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Colin Murray Cowherd began in Las Vegas sports television at KVBC before joining ESPN in 2003, where the radio show, SportsNation, and Colin's New Football Show followed. Now the host of The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports Radio and Fox Sports 1, Cowherd delivers weekly power rankings, game picks, and season-long projections. The predictions here cover the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City Chiefs, Detroit Lions, Baltimore Ravens, Los Angeles Chargers, Seattle Seahawks, Los Angeles Rams, and New England Patriots, along with player calls on Caleb Williams, Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter, Aaron Rodgers, Sam Darnold, and Matthew Stafford.
More about Colin Cowherd ↓Writes at The Herd with Colin Cowherd (podcast)
Across 415 graded calls in 70 articles, Colin Cowherd scores 56.81% accuracy and a MissedTakes Score of 13.3, which means their calls were better than a naive guess on the same claims.
That is an established record: thirty or more graded articles. That ranks #54 of 87 ranked NFL pundits on the MissedTakes leaderboard. Their strongest kind of call is Depth Chart Calls (93.75% accuracy across 11 graded calls); their weakest is Division Winners (5.88% across 53 graded calls).
How accurate are NFL experts overall? →
Every number here is computed from the published methodology, and every call below opens to its own arithmetic.
All 709 calls · one square per 2 calls
185hits45% of graded
75Close18%
155misses37%
How much better than a naive guess on the same claims. This is the ranking.
Teams and players where Colin Cowherd keeps landing outside the room: at least twice, their call sat beyond every other pundit who made a comparable one — higher or lower than all of them, in a room of at least five voices. The bar is their standing lean (+100 would be the most bullish voice in every room), and the accuracy covers just those out-on-a-limb calls, once they settle.
Outside the room in 3 of 5 articles — always higher · when they strayed: 18.3 accuracy (3 settled)
Colin Cowherd is an American sports media personality, born January 6, 1964, and the host of The Herd with Colin Cowherd on Fox Sports Radio and Fox Sports 1. What we hold of his is mostly talk: opinions delivered out loud, at length, across hours of daily programming, with the NFL at the center of what he says on the record.
His predictions come in several forms, and they are mostly about the football calendar. The claims we have resolved run heaviest toward playoff berths (175), then division winners (137), game outcomes (113), power rankings (72) and final scores (71). He also projects where prospects will be drafted, how many games a team will win and who will start on a depth chart. The power rankings have a home of their own in the Herd Hierarchy, a recurring segment whose titles read like weekly bulletins: "Who's The NFL's New No. 1? Bills Slide As Falcons, Colts Rise," or "Are The Raiders Legit? Seahawks Fall, While Bills & 49ers Rise." Each season also brings a round of Final NFL Predictions before kickoff.
We hold 136 pieces of his work, from January 2025 to November 2026, and 119 of them are podcast or broadcast transcripts. The Herd with Colin Cowherd podcast accounts for 87 and The Colin Cowherd Podcast for 31, both running across both years. Written pieces under the Fox Sports banner appear only in 2026, with 17 of them, alongside a single guest turn on 3 and Out with John Middlekauff. The volume grew from 55 pieces in 2025 to 81 in 2026.
Certain teams keep coming back: the Buffalo Bills, Seattle Seahawks, Baltimore Ravens, Los Angeles Chargers, Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs, Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots. The Bills and Seahawks in particular trade places at the top of his rankings, sometimes within one headline. Among players, Caleb Williams is a fixture, ranked as a top three or top five quarterback and, after a Monday night win over Seattle, declared to have "Validated His #1 Pick." Draft talk brings in Fernando Mendoza, Shedeur Sanders, Travis Hunter, David Bailey and Blake Miller, while established quarterbacks such as Aaron Rodgers, Sam Darnold and Matthew Stafford, plus receiver Drake London, round out the recurring cast.
415 graded calls in 76 articles, newest first — page 1 of 14. Every take from Colin Cowherd, including the ones still waiting →
Game calls show that game’s closing betting line under their grade: a dated fact from nflverse, for context and never part of a grade. MissedTakes takes no bets and earns nothing from any sportsbook.
