D.J. Mercer Spotlight · record

The Mercer Ledger

Every official selection. Every result. No deleted picks, no disappearing bad weeks. No claim is made that these picks win; the table is the whole argument.

This record opened with its first committed pick on Saturday, September 12, 2026. Nothing before that date was backfilled, and nothing can be: a pick is fingerprinted before kickoff or it never enters the record.

21+. Open Ledger Sports is an analytics publication, not a sportsbook, and accepts no wagers. Nothing here is betting advice and no outcome is guaranteed. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER, or see the NCPG's safer sports betting resources.

Raw data: mercer_ledger.json · fingerprints: commitments.json.

How the record works

• Fingerprinted before kickoff, or not at all. Each official pick is hashed (SHA-256) and timestamped when it is filed. The tool refuses to stamp a pick whose game has already started, so a late selection never enters the record in the first place. The stamp is printed on every card.
• A pick counts only once its fingerprint is public. A stamp sitting on a private machine proves nothing to you, so it is not treated as evidence. The commitment is the moment the fingerprint reaches the public repository, before kickoff, where you or anyone else can read the timestamp without our help. Both times are printed on every card.
• Nothing is backfilled. This record begins at the first publicly committed pick. Older opinions cannot be added later, because every one of them would fail the test above. A short honest record is the point; a long retrospective one would be worthless.
• Late is void. If a pick reaches grading with no stamp, or a stamp later than its kickoff, it books as VOID with the reason, and it stays on the record where you can see it.
• Edited is refused. If a pick's text no longer matches its stamp, the grader refuses to book it and says so on the page until it is restored.
• Graded is frozen. Once a pick is settled, its selection, line, price, stake and result are never recomputed. Editing the card afterwards changes nothing in the ledger, and the card says plainly that it was edited.
• The number is the number Mercer took. The line, the price and the book are recorded as they were at the moment of the pick, and are never quietly replaced by a better closing number.
• Only OFFICIAL picks count. Leans and passes are published as opinion, carry no stake, and never touch the record.
• Separate records. NFL and college football are kept apart, with a combined line, and none of it mixes with the site's model-driven football ledger.
• Pushes return the stake. ROI is profit divided by units risked on decided picks (wins, losses and pushes); void picks are excluded from both.
• Conviction is three words, not a percentage. Standard qualifies for the ledger. Strong is materially better than an ordinary qualifying play. Spotlight is reserved for genuinely exceptional setups and is expected to be rare, so there will be weeks with none at all. Conviction never changes the stake by itself and is not a probability estimate. Mercer has no calibrated model, so no number is invented to look like one, and the ladder itself will be checked against results in public.

Not yet tracked: closing-line value on Mercer's picks, and whether Mercer and the model agreeing on a game means anything. Agreement will be counted before it is ever described as making a pick stronger. Both appear here when they are built, not before.

Spotlight · About D.J. Mercer · Model football record