The best free NFL and college football picks, ranked by a guy who works at one of them

Let me say the quiet part first. I work at OddsDesk. I'm putting it first on this list. You can stop reading right there if that bothers you, and honestly I'd respect it. But I've spent more Sundays than I want to admit bouncing between pick sites, so here's what I actually think each one is good for, and you can decide if I'm grading on a curve.

1. OddsDesk

What's free: a pick for every NFL and college football game, with the read behind it, and the record of every pick the desk has ever made, wins and losses, right there in the app. Not a teaser pick and a paywall. Every game. You also get two reads of your own on the house, meaning you write an angle in one sentence and the desk runs it on a real game for free, twice, before anybody asks you for a dime.

What costs money: more of your own reads. It's $3.99 a week or $12.99 a month, or you buy a pack of tokens for $2.99 and that's about a dozen reads whenever you feel like it. There's no annual, there's no founder tier, there's no two hundred dollars a season.

Why I've got it first, besides the obvious: nobody else lets you argue with the pick. If you think the desk is wrong about Denver, you tell it why, in one sentence, and it reads the game your way. That's the whole idea. Every other site on this list hands you a conclusion. This one hands you the tools and shows you its own record while it does it. That record is 49-55-2 in the NFL right now, which I've written about, which you should go read before you trust anybody's number, including ours.

2. Covers

Covers absorbed Odds Shark, so what used to be two sites is one big one, and it is the biggest free picks room on the internet. Expert picks and computer picks on every NFL and college game, posted a couple of days out, plus the consensus numbers, meaning what share of the public is on each side. The consensus is the thing I actually use it for. The picks themselves come from a lot of different people, and you have to go find the ones with a record you like.

3. Dimers

Dimers is a model. A free win probability and a projected score on every game, every week, no subscription required. If you want a number and not an opinion, it's the cleanest free version of that I know of. The catch is that the best bets, the ones with an edge against the actual line, sit behind Dimers Pro. The free side tells you who's likely to win. It doesn't tell you whether the price is any good.

4. Action Network

Action is the one with the biggest brand and the most stuff. Free expert picks, alerts, a bet tracker that's genuinely good, and a lot of writing. The free tier is real. But the things that make Action what it is, the money percentages, the sharp signals, the projections, live in PRO, and PRO is a monthly subscription that costs more than a lot of people put on the bets they'd use it for. If you're a volume bettor it might pencil out. For a guy betting Sunday, the free picks are fine and the rest is a store.

5. Pickswise

Pickswise is free picks with a paragraph of reasoning on each, spread, moneyline and total, for every NFL and college game. No paywall I've ever hit. It's a sportsbook affiliate, so the site wants you to click through to a book, and the writing is more template than opinion. But as a second opinion to check against before you bet, it's quick, it's free, and it covers the whole slate.

Where that leaves you

If you want numbers, Dimers. If you want to know what the crowd is doing, Covers. If you want the big-brand experience and you'll pay for it, Action. If you want a quick free read on every game, Pickswise. And if you want to see every pick graded in public and be able to run your own, that's us, and I already told you I'm biased.