Evidence
How our model works
Most fantasy tools ask you to take their word for it. This page is the test we ran instead, against real DraftKings contests, with the places the model is wrong shown next to the places it is right.
Last reviewed 21 October 2026. The ownership figures below were measured on 10 October; what changed since, including the 17 October DraftKings ownership update, is noted where it matters.
The test
Predicting ownership is the hard part of tournament play. It is not a forecast about football, it is a forecast about people: which players the field will pile into, and therefore which lineups will be duplicated hundreds of times and split their prize.
We hold a complete archive of real DraftKings NFL contests from the 2024 and 2025 seasons including every entered lineup, so the model can be checked against what actually happened rather than against itself.
The result
Our ownership model, as it stood on 10 October, was run against all 261 usable 2024 contests in the archive, covering all 18 weeks and just over 15 million entries, and scored against what the field really did.
What that last pair shows, and what it does not. It compares two averages. This time the difference is −5.2 points (95% range −6.8 to −3.5), so our top estimate now runs lower than the real top on average. On 3 October the two averages were within a point of each other. The pair also does not say the model is that close in any one contest. Contest by contest, our top estimate missed the real top ownership by 10.7 points on average (95% range 9.5 to 11.8; median 8.1). It was within 5 points in 34% of contests and within 10 points in 59%, and our most-owned player was the field's most-owned player in 52% of them.
Worse at the top of the board than on 3 October, and the model changed in between. On 3 October the same test gave a miss of 9.7 points, 38% within 5, 53% on the right player and a correlation of 0.835. Contest by contest the miss grew by 0.9 points (95% range 0.3 to 1.6) and was smaller in only 109 of the 261 contests; correlation slipped by about 0.005 (a small change, but its range stays below zero). The cause is an update on 5 October that spreads projected ownership across more teams, because real fields spread it more than our column did. It was chosen on 2024 contests, including these, and checked on 2025 contests it was not fitted on, where it lowered the error on players owned 10% or more. It also pulls down the most-owned player, which is what this test measures, so read these numbers as the cost of that trade rather than a fresh test.
The same test on 2025. Over the 272 usable 2025 contests (17 of 289 could not be scored because a team in the file had no game line that week), the correlation is 0.833. Our top estimate averages 47.8% against a real 50.7%, and it missed the real top by 9.8 points (95% range 8.9 to 10.8). Before the 5 October update the miss on the same contests was 10.7, so there the update made it 0.9 points smaller (95% range 0.2 to 1.6), the opposite direction from 2024. The two seasons disagree on this measure, and we are not choosing the better one.
FanDuel. Checking FanDuel takes more rebuilding, because the archive holds salaries but not our projections. We rebuilt player pools for 105 NFL Classic contests across 48 slates (93 from 2021 to 2025 and 12 from this season), with projections built from earlier weeks only. The rebuild does use two facts known after kickoff, which week a slate was and who did not play, which flatters it slightly. Across the players in those pools the per-contest correlation with real ownership averaged 0.69 (95% range 0.66 to 0.72, resampling slates), and our top estimate missed the real top by 11.1 points on average (95% range 8.7 to 13.5). The 5 October update lowered the average error on players owned 10% or more from 9.7 to 8.7 points; on the 58 contests it was not fitted on, from 10.0 to 9.0. This is a thin sample: 48 slates, only 15 of them from 2021 to 2023, and 61 of the 166 FanDuel contests in the archive could not be rebuilt (the export had no player ids or salaries, or the week could not be identified). Treat it as a first read.
The 17 October update (DraftKings NFL only). On 17 October our DraftKings NFL Classic ownership estimate started reading more of what the field can see before kickoff: each player's season average as the site prints it, his recent targets, carries and snaps, his team's pace, how many points his opponent has allowed to his position, and work opened up by teammates ruled out. We tested it a different way from the figures above: on 368 DraftKings contests from 2024 and 2025 built with our own replayed projections, each week scored by a version fitted without that week. The average miss per player went from 3.04 to 2.79 points, correlation from 0.62 to 0.69, and the ownership we gave players the field left under 1% fell from 137 points to 87 (the field: 21). Our top five summed to 156 against a real 168 (it was 132). It is also bolder at the very top: it projects one player above 70% in 31 of the 368 contests, where the real field did that in 4. The archive figures above have not been re-measured with it. FanDuel did not pass the same test and is unchanged.
