49ers 32, Seahawks 29: Most Pundits Picked Seattle, and Six Nailed San Francisco's Exact Margin

San Francisco went into Lumen Field unbeaten and left it still unbeaten, holding off Seattle 32-29. Forty-six pundits weighed in before kickoff, several with both a winner pick and a final score, for 60 graded calls total. The average grade across all of them came out to 52 of 100, almost exactly a coin flip, and the reason is simple: the two sides of the field were nearly mirror images of each other, and only one side ended up right.

Seattle got the votes, San Francisco got the win

Counting one voice per pundit, 28 picked the Seahawks to beat the 49ers at home. Eighteen picked San Francisco. That's better than three-to-two odds on Seattle, built on the champions-at-home logic that usually isn't a bad bet. It just didn't hold this week.

We look at picking the home team as this site's floor (the generic pick that costs nothing to make.) Many of the takes didn't beat that floor, but the 49ers did, which means every pundit who took San Francisco got extra credit for going against the expected call, not just for being right.

Six calls landed on the exact final margin

Twenty pundits put a final score on this game, and the median call had Seattle winning by three. The 49ers won by three instead, so the whole shape of the field's expectation flipped and landed on the other side of zero.

Six of those twenty hit the three-point margin exactly, each picking San Francisco: Brooke Cersosimo (49ers 26-23), Grant Cohn (49ers 16-13), Jeremy Brener (49ers 34-31), John Breech (49ers 27-24), Richard Sherman (49ers 24-21) and Seth Walder (49ers 26-23). Cohn's call is the most interesting of the six: his projected total of 29 points was 32 short of the actual combined 61, but because the margin was what mattered, it still earned full credit.

Sherman's call stands out beyond the number. He's a former Seahawks cornerback picking against his old team, and he didn't hedge: "I think the San Francisco 49ers find a way to win this game… I think the San Francisco 49ers win this game 24-21." He also made a separate winner call, on air, that "I like the San Francisco 49ers in this one. I think they're the hotter team." Both came in right. Chris Broussard made the same case in fewer words: "I'm going to go with San Francisco… I do think Purdy is just different and better than ever." He was right too.

The misses ran the other way, by similar margins

Gennaro Filice had the widest miss of the week, calling Seahawks 27-19, a predicted seven-point Seattle win that was off the actual result by 11 points. Pete Prisco wasn't far behind, with Seahawks 28-21 missing by 10.

The loudest miss belonged to Nick Wright, who made the case for a Seattle blowout twice on the air: "I think Seattle's gonna win by 10… I absolutely, Brew, could see twenty four thirteen where Seattle is in total control the whole game," and separately, "I think Seattle wins this game by a touchdown." Neither call earned any credit. Kevin Wildes and Nate Tice also took Seattle and scored zero, though neither staked out a margin as aggressive as Wright's.

What these misses do, and don't, say about the pundits behind them

Wright's two empty calls here fit his season so far more than they break from it: across 107 graded game-outcome calls he's at 56.79% accuracy, a shade above a coin flip, so