Saints 24, Ravens 17: The Two Calls That Beat a Lopsided Field
The New Orleans Saints won 24-17 at Baltimore in Week 2, and the pregame chatter did not see it coming. We tracked 15 graded calls tied to this game — winner picks, score predictions, and two depth-chart claims about the Ravens' receiving corps — and the field leaned about as hard as it gets toward Baltimore.
Of the 13 calls that named a winner or a final score, 11 had the Ravens beating New Orleans. Only two pundits took the Saints. Both were right, and both did something the other 11 didn't: they picked against the model's default assumption that the home team wins, which is exactly what the site's skill score is built to reward.
The two who called it
Tyler Sullivan of CBS Sports flagged Baltimore as one of five Week 2 favorites on upset alert, pointing to New Orleans' offense holding up and a possible letdown spot for the Ravens: "New Orleans Saints (+8.5) at Baltimore Ravens... If this turns into another shootout, [Tyler] Shough has shown he can at least hang around. I also wonder if this is quietly a look-ahead spot for Baltimore." That call graded out at 100 accuracy and a skill score of +194 — one of the largest possible rewards the site hands out, because picking the underdog outright and being right is worth far more than adding one more voice to the favorite.
Dylan Sanders went further and put a number on it: "So I'm going Saints 23, Ravens 17." The Ravens' side landed exactly — 17 — and the Saints' total missed by one. That's a 97.62 accuracy grade and a skill score of +127.1, the best score prediction on the board for this game by a wide margin.
The score guessers who had the Ravens winning
Eight pundits put a final score on this one, and seven of the eight had Baltimore taking it. None of the losing margins were far off the real gap of seven points, but wrong is wrong on the win-loss line, and the accuracy grades show it.
| Pundit | Predicted | Picked | Accuracy | Skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dylan Sanders | Saints 23, Ravens 17 | NO | 97.62 | +127.1 |
| Jared Dubin | Ravens 27, Saints 20 | BAL | 50.0 | +34.72 |
| Darrion Gray | Ravens 28, Saints 20 | BAL | 47.62 | +30.1 |
| John Hendricks | Ravens 23, Saints 17 | BAL | 47.62 | +30.1 |
| Lance Moore | Ravens 35, Saints 31 | BAL | 42.86 | +20.86 |
| Jordan Dajani | Ravens 28, Saints 24 | BAL | 42.86 | +20.86 |
| John Breech | Ravens 34, Saints 23 | BAL | 40.48 | +16.24 |
| Pete Prisco | Ravens 33, Saints 20 | BAL | 35.71 | +7.0 |
Pete Prisco had the widest gap between call and result — a 13-point Ravens win instead of a 7-point Saints one — and it shows in his score, the lowest of the group. It's a rougher week than his season line on score predictions, where he's graded 61.8 accuracy across 40 calls; this one landed well under that mark.
The straight winner picks that missed
Four pundits called Baltimore outright with no score attached, and all four were zeroed out for it, since the model's naive pick was also Baltimore and none of them beat that baseline. Nick Shook was the most emphatic of the group, worried about the Ravens' run defense tipping the game into a blowout: "that's what's gonna tip that game into a double-digit win for the ravens I think." Instead New Orleans won by seven. Richard Sherman ("I don't think they're beating the Baltimore Ravens and Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry this week"), plus earlier-summer calls from Dave Dameshek and Ross Jackson picking Baltimore as part of broader season previews, rounded out the group. For Sherman it's one blemish in a specialty where he's otherwise been sharp — he's graded 82.04 accuracy on 30 straight game-outcome picks this season, so this was very much the exception rather than the rule.
It wasn't just the scoreboard that went against Baltimore projections that week. Two separate waiver-wire columns — an unsigned FantasyPros entry and one from Pat Fitzmaurice — both named Rashod Bateman as the Ravens' likely No. 1 receiver for this matchup. Devontez Walker got that role instead, and both calls were graded a flat zero.
What it means going forward
Plenty of preseason optimism rides on Baltimore right now — pundits including Nick Wright, John Breech and Colin Cowherd have the Ravens winning 11 to 14 games and taking the AFC North, and a Week 2 home loss to a Saints team most of the same voices pegged for eight or nine wins doesn't erase any of that. But it's the kind of result that makes those calls a little harder to cash early, and it's a data point in New Orleans' favor for pundits like John Middlekauff, who has argued the Saints are closer to a nine-win team than their number suggests. Both storylines are worth revisiting later in the season — see the Ravens and Saints team pages, and the leaderboard for how these pundits stack up overall.