A separate check: ownership across a contest should sum to 900%, because nine roster slots are filled by nine distinct players. Real contests average 898.5%. Our model reaches 900% by construction, so this confirms the target rather than testing the model.
Where it is wrong
On old slates it used to overstate the top of the board. The model reads pre-game Vegas totals to judge which games the field will crowd into. Those exist for recent seasons and not for archived ones, so on historical slates the term drops out and the model leans too hard on price. We found it projecting a lead back at 100% ownership, which no real contest produces. The ranking still held; the magnitudes did not. That was fixed in September, and the 10 October test above now shows the opposite lean: our top estimate runs about five points low.
Our duplication constant was wrong by more than an order of magnitude. It shipped at a value fitted before we had this archive. Measured against real duplicate counts across all 18 weeks, the true figure is roughly twenty times smaller. Every estimate that depended on it was wrong until it was corrected.
Simulated return is too noisy to rank on naively. Holding four lineups fixed and changing only the random seed, the same lineup returned anywhere from −86% to +40%. Anything that sorts lineups by the same simulated ROI it reports is sorting partly by luck. What the engine does about it: it runs thousands of draws, picks lineups using one half of them, and reports each lineup's return from the other half, so the number you see played no part in choosing it. Lineups are not ranked by top-1% finish rate.
Applies to the lineup builder (/dfs/build/) and the top plays on the optimizer (/dfs/optimizer/). Ranking method in place since 18 August 2026; checked against the production engine (build 9ee914a) on 15 September 2026. Corrected 15 September 2026: this paragraph used to say lineups are ranked by top-1% finish rate, which did not match the engine.
Raw simulated finish rates run high. We checked the simulator against 550 real DraftKings NFL Classic main contests from 2024 and 2025. In the study, raw simulated cash and top 1% rates ran roughly two to three times higher than what real contests paid out, and simulated return averaged +160% where a real-return proxy averaged −35%. The top 1%, win and return figures also did not track real results from one lineup to the next. What we changed: the lineup builder shows cash and top 10% only after a correction fitted on 2024 and checked on 2025, which it had not seen, and shows the rest as ranks that compare lineups with each other. College, FanDuel and Showdown have no measured correction yet, so they show ranks only.
Added 3 October 2026. The builder has shown corrected figures and ranks since 28 September 2026.
None of those were found by a user. They were found by testing the model against real results and publishing what came back, which is the only reason to keep an archive this size.
The field you play against
This page tests our ownership model. A tournament simulation also puts you against a field of lineups we generate, and that is a separate thing to get right. We graded it over 329 real contests against a standard written before the run. On the field the builder produced on 10 October, twelve measures are calibrated, four drifting, none clearly wrong, and two are things we do not model at all. The field scorecard is here, misses included.
Our other numbers, and how they have held up
Ownership is one model. The site also publishes player projections, props and college game lines. Here is where each one stands today, including where it trails the market. Tap a row for the detail.
NFL fantasy-point projectionsGraded every week of the 2026 season so far: 7 weeks, 2,207 player-weeks.
Each week's projections are frozen before kickoff and graded against what players scored. Across 2,207 player-weeks in 7 graded weeks, the projection we publish missed by 4.47 fantasy points on average, against 4.59 for what the DraftKings salary implies on the same players, and it had the smaller miss in 6 of the 7 weeks. Our own number before that blend missed by 4.55, slightly less than the salary, but by too little to call a real edge over this many weeks; the blend is what opens a clear gap. The week-by-week grades are on the members' projections board.
A change on 17 October. NFL passing yards are now projected team first: one passing number per team, split between the quarterback and his receivers. In a test run week by week on 2025 and the first five weeks of 2026, using only games before each week, the average miss on starting quarterbacks' passing yards fell from 63.0 to 57.5 yards (683 starts). It now runs high on average (by 8.4 yards, where it ran 4.9 low), and receivers' yards barely moved (17.96 to 17.90, 4,783 player-games, within noise). The change went out on 17 October, after week 6's Thursday game had been played, so week 7 is the first week projected entirely on the new method.
NFL player propsGraded every week since week 2, misses included.
