Kickoff v1.0 Public Beta
Football intelligence built around inspectable data.
Kickoff is an independent research product: a 2026 schedule, a leakage-safe prediction model, and Ask Kickoff for historical retrieval. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NFL or its clubs.
Product v1.0 Public Beta · production model v0.2
What it is
A place to inspect 2026 preseason model snapshots, walk-forward historical evaluation, team roster snapshots, and verified historical stats. Predictions are estimates, not betting advice.
The system
- Data
- nflverse historical football records, CC-BY 4.0.
- Model
- Leakage-safe L2 logistic regression (v0.2).
- AI
- OpenAI interprets questions and explains retrieved evidence.
- Evaluation
- Walk-forward historical backtesting on 1,865 games (2019–2025).
Ask pipeline
- Question
- Interpret
- Validated tool
- Football data
- Evidence
- Answer
The language model is not the source of football facts.
Prediction pipeline
- Historical data
- Leakage-safe features
- Model
- Win probability
- Inspectable prediction
Model results
Model v0.2: 63.0% walk-forward accuracy, Brier 0.227, log loss 0.647, on 1,865 regular-season games (2019–2025).
Transparency: a simple entering-record baseline is 63.8% straight-up. Kickoff does not beat that rule on winner-picking. Its legitimate advantage is probabilistic scoring (Brier and log loss vs v0.1). See the Model dashboard.
Engineering principles
- No future-data leakage
- No LLM-generated probabilities
- No fabricated missing data
- Predictions remain inspectable
- Unsupported questions remain unsupported
Technology
Next.js, TypeScript, OpenAI API, nflverse parquet, statistical modeling, Vercel.
Limitations
- No live injuries, betting odds, or 2026 results yet
- Roster freshness depends on available structured nflverse snapshots
- No MVP or awards dataset
- Model evaluation is regular season only
- Predictions are estimates, not guarantees, and not betting advice
Independence
Kickoff is an independent project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the National Football League or its clubs.
Historical games, rosters, and player-week stats: nflverse, CC-BY 4.0. Schedules maintained by Lee Sharpe / nfldata. Player and team week stats from nflfastR::calculate_stats(). 2026 dates transcribed from an NFL Football Operations schedule. See ATTRIBUTION.md in the repository.