# Panthers 34, Falcons 3: The Only Two Calls for Atlanta Came From the Same Guy

*Published 2026-09-23 — MissedTakes*

Carolina's 34-3 win at Atlanta in Week 2 settled 14 graded winner and score calls, plus two depth-chart calls about who'd even be under center for the Falcons. The headline number: this wasn't a coin flip the field happened to nail. It was 12-2 for Carolina before kickoff, and the two holdouts came from the same person.

![How the field split before kickoff](/posts/visuals/2deefca5-6cbc-4d19-836a-876325de7469.png)

## The verdict: lopsided, and still an undersell

Twelve of the 14 winner-or-score calls we tracked backed the Panthers. The two that didn't — both predicting Atlanta 21, Carolina 17 — belonged to [Pete Prisco](/pundits/pete-prisco), published in two separate columns with the identical score [pick](/opinions/29185ff4-dec4-498f-aa45-4ca2d72dcbe3). Everyone else who touched this game had Carolina winning. Nobody had it a blowout.

Straight winner picks from [Seth Walder](/pundits/seth-walder), [Pamela Maldonado](/pundits/pamela-maldonado), and [Eric Moody](/pundits/eric-moody) — ESPN's trio was [unanimous on Carolina](/opinions/61d68b2a-468b-44a5-b949-a6b152bbafc0) — along with [Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright) ("[I expect Carolina to win. I'm laying less than a field goal](/opinions/0290838b-8539-4133-bb24-a8c3a617bbd3)") and [Richard Sherman](/pundits/richard-sherman) all graded out at full marks. That's worth spelling out plainly: Atlanta was the home team, so the site's naive baseline defaults to picking the Falcons. Every one of those road-team calls beat that baseline outright, which is exactly what the skill number is built to reward — each carried a skill score near 194 out of a possible 200.

The score predictions all had Carolina winning too, just not by enough. [Scott Kennedy](/pundits/scott-kennedy) went [24-13](/opinions/c0be929d-8c00-4148-b8d0-968b34e5d510), tying it to Atlanta's Cooper Rush era ("0-Cooper Rush starts, with this week making it 0-2"). [Jerry Jones](/pundits/jerry-jones) had it [27-16](/opinions/12652a3a-c719-4206-a93b-f5b8ebc09beb). [John Breech](/pundits/john-breech) picked [24-17](/opinions/eb6d274b-c294-4c3d-ba42-d3dee06c6e87). [Garrett Chapman](/pundits/garrett-chapman) went the other way and called a nail-biter, [23-20](/opinions/5be072b2-97fa-40f2-999b-b1007f18e933) — the actual margin was 31 points.

## The sharpest call: Tony Fusco's 30-7

One pundit got close to the real shape of the game. [Tony Fusco](/pundits/tony-fusco), writing a satirical Week 2 predictions column, called it "[Panthers 30, Falcons still only 7](/opinions/84c5d696-88f5-4b4d-9990-706a1698baa5)" — a 23-point margin against an actual 31-point margin, graded at 80.95% accuracy and the best skill score of any score prediction on this game (157.05). It's the only score call in the group that treated this as a mismatch rather than a competitive game.

That said, don't read too much into it. Fusco's overall record on the site is thin and rough — 47.14% accuracy across six graded score predictions, with a negative overall skill score (-41.89). One well-aimed blowout call doesn't rescue a small, shaky sample; it's a highlight in an otherwise weak book, not evidence of a hot hand.

![Score predictions vs. the actual 31-point margin](/posts/visuals/06fc6abb-4bb1-40ff-babe-be75cdb2f0cc.png)

## The misses: Prisco, and a QB battle nobody called

[Pete Prisco](/pundits/pete-prisco)'s two Atlanta picks were unanimous misses — literally, since they were the only Atlanta picks anyone made. Both scored zero. It's not an outlier for him at scores specifically: his game-score accuracy sits at 61.8% across 40 graded calls, with a modest overall skill score of 18.15. This game fits the pattern more than it breaks it.

Beyond the winner-and-score calls, the game also settled a subplot about Atlanta's quarterback room, and both entries on it whiffed. [Rich Hribar](/pundits/rich-hribar) expected [Tua Tagovailoa to start](/opinions/124ac755-a942-4382-8bad-177da7f8170d) Atlanta's Week 2 game; [Tyler Sullivan](/pundits/tyler-sullivan), writing for CBS Sports, thought [Michael Penix Jr. would take over if healthy](/opinions/1000d8d0-5de1-405e-b8ce-255cde75a32d). Neither played — Kennedy's score-pick evidence points to Cooper Rush as Atlanta's actual starter. Both calls graded zero.

For Hribar, that's a real but isolated stumble. He sits sixth on the [site leaderboard](/leaderboard) with 68.79% accuracy across 64 graded calls overall, and his depth-chart calls specifically have run hot — 78.33% accuracy on the six we've graded before this one. One miss in a strong specialty is a data point, not a trend.

## What it touches beyond the box score

Neither club's 2026 season win-total calls have been settled yet — the season's two games old — but this result leans one way. Panthers optimists who picked them to win the NFC South or clear their win total, including calls that Carolina finishes above .500 and takes the division, look better positioned after a 34-3 romp. Falcons pessimists who put Atlanta as low as five or six wins look more credible than the one voice who tabbed them a nine-win sleeper. None of that is graded — it can't be, this early — but it's the kind of swing worth watching as the season plays out on the [Falcons](/nfl/teams/falcons) and [Panthers](/nfl/teams/panthers) team pages, and on the [leaderboard](/leaderboard) as more of these calls come due.