Every prop on the members' board is now graded against the box score, on a rule written down on 19 October before any prop was graded. The full record is on the props results page and updates every Tuesday; you can slice it yourself on the trends page. When we first published it (26 October, weeks 2 to 7) the books' lines had been closer to the result than ours on four of five stats, and our side of the line had landed about half the time. The board itself also shows, for each player, every week's number we published before kickoff next to the closing line and what he actually did, misses included. The closing line there is the last one we saved before kickoff, which may not be the final price; lines from the Novig exchange start in week 6, and earlier weeks use the books'. A test on 2026 weeks 1 to 6 (1,744 player-weeks) found that adding sportsbook props to our fantasy projection trimmed the average miss by about 0.03 points, under 1%, and the gain did not hold when checked on weeks the blend was not fitted on, so props are shown beside our numbers and do not change them.
College football propsNew on 17 October. Nothing graded yet.
The members' college props board went up on 17 October. Its grading rule was written down before any game was graded, and the first grading runs after this weekend's games. Until then it has no track record, and we do not describe it as having one.
College football spreadsBehind the market this season: 12.54 points of average miss against 11.65, over 429 games.
Our college spread has not beaten the betting market this season. Priced with the method we run now, using only games before each kickoff, it missed the final margin by 12.54 points on average against 11.65 for the closing line, over 429 games of 2026. The side it favored against the closing line went 210-214-5 (49.5%), where a bettor at standard prices needs 52.4%. The numbers shown live on the board this season came from three versions of the model and did worse (198-226-5, 46.7%), which is why we grade the current method separately. Over 5,736 games from 2022 to 2025, how far our number sat from the closing line did not predict how the game finished against that line. So the lines board shows our number as a second opinion next to the market's, not as a pick.
NBA lineup builder (beta)Still a labelled beta. The only contest replay we have is of the first version, and it beat 30% of entries where a random entry beats 50%.
NBA is live in the builder as a labelled beta. What runs today is the first version plus the changes to projections below, none of them replayed against real contests yet:
- 15 October: minutes are projected as a range rather than one number, and a team-ratings game model sets each game's pace and totals. Tested on the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons it had no part in fitting (81,018 player games), the average miss on fantasy points fell from 7.71 to 7.36. Its main pre-registered test, the minutes miss itself, did not improve (it got 0.03 worse), and we shipped it on the points result anyway.
- 20 October: a player new to his team gets minutes from his role on the depth chart, and each team's minutes add up to the 240 a game has. On the first two weeks of the last two seasons, the miss on new-to-team players' minutes fell from 5.19 to 5.11 (698 player games).
- 20 October: players on no team's depth chart (waived or unsigned, though the site still lists them) are treated as not playing. That one has no backtest, because historical depth charts do not exist.
- 21 October: fixes found on the first full slate. Who plays is now read from each team's depth chart: reserves are pulled toward the minutes their spot usually plays, so last season's late-season minutes no longer carry over; a rookie in the rotation gets his spot's minutes and the points his salary implies instead of a flat 10 minutes; and a player's minutes come from the middle of his range rather than an average dragged down by injury exits. None of this has a backtest yet. The first grade comes from this week's games.
The replay below is historical: it tested the first version, before those changes. Replayed on 35 real FanDuel contests from early last season, its default 150 lineups beat 30.0% of entries on average (95% range 26.9% to 33.5%), where a random entry beats 50%. Ownership is still fitted on real FanDuel NBA contests but still misses the most-owned player by about 38 points on average, and DraftKings NBA ownership has not been measured at all. Treat it as early. The NBA props pages for members (single games, and from 17 October the season-long markets next to Kalshi's prices) have no graded record yet; the season has not started.
See it yourself
Beat the Field is free and takes two minutes. It hands you four lineups people really entered in a real contest, hides the results, and shows you exactly where your pick finished among every entry that was actually in it. Nothing simulated.
The CFB moneyline record lists the picks our current college football model makes this season as a retrospective replay, each re-run on only the games before its kickoff and graded against DraftKings' closing odds, losses included.
Ownership figures re-measured 10 October 2026 with the model as it stood that day, over all 261 usable 2024 contests and all 272 usable 2025 contests, by the same method as the 15 September and 3 October runs (the original 23 August run used 257 and reported the top-of-board pair without the per-contest error). The FanDuel figures use a different method, described above, so they are not comparable with the DraftKings ones. The 17 October change to NFL passing projections feeds the ownership estimates, and the 17 October DraftKings ownership update is measured separately above; neither has been re-run on these archive figures yet, and this page will say so when they are. Other figures measured 2026-08-23 and 2026-08-24 against the archive described above. Nothing here is betting advice.
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