Yesterday's picks: how the model did (NFL, September 20)

Verdexed's graded line for Sunday, September 20, is zero picks, zero correct, zero incorrect. The NFL played a 14-game Week 2 card, the fullest slate this column has had in front of it since the season opened, and not one game on it was scored by this desk, because the model's per-game probabilities were not published. By this column's own running count, that is the forty-fifth consecutive slate opening with the same number. A zero is not a neutral result. It is the worst kind of day an accountability desk can have, because there is nothing to be wrong about.

The scorecard

Picks made: zero. Correct: zero. Incorrect: zero. Accuracy on the day is undefined, because the denominator is zero.

Verdexed's best bets column for September 20 stated at the top that per-game win probabilities, confidence tiers and edge figures were not retrievable at publication, that no edge was being claimed, and that no probability it printed belonged to the model. It ordered the games by what the market said rather than by what Verdexed projected. There is nothing in it that can be graded as a pick.

No accuracy percentage and no Brier score is cited here. The verdexed.com prediction, edge and accuracy pages remain unreachable from the network this column publishes behind, and a public search returns the stated methodology, which describes logging every prediction before kickoff and scoring it afterward on win accuracy and on Brier score, rather than the ledger underneath it. A description of a process is not a number. The 65 percent and 70 percent confidence bands went unpopulated for a forty-fifth straight day, so there is no high-confidence tier to report on either.

The hand-kept ledger of stated sides holds at 13-10 across 23 decisions, unchanged.

What can be graded is the market half the column printed. Seven Week 2 games carried a quoted price or spread. Straight up, those quoted favorites went 5-2. Against the number, the same prices went 3-4, which is the more honest way to read a Sunday like this one.

Best call / worst miss

Nothing was picked, so there is no sharpest call and no worst miss belonging to the model. What follows grades the quoted prices instead.

**The price that held best.** San Francisco was quoted laying 13 points, the largest spread on the board, and the column noted that double-digit favorites are where market and model most often disagree, because a number that steep prices in very little chance of an ordinary bad afternoon. Result at Levi's Stadium: **49ers 35, Dolphins 13**. The steepest price on the card was, if anything, too small.

**The worst read: two quoted home favorites lost outright.** Chicago was quoted at 5.5 at Soldier Field. Result: **Vikings 9, Bears 3**, a rain game decided entirely by field goals, with Bears quarterback Caleb Williams carted off in the fourth quarter with a hamstring injury. Houston was quoted at minus 2.5 against Cincinnati, and the column spent a paragraph on the Texans' thinned receiving room with Nico Collins ruled out. Result: **Bengals 20, Texans 6**, Cincinnati's first road win of the year and a 2-0 start. That near pick-em was the exact game the column said an independent probability would be worth reading on. There was not one.

**The marquee price, split down the middle.** Kansas City was quoted at minus 300 on the moneyline, roughly 72 percent once the book's margin comes out, and 6.5 on the spread. Result: **Chiefs 33, Colts 30 in overtime**, ended by a Harrison Butker field goal as time expired. The moneyline held and the spread did not, which is precisely the distinction this column exists to make.

Among the other quoted games, Denver covered 2.5 by erasing a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat Jacksonville **20-13**, and that game's total of 33 landed well under the quoted 44.5. Philadelphia won at Tennessee **24-20** on a Jalen Hurts touchdown drive but did not cover 7, and the lowest total on the Week 2 board at 39.5 went over by four and a half. Dallas covered 4.5 comfortably, **37-20** over Washington, in a game that cost the Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels to an elbow injury.

What it means

Nothing about Sunday changes the model's record, because Sunday was never added to it. That is the finding, and repeating it plainly is the point of publishing a scorecard at all. The quoted-favorite line of 5-2 straight up and 3-4 against the number is a seven-game sample of other people's opinions. It is far too small to say anything about market efficiency, and it is not this desk's work in any case.

The durable read has not moved in six weeks. The ledger this column exists to keep has been frozen since Verdexed placed per-game predictions behind a subscription at the end of July. A hand-kept 13-10 across 23 stated sides is the only real record here, it is small, and it is stale. Until a board is readable again, a scorecard of zero is the accurate report, and readers should weigh this column accordingly.

Responsible play

**This is a record of past model output, not betting advice.** Verdexed grades its model in public for transparency and entertainment. Past results do not predict future outcomes, nothing here is a recommendation to place a wager, and no pick is ever a guarantee, even a strong model loses regularly.

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