# Bengals: Pundits Pick Cincinnati Most Weeks, but Their Burrow Numbers Keep Missing | MissedTakes Daily

*Published 2026-10-17 — MissedTakes*

*Drafted by a language model from MissedTakes' graded data, then reviewed and approved by Ben Garves before publishing.*

## The crowd keeps taking Cincinnati, and it's an uneven bet so far

We've tracked 242 graded and pending Bengals-specific calls this season, and the clearest pattern is simple: pundits like Cincinnati. In five of the Bengals' first five graded game-outcome weeks, the field leaned toward a Bengals win, and it has gone 3-2.

They were right in Week 1 (a home win over the Buccaneers), right again in Week 2 when the Bengals won on the road at Houston, 20-6 - a call [Lance Zierlein](/pundits/lance-zierlein) actually flipped into mid-week, switching off Houston and onto Cincinnati just before kickoff, which paid off with a big skill gain. Then the wheels came off: six different pundits, including [Chad Ochocinco Johnson](/pundits/chad-ochocinco-johnson), Danny Parkins, Geoff Schwartz, John Middlekauff, Chris Long and Richard Sherman, all picked Cincinnati to beat Pittsburgh on the road, and the Bengals lost 30-27, each of those calls scoring a skill delta of -189. A week later, [John Breech](/pundits/john-breech), Greg Jennings and Ochocinco again backed Cincinnati at home against Jacksonville, and the Bengals lost 22-17. Week 5 reversed the slide: Cincinnati won at Miami 31-24, and the pundits who'd taken them cashed in again.

## One trusted voice, and a few that aren't

Not every Bengals voice carries the same weight. Among pundits with at least 5 graded Cincinnati-specific calls, [Jay Morrison](/pundits/jay-morrison) stands well clear of the field at 95.8% accuracy across 24 graded calls, mostly on roster and depth-chart questions. Several others land much closer to a coin flip or worse: Ochocinco Johnson is at 50% across 12 graded calls (his game-outcome picks alone include four separate misses worth -189, -183, -172 and -144 in skill), Rich Eisen sits at 39.5% across 11, and Colin Cowherd is at 23.2% across 7. An AI-generated commentator the site tracks, Axel Ingram, is 0 for 7 on graded Bengals calls.

![One Bengals-beat voice stands out; most others are a coin flip or worse](/posts/visuals/321b0752-ef1f-44a8-8a84-1ea74c4df28b.png)

## Burrow is where the numbers miss hardest

Split by position, the Bengals' running back (85.3% accuracy, 14 graded) and safety (90.3%, 15 graded) predictions have held up well. Quarterback calls are the opposite: 18.9% accuracy across 19 graded calls, by far the shakiest position room tied to this club. Andy Furman predicted Joe Burrow would be viewed as the league's best quarterback; he finished 30th in passing yardage. Andrew Erickson said he "wouldn't blink twice" if Burrow threw 45 touchdown passes; he threw 17. Those two calls alone drag the quarterback room's numbers down hard, and they show how one confident call about a single star player can do more damage to a team's accuracy record than a dozen ordinary mock-draft picks.

## Week 5 was the best stretch yet

The clearest recent signal is the Week 5 win at Miami. Score-prediction calls on that game ranged from a 3-point margin to a 14-point margin; Cincinnati actually won by 7, and Dan Parr's 20-13 call matched the final margin exactly, earning a perfect accuracy grade.

## Elsewhere in the league

The wider slate stayed busy: 929 calls were graded across the league in the past week, with mock draft picks (252) and score predictions (251) making up more than half of that volume on their own.

![Mock drafts and score picks make up more than half of this week's grading](/posts/visuals/02d79616-051b-45c4-9cc0-20843eec8146.png)

At the top of the overall rankings, Damonza Byrd leads with a 65.8 MissedTakes Score, but on a sample of just 14 graded calls - small enough that the order up there is still shifting week to week. Donnie Druin, right behind him, is running a 96.1% accuracy rate on 15 graded calls, the best hit rate near the top of the board. The full [Leaderboard](/nfl/leaderboard) has the rest.