Broncos: Pundits Called the Chargers Upset | MissedTakes Daily

Did pundits see the Week 1 blowout at Kansas City coming?

No. Every tracked pick for that game that took Denver lost, and the Chiefs won 31-10 in a game our split shows 19 picks for the Broncos against just 6 for Kansas City among 25 pundits. Names on the wrong side included Mike Florio, John Breech, Jordan Dajani, Richard Sherman and Tyler Sullivan, each of whom also missed the final margin by between 18 and 31 points. The game's overall accuracy average for graded calls was 25 out of 100, one of the roughest showings for pundits on the Broncos all season.

Which Broncos calls did pundits actually get right?

The Week 5 trip to the Chargers is where Broncos punditry looked sharpest. Denver was the designated underdog on the road, a real test since picking Denver there meant beating the simple "take the home team" baseline, not just matching it. Twenty-six of 31 tracked pundits took the Broncos, the final was Denver 23, the Chargers 17, and the group's average accuracy came in at 82. Tyler Sullivan nailed the margin exactly (Broncos 26-20 projected against a 6-point actual margin), and Tim Lynch and Jeremy Brener weren't far behind. Denver's other two wins, over the Rams in Week 3 and over Seattle in overtime in Week 6, were both picks where Denver was already the "obvious" side, so getting those right earned pundits credit for being correct, not for being bold.

Is Bo Nix getting benched?

Not according to Chad Jensen, the pundit we've tracked most closely on this team. Jensen wrote on October 17 that "Nix is the Broncos' guy, for better or worse. They ride or die with him, come hell or high water," and repeated the point the next day. That call, like most of the Broncos' roster and depth-chart chatter from the past week, hasn't been graded yet since the season hasn't decided it. Jensen's graded record so far, 12 calls at 74% accuracy, is middling, not a reason to dismiss the call outright, but also not a reason to treat it as settled.

Running back has been the position where predictions have held up best among those with real sample size: 21 graded calls average 72.8% accuracy. Wide receiver has been the shakiest, 20 graded calls averaging just 56.6% accuracy. Two separate roster calls, from a staff item and from Pat Fitzmaurice, said rookie Jonah Coleman would lead Denver's backfield against the Rams in Week 3; he didn't play that week at all, and both calls scored a zero.

Which Broncos voices have the strongest record?

Among pundits we've graded at least five Broncos calls for, the gap is wide. Rich Eisen and Manti Te'o are both a perfect 100% across 9 and 7 graded calls, and Chris Brockman has gone 92.5% across 11. At the other end, Nick Wright has graded out at just 16.5% accuracy on Denver across 7 calls, with Kyle Crabbs at 36.2% and Jordan Dajani at 44%. None of these samples is large enough to call anyone's Broncos coverage settled science, but the spread is consistent enough to be useful.

One more wrinkle for context: pundits collectively lowballed Denver's 2025 win total by an average of 5.1 wins across six tracked calls, a year the Broncos finished 14-3. That miss helps explain why this year's preseason win-total calls on Denver clustered so high, with John Breech, Sayre Bedinger, Cody Rourke, Aniello Piro and others all landing between 11 and 13 wins before the season started. At 4-2 through six weeks, Denver is still inside that range, but two of its first six losses and wins came against the grain of what most of those same voices expected.

What else happened across the league this week?

We graded 605 takes across the league in the past seven days, the bulk of them game-outcome and score calls. Kevin Wildes and Rich Eisen each landed a perfect slate among the week's best-graded calls, while Michael Irvin's Cowboys projections and Nick Wright's AFC outlook were among the week's worst, each scoring a zero. On the season-long leaderboard, Damonza Byrd sits first with a 58% accuracy mark across 14 graded calls, with Mike Florio and Donnie Druin right behind him, though every pundit on the current board carries a sample the site still calls limited. The full standings are on the leaderboard.