes before kickoff, game by game, so Monday night players stay open even after Sunday's games are underway.
After the game, each pick gets a score out of 100 and a letter grade:
- 85 points for accuracy. Every stat is scored on its own, so misses never cancel out. Closeness is measured in pars, a normal miss for that stat. Exact keeps the whole slice, one par off keeps half, and two pars off keeps almost nothing.
- 15 points for boldness. Finish closer than the house and you earn a bonus. Copy the house on everything and you top out at 85.
A graded pick, start to finish
Say the house has a receiver at 5.8 catches, 68 yards and 0.4 touchdowns. You think he's in for a big day.
| Stat | House | Your pick | Final | Accuracy | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receptions | 5.8 | 7 | 8 | 20.7 / 24.7 | +2.6 |
| Receiving yards | 68 | 90 | 97 | 38.5 / 40.0 | +5.2 |
| Receiving TDs | 0.4 | 1 | 1 | 20.4 / 20.4 | +2.9 |
| Total | 79.6 | +10.7 |
79.6 for accuracy plus 10.7 for beating the house: 90.3, an A. The full rules, with every par, are on How grading works.
Challenges: quick calls, contrarian payoffs
This week's featured challenges. Pick a side, and change your mind up to ten minutes before kickoff.
Not every call needs a full stat line. Challenges are two-way questions on the week's games and players: over or under, yes or no, or which of two players does more. A right answer earns 10 XP, and 15 when fewer than 40% of pickers agreed with you. Going with the crowd is safe. Going against it and being right is how you climb.
You don't need an account to try one: there's a quick pick waiting on the front page. Sign in to keep your picks and earn the XP.
The crowd, the boards and the trophy room
- The crowd is the average of everyone's picks on a player this week. It appears once five people have picked him and refreshes every 15 minutes. Your own picks stay private unless you share them.
- Leaderboards for every week, every position and the whole season, plus season-only boards like boldness.
- Achievements stay hidden until you unlock them. Some are easy to find. Some aren't.
- Notifications in the header tell you when your week is graded, when you level up or unlock an achievement, and when one of your picks was the best on a player.
- Your profile is public: your username, grades and rankings. It's the link to send when you want to gloat.
What we left out on purpose
- Money. No deposits, no wagers, no prizes, no DFS. You play for the bragging rights.
- Email. We don't send any. No welcome email, no newsletter.
- Passwords. Login with Google or Discord instead. More providers are coming.
- Live scores. Picks lock before kickoff and grades arrive after the final whistle, so during the games, just watch them.
Where the numbers come from
Stats, schedules, rosters and betting lines come from nflverse, an open, community-maintained collection of NFL data. Special thanks to Sebastian Carl, Ben Baldwin, Lee Sharpe, Tan Ho, and John Edwards for the incredible work they do on nflverse. Expert consensus rankings and rostered percentages come from FantasyPros, by way of nflverse. Injury designations come from the league's official injury report. News comes from various NFL websites, and attribution and links to the original sources are included within the news feed.
Tip
New here? Add your team under My teams, check this week's Waivers, then make five picks. The best pickers show up on the leaderboard.
What's next
Start/sit and trade advice for your teams are on the way. This blog is where we'll explain changes to the model, dig into what the crowd is picking, and announce new features and sports.
If something looks wrong, or you've got an idea, get in touch.