NFL Big Data Bowl 2026 - Prediction

Overview

This competition challenges you to predict NFL player movement in the frames after the ball is thrown, using pre-pass tracking data and Next Gen Stats. You'll need to build models that accurately forecast where players will move during a pass play, from the moment the ball is released until it's caught or ruled incomplete. The goal is to create algorithms that closely match the actual player movements.

Requirements

Participants need to submit their predictions via Kaggle Notebooks. Your notebook must have a CPU or GPU runtime of 9 hours or less, with internet access disabled. Freely available external data and pre-trained models are allowed. The submission file needs to be named submission.csv and contain id, x, and y columns for each predicted frame. The evaluation metric is Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE).

Prizes

There is a total prize pool of $50,000. The first-place winner will receive $25,000, second place gets $15,000, and third place wins $10,000. Additionally, participants can earn awards and medals.