Week 1
This is not betting advice. Unless it works.
— seasons · — games · 1 Moon
Every record here comes from two places: real NFL data and real astronomy. The football numbers — scores, betting spreads, stadium roof, wind — come from nflverse, an open-source dataset covering every NFL game from 1999 to today (regular season and playoffs). Each game is then stamped with the state of the sky at its actual kickoff, computed from the game’s Eastern start time. We tally wins, losses, and spread covers by cosmic bucket. That’s the whole machine.
Which of the eight traditional lunar phases the moon was in at kickoff. New Moon, First Quarter, Full Moon, and Last Quarter are the exact moments the moon reaches those points, so each gets only its own calendar day (Eastern time); every other day is a crescent or gibbous — the same convention as moon-phase apps and almanacs.
Source: astronomical calculation (PyEphem), at game time.
How near or far the moon was from Earth at kickoff. Its orbit isn’t a circle, so distance swings between about 356,000 km (a Supermoon, near) and 407,000 km (a Micromoon, far). Each game is bucketed Supermoon, Average, or Micromoon.
Source: astronomical calculation (PyEphem), at game time.
The zodiac sign the moon itself was passing through at kickoff. The moon crosses all twelve signs every month, so every sign gets a full share of games — the one lens where nothing is left empty.
Source: astronomical calculation (PyEphem), at game time.
The tropical (Western) sun sign for the game’s date — “Scorpio season,” “Capricorn season,” and so on. Because the NFL runs September to February, only about six signs ever see football — there is no such thing as a game played in Leo season.
Source: the calendar date.
Whether Mercury appeared to move backward across the sky at kickoff — the genuine astronomical event pop astrology loves to blame. It happens three to four times a year for about three weeks each, so roughly one game in five falls under it.
Source: astronomical calculation (PyEphem), at game time.
Whether Mars, the planet of war, appeared to move backward at kickoff. Rarer than Mercury’s — about every two years, for roughly two months — so about one game in ten falls under it.
Source: astronomical calculation (PyEphem), at game time.
The Wins / Against the Spread toggle counts outright results or cover results (spreads from nflverse, home-favorite convention). The year window and opponent filters narrow the same records. Every value is computed once per game and fixed — it never changes based on when the page is built or viewed.