Falcons: Everyone Had the Winner, No One Had the Margin | MissedTakes Daily
When the Falcons went into New Orleans in Week 4, pretty much every pundit who made a call got the winner right. Almost none of them got the game right.
Ten separate score predictions had Atlanta beating the Saints, and the final was 45-24 - a 21-point rout. Every single one of those calls lowballed it: the biggest margin anyone projected was seven points, from Scott Kennedy (27-20) and Garrett Chapman (24-17). John Breech, Pete Prisco and Tyler Sullivan all had Atlanta winning by two or three. The one pundit who came away with a clean grade was Richard Sherman, who simply said "give me Atlanta on the road" with no score attached - no margin to miss, so he graded at a perfect accuracy while the score-callers settled for decent-but-not-great marks in the 55-67 range.
The margin-whiffing fits a broader pattern in how pundits have handled this Falcons team. Score Predictions involving Atlanta have an average accuracy of just 49.2 across 19 graded calls this season, even though the average skill swing on those calls runs well positive - a sign that picking the right side has mattered more than nailing the number.
The quarterback mess pundits got wrong, then right
Atlanta's quarterback situation produced some of the shakiest calls on the club this year. In Week 1, both Lance Zierlein ("the Falcons, despite their disarray quarterback, go in to beat the Steelers") and Garrett Podell (who had Tua Tagovailoa "outplay Rodgers to shock the Steelers") picked Atlanta to win in Pittsburgh. The Falcons lost 13-20, and both calls came back at zero accuracy with the maximum negative skill swing.
It got messier in Week 2: Rich Hribar wrote that Tua Tagovailoa was "at the top of the depth chart," while Tyler Sullivan figured Michael Penix Jr. would start "if healthy." Neither quarterback actually played that week, and both calls scored zero. By Week 3, the picture had cleared up, and an unsigned Fox Sports depth-chart note correctly had Penix starting with Tagovailoa as his backup - a call that scored perfectly.
Zoom in on the position breakdown and the same split shows up: Falcons-related running back calls (mostly about Bijan Robinson) are accurate 70.9% of the time across seven graded calls, with a strongly positive skill swing, while quarterback calls sit underwater at 49% accuracy and wide receiver calls - the largest sample of any position group at 28 graded calls - are accurate just 29.3% of the time with the worst skill swing on the board.
Whose Falcons calls have actually earned trust
Among pundits with at least five graded Falcons-specific calls, one name separates from the field.
Scott Kennedy's 97% accuracy across 11 graded Falcons calls is the clear standout; Rich Eisen is a distant second at 84.5%. Several recognizable names - Colin Cowherd, Jaime Eisner, Kyle Crabbs - cluster in the high-30s, and Andrew Erickson's five graded Falcons calls have yet to produce a correct one. These are still small samples for any one voice, but they're the clearest signal available on who to believe the next time a Falcons take crosses the feed. A trade rumor from Atlanta also missed: Zachary Pereles floated the Eagles' A.J. Epenesa landing with the Falcons before the deadline; he ended up in Philadelphia instead, and that call scored zero accuracy. Elsewhere, Chris Long has the Falcons winning the NFC South this season - a call the year hasn't settled yet.
Around the league: a heavy grading week and a familiar name atop the board
The seven days just finished were one of the busiest stretches on record: 917 calls graded, led by score predictions (271) and mock draft picks (251). The high point belonged to Nick Wright, whose sweep of season win-total calls - backing the Jaguars, Bears, Chiefs, Buccaneers, Raiders and Falcons to clear their marks - graded perfectly across five separate entries, each worth the maximum skill swing; his colleague Damonza Byrd matched him by backing the Jaguars. The low point was a cluster of roster projections - preseason 53-man and practice-squad calls touching the Texans, Commanders, Saints and, twice, a league-wide PFF recap - that missed across the board at zero accuracy apiece.
On award history, Matthew Stafford's 2025 MVP was picked by 24 of 68 pundits who made a call, and Tetairoa McMillan's Offensive Rookie of the Year was backed by just 5 of 29 - the smallest plurality among the winners on record. For who's actually earning trust across all of this, the leaderboard is the place to look - Damonza Byrd currently sits atop it, though on just 14 graded calls, while names like Daniel Jeremiah carry a much larger sample at a lower rank.