Ranked by MissedTakes Score — how much better than a naive guess, not how often right. Someone who only ever picks the home team lands near zero however high their accuracy climbs, which is the whole point of measuring it this way. The methodology explains the arithmetic. There is a ranking of publishers too, for when the byline is a masthead rather than a person, and the whole field's numbers — how accurate NFL experts are overall.
Anyone with fewer than ten graded articles is left out of the numbered ranking. Thirty picks in one mock draft is one article, not thirty opinions, and counting it as thirty would be the quickest way to look established without having been tested.
Pundits tracked
954
333 awaiting a first graded take
Ranked
87
ten graded articles or more
Building a record
534
Graded takes
12,714
behind these numbers
The ranking
NFL pundits with ten or more graded articles, ranked by MissedTakes Score
Everyone with a score, ranked or not. Zero means no better than a naive guess on the same claims — a pundit can be accurate and still land below it, if the calls were easy.
How early each of the 30 pundits with the most graded calls makes them — the share of the season still to play, on average, when they made a season-long call — against how accurate their record is. Up and to the right is early AND right; accuracy alone can be bought by waiting until the answer is obvious, which is the corner this chart exposes.
The Rich Eisen Show (podcast)Ranked No. 38 · Score 21.4961.89% accuracy · 62% of the season left, on average491 graded calls in 140 articles, 431 of them season-long
The Herd with Colin Cowherd (podcast)Ranked No. 54 · Score 13.356.81% accuracy · 69% of the season left, on average415 graded calls in 70 articles, 353 of them season-long
Also here: Richard Sherman · 57.66% accuracy · 69% season left
The clarity league
What share of each pundit's claims were specific enough to ever be checked. 'Could be a sneaky playoff team' grades nothing and counts here; a named number counts everywhere else on this site.
Perfect clarity · 112 punditsevery graded claim was specific enough to check
Ordered by how much evidence there is, not by score — these samples are too thin to rank, and sorting them by result would be a ranking with a disclaimer on it.
Average score by how far ahead of the season's end the call was made, split by kind. The lead-time effect is real but selective: naming ONE winner months out — an award, a champion — grades near zero and only becomes a fair fight close in, while structural calls like depth charts are as safe in July as in January, and most kinds barely move at all. An earlier version pooled these rows and read like clairvoyance improves with distance; that was the mix of claim kinds shifting with the calendar, and it is the trend this chart no longer invents.
MissedTakes Score is how much better than a naive guess on the same claims — zero means no better, and it is the column the rank is built on. Accuracy is the average score of their graded calls out of 100, with no credit for difficulty. Graded is how many of their claims have been settled against real results — the evidence behind the other two.
“Score” weighs the evidence behind it, so one perfect article can’t sit above sixteen graded ones — “Raw score” is the same number sorted with no such weighting.
First Things First (podcast)Ranked No. 49 · Score 18.0958.97% accuracy · 69% of the season left, on average403 graded calls in 80 articles, 303 of them season-long
Move the Sticks (podcast)Ranked No. 39 · Score 21.4863.14% accuracy · 63% of the season left, on average319 graded calls in 71 articles, 206 of them season-long
The Rich Eisen Show (podcast)Ranked No. 36 · Score 2359.62% accuracy · 65% of the season left, on average286 graded calls in 88 articles, 246 of them season-long
Locked On Saints (podcast)Ranked No. 21 · Score 34.2166.96% accuracy · 92% of the season left, on average248 graded calls in 32 articles, 105 of them season-long
Locked On Saints (podcast)Ranked No. 57 · Score 10.2863.89% accuracy · 98% of the season left, on average248 graded calls in 25 articles, 124 of them season-long
Locked On Bills (podcast)Ranked No. 2 · Score 74.9480.17% accuracy · 99% of the season left, on average181 graded calls in 14 articles, 162 of them season-longBest mix of early calls and hits among the ranked pundits on this chart who beat the baseline
The Colin Cowherd Podcast (podcast)Ranked No. 48 · Score 18.2165.48% accuracy · 80% of the season left, on average124 graded calls in 40 articles, 104 of them season-long
Move the Sticks (podcast)Ranked No. 26 · Score 31.273.7% accuracy · 45% of the season left, on average119 graded calls in 27 articles, 16 of them season-long
The Richard Sherman Podcast (podcast)Ranked No. 62 · Score 7.9858.64% accuracy · 66% of the season left, on average110 graded calls in 16 articles, all season-long
2 Pros and a Cup of Joe (podcast)Ranked No. 85 · Score -39.3352.59% accuracy · 96% of the season left, on average110 graded calls in 12 articles, 94 of them season-long
The Herd with Colin Cowherd (podcast)Ranked No. 75 · Score -9.1758.87% accuracy · 68% of the season left, on average109 graded calls in 24 articles, 84 of them season-long
Move the Sticks (podcast)Ranked No. 56 · Score 11.7153.9% accuracy · 83% of the season left, on average105 graded calls in 30 articles, 97 of them season-long
Move the Sticks (podcast)Ranked No. 45 · Score 18.7360.25% accuracy · 51% of the season left, on average100 graded calls in 28 articles, 98 of them season-long
The Herd with Colin Cowherd (podcast)Ranked No. 46 · Score 18.764.93% accuracy · 61% of the season left, on average98 graded calls in 39 articles, 92 of them season-long
Bubble size is graded calls, and the dot’s color blends the two axes — bluer means later calls, golder means earlier, brighter means more of them landed. The ringed dot is the best mix of early calls and hits among the ranked pundits on this chart who beat the baseline. Only season-long calls place a dot: a mock draft is made for one evening, so how early means nothing for it, and a pundit with fewer than ten other graded calls is left off. Hover or tap a dot for its numbers and a link to the record.
