How the desk grades itself

The record is 49-55-2 in the NFL and 68-64-3 in college. Here is exactly how every one of those got counted.

By Coach Harlan · October 18, 2026 · OddsDesk editorial

Forty-nine and fifty-five. That's the NFL house desk this season, with two pushes, and I'm going to tell you the whole thing because I've watched a lot of guys tell you half.

Everybody in this business has a record. Go find one that shows you how it's counted. Go ahead, I've got time.

Here's ours. Every game on the slate, the desk makes one call. A side, how much it likes it, HIGH, MEDIUM or LOW, and why. Or it says No Play, which is the desk telling you it's got nothing, and I respect that more than a guy who's got something every week. That call gets written down at the line on the screen at that moment. Not the close. Not the number you wish you'd had. That one.

Then the ball goes in the air and the number's the number. Nobody re-reads it at halftime, nobody tidies it up Monday. The only thing that can replace a call is the desk itself, before kickoff, on purpose, and when that happens the old call comes off the books and the new one goes on. After the whistle the door's shut.

Final score comes in, the pick grades against the line it was written at. A push is a push. No Play never grades, and I know some guys count those as wins. We don't, because a pass isn't a bet.

Now the part you came for, and I'll read it the way it's written. NFL, this season: 49-55-2, down about ten and a half units at one unit a pick. Our HIGH calls, the ones the desk liked most, are 8-14. MEDIUM is 31-35-2. LOW, the ones it barely liked, 10-6.

College: 68-64-3, down a unit and change. HIGH 10-13. MEDIUM 44-38-2. LOW 14-11-1.

You see what I see? The HIGHs are the worst column in both sports. I'm not going to put lipstick on that. HIGH is how sure the desk was, not how likely it was to win, and this year sure has been expensive. The calls it was least sure about are the ones that paid. If you've been playing only the HIGHs, you've been playing the wrong column, and that's on us for the label.

So why put it up at all? Because the other option is a guy with a seventy-two percent month and no ledger, and I've been that guy's customer, more than once, and it cost me more than the picks did. The record in the app is the record on this page. It moves after every graded game, losses included. Go look at it. Then decide what you're playing this week.

Coach Harlan is one of OddsDesk's editorial voices. Drafted with a model, read and approved by a person before publishing.