294waitingnot graded yet
The same 87, by how often their calls landed, with no credit for difficulty.
Why the ranks differ: a naive guess scores very differently depending on which calls were made, from 15.25% on the hardest record here to 85.71% on the easiest. Accuracy alone flatters easy calls, so by accuracy Colin Cowherd would be #56; the Score measures the lift over a naive guess on the same calls, and that puts this record at #54.
| # | Pundit | Score | Accuracy | Graded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 52 | Ryan Wormeli | 16.27 | 68% | 31 |
| 53 | Eva Geitheim | 14.27 | 43.75% | 40 |
| 54 | Colin Cowherd | 13.3 | 56.81% | 415 |
| 55 | Gilberto Manzano | 12.26 | 43.45% | 40 |
| 56 | Kyle Brandt | 11.71 | 53.9% | 105 |
Outside the room in 3 of 33 articles — always lower · when they strayed: 45.7 accuracy (3 settled)
Outside the room in 2 of 2 articles — always higher · the strays aren’t settled yet
Outside the room in 2 of 2 articles — always lower · when they strayed: 73.8 accuracy (2 settled)
Outside the room in 2 of 4 articles — always lower · the strays aren’t settled yet
Outside the room in 2 of 16 articles (1 higher, 1 lower) · when they strayed: 40.0 accuracy (2 settled)
He came to this through local television. He started as sports director of KVBC in Las Vegas and worked as a sports anchor at several other stations before joining ESPN in 2003. There he hosted a show on the ESPN Radio network and became one of the original hosts of SportsNation, and also hosted Colin's New Football Show, before the move to Fox that produced the work collected here.
Dallas Cowboys to beat Tampa Bay Buccaneers
“"I'll take Dallas tonight, but not because of coaching." (ahead of the Cowboys' Week 5 matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers)”
Closing line (Oct 8): Cowboys by 9.5 · favorite pick, Cowboys about 4 in 5 (81%).
Dallas Cowboys to beat Tampa Bay
“Dallas at home should polish off Tampa Bay.”
Closing line (Oct 8): Cowboys by 9.5 · favorite pick, Cowboys about 4 in 5 (81%).
Buffalo Bills to beat Los Angeles Chargers
“They're facing the Los Angeles Chargers this week; good luck to Los Angeles there.”
Closing line (Sep 27): Bills by 7 · favorite pick, Bills about 3 in 4 (73%).
Houston Texans to beat Cincinnati
“All right, Bengals at the Texans on Sunday. I would not want to be Cincinnati, though I like them... The Texans' defense for the first time in, I don't remember, was kind of embarrassed. They'll be in a terrible, terrible mood. I think they'll take it out on Cincinnati.”
Closing line (Sep 20): Texans by 3 · favorite pick, Texans 57%.
Jacksonville Jaguars to beat Browns
“How about this will not shock you. The Jags are beating the Browns. / That's happening, right? Lock that up.”
Closing line (Sep 13): Jaguars by 8.5 · favorite pick, Jaguars about 4 in 5 (79%).
Seattle Seahawks 23 — Patriots 20
“I think it looks 23-20-ish. I'll take Seattle very, very close and very low-scoring.”
Closing line (Sep 9): Seahawks by 3, total 44.5 · this 23–20 calls the line’s margin (Seahawks by 3) and fewer points (43).
Philadelphia Eagles to beat Washington
“Philadelphia, Week 1, big favorites against Washington.”
Closing line (Sep 13): Eagles by 6 · favorite pick, Eagles about 2 in 3 (68%).
Seattle Seahawks 24 — New England 13
“I think Seattle wins. I think it feels like 24 to 13.”
Closing line (Sep 9): Seahawks by 3, total 44.5 · this 24–13 calls a bigger Seahawks win (by 11) and fewer points (37).
Fernando Mendoza to be picked “first round prospect” (picks 1–32)
“And he's not wildly overdrafted. Some may have him as amid to a late first rounder... He is a first round prospect.”