# Seahawks 31, Cardinals 7: John Breech Picked Arizona Four Times. All Four Missed.

*Published 2026-09-23 — MissedTakes*

Seattle beat Arizona 31-7 in Week 2, and the pregame model had this one close on paper — the naive home-field math had Arizona favored by about half a point. It wasn't close. We've tracked 13 graded calls on this game, and the split tells you plenty about who was actually reading the matchup and who was just going through the motions.

## The verdict: the field leaned right, 8-5

Eight of the 13 graded calls backed Seattle to win; five backed Arizona. Seattle won by 24, so the majority was right — but this wasn't unanimous, and the minority wasn't scattered. It was concentrated in one place.

![Score Predictions vs. the Actual Margin](/posts/visuals/c3df11e8-d14f-497b-82e7-f1af99f84ade.png)

## The calls worth naming

Two [Richard Sherman](/pundits/richard-sherman) calls anchor the hit side, made from opposite ends of the calendar. On September 9 — before Week 1 had even kicked off — Sherman [said](/opinions/3b4f1960-4810-4136-8023-c9a76a0598a3) Seattle would "steamroll the Cardinals," a called shot that graded as a full hit (100 accuracy, skill +200) once the score came in. A week later he went further and put a number on it, [predicting](/opinions/8a2c5da4-3fba-43d7-82eb-dc25b81f245e) "Seahawks winning... by at least seven... 24 to 13." That graded as the best score prediction of the bunch — 69% accuracy, skill +133.95 — because his predicted 11-point margin came closer to the real 24-point margin than anyone else who called the game.

Behind him, [Pete Prisco](/pundits/pete-prisco) had Seattle 19-13 (a 6-point margin, 57% accuracy) and [Connor J. Benintendi](/pundits/connor-j-benintendi) had it 20-16 (a 4-point margin, 52% accuracy) — both correct on the winner, both too conservative on how lopsided it would get.

The flat winner picks deserve a mention too, because Arizona was the site's naive default here (the home team, in a game the model treated as roughly even). Backing Seattle wasn't free credit — it meant going against the expected pick. [Michael Hanich](/pundits/michael-hanich), [Colin Cowherd](/pundits/colin-cowherd), [Jeremy Brener](/pundits/jeremy-brener) and [Brendon Nelson](/pundits/brendon-nelson) all did, and all four graded as full hits (accuracy 100, skill +194 to +200). Nelson's call is worth quoting for how far out it was made, on September 12: "This team is clearly good enough to beat the Cardinals and Commanders with Drew Lock" — a pick that assumed Seattle would win even with its backup quarterback in the lineup.

## The misses: one name, four calls

The five wrong calls split 4-1, and the four all belong to [John Breech](/pundits/john-breech). Across three separate columns he [picked](/opinions/eb6d274b-c294-4c3d-ba42-d3dee06c6e87) Arizona to win outright, then [repeated](/opinions/f42c4080-99e0-449b-b2fa-05e18ce6f922) [it](/opinions/437a6bd1-ac3a-4745-8c35-137f4d364b0a) with the same 20-17 scoreline twice more, plus a separate flat [winner pick](/opinions/279e13ea-7477-4ca6-9e67-0bc53271b3e7) built around Sam Darnold's injury status. Notably, Arizona was already the model's naive default pick in this matchup — so Breech wasn't taking a contrarian swing that didn't pay off, he was backing the safe, expected side and still getting it wrong. All four calls graded to zero.

[Greg Jennings](/pundits/greg-jennings) supplied the fifth miss, naming Arizona his "upset alert" and saying flatly, "I believe in this team... I don't think the Cardinals are gonna allow too much more." They allowed 31.

## Track records: context for the names

Sherman's game-calling isn't a one-week story. Across everything we've graded from him, his Game Outcome Picks run 82% accurate on 30 graded calls — his best category by a wide margin over his 60% overall accuracy across 104 graded takes. This game fit the pattern rather than making it.

Breech's overall record sits at 47% accuracy on 68 graded calls, and Score Predictions are specifically his weak spot: 42% accuracy and a skill score of -7.11 across 39 graded calls, meaning his score picks as a group have graded worse than just guessing. Four straight misses on one game, from a pundit whose record in that exact category already runs behind the baseline, is the kind of pattern the record predicts rather than an outlier.

Nelson's hit is real but thin — one graded Game Outcome Pick in a three-take sample overall, so call it a good week, not yet a track record.

## What else this touches

The result doesn't just settle one Sunday. Among our graded calls, Seattle's Playoff Picks have hit 92.9% of the time and its Division Winner picks 84.6% — both categories where backing the Seahawks has mostly paid off so far. Arizona's numbers run the other way: its lone graded Playoff Pick and all three graded Division Winner calls have missed outright. A 31-7 loss to a division rival doesn't make those numbers easier to bet against.

For the fuller picture, both teams have their own pages — [Seahawks](/nfl/teams/seahawks) and [Cardinals](/nfl/teams/cardinals) — and the [leaderboard](/leaderboard) has the season-long standings for everyone named here.