Did you doubt the dog’s abilities?

That’s understandable; many of us were skeptical too.

However, Luna, the 7-year-old Maltipoo, successfully chose all six winners for the NFL wildcard games in the inaugural round of YSL News Sports’ intriguing prediction challenge: Man vs. Machine vs. Dog. The excitement only escalated on Saturday.

Luna opted for the Washington Commanders to win against the Detroit Lions — seriously, it’s all in the graphic — and she also picked the Kansas City Chiefs over the Houston Texans.

This charming and seemingly prophetic pup has maintained an impressive 8-0 record, putting her ahead of YSL News’s Jarrett Bell and Tyler Dragon, as well as a computer-generated statistical model designed by Kostas Pelechrinis, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Pelechrinis, noting Luna’s exceptional performance, commented via email, “Given that she chose each game at random, the probability of picking all 6 correctly is approximately 1.6% (to be precise, 1.5625% lol).’’

It’s worth mentioning that the professor assumes Luna is making her selections randomly – he doesn’t consider that she might have unique insights into the game.

Scoring System Explained

Crafted by NFL prediction expert David Glidden, the scoring framework is outlined as follows:

Each week, participants will submit complete brackets, making their predictions for all games all the way to the Super Bowl. A flawless bracket from beginning to end would net 1,000 points, although competitors will likely need to revise their predictions each week.

Participants earn 30 points for correctly predicting the winner of a wildcard game, 35 points for a Divisional round game, 50 points for a Conference Championship game, and 75 points for the Super Bowl.

At the end, we’ll crown an official champion and discover who stands out in NFL playoff predictions: Man, Machine, or Dog.

Let the predictions and games commence!

Divisional Game Odds

BetMGM has released the initial betting odds for next weekend’s matchups. A ‘+’ indicates how much a bettor could win on a $100 stake, while a ‘-‘ shows how much one must wager to win $100.

AFC Divisional Game Odds

Houston Texans (+375) at Kansas City Chiefs (-500), Chiefs favored by 8 points

Baltimore Ravens (-120), favored by 1 point against Buffalo Bills (+100)

NFC Divisional Game Odds

Washington Commanders (+400) at Detroit Lions (-550), Lions favored by 9 points

Los Angeles Rams (+225) at Philadelphia Eagles (-275), Eagles favored by 6 points