Method
How our stories work
Fantasy sites start with the betting line and work down to the players. We go the other way: we start with the players and build up to a final score. When that score picks a different winner than Vegas, it becomes a story.
Building the score
Every week we take the same player projections you set your lineup with and add them up into a real football score for each team. A projected rushing or receiving touchdown counts 6 points, a field goal 3, an extra point 1, and a defensive or special-teams touchdown 6. A passing touchdown is already counted as the receiver's touchdown, so it is not counted twice.
The projections come from Sleeper. The line we compare against is the middle spread across the US sportsbooks The Odds API lists, and we record how it moves through the week.
Choosing the games
We make a pick on every game before kickoff, and the full slate is on Vegas vs XOCP. The games where our winner and the Vegas favorite differ are the ones we pitch, largest disagreement first. Once a game kicks off, its pick is frozen.
Grading in public
Every preview states its calls up front, each with the stat that will settle it. After the final whistle a follow-up grades each one hit, miss or push, and the preview links to the result. Misses stay up.
What it leaves out
Two-point conversions and safeties are not in the projections, so they are not in our score. We do not know exactly how Sleeper builds its projections. If they already lean on the betting line, our score will track Vegas closely and our disagreements will be small.
A few games a week is a small sample. A good run or a bad run over a month says little about whether the method works, so read each graded call on its own terms.
Who writes them
Stories are written with AI assistance and edited by Joe Ybarra. Every fact links to its source, and every photo is licensed and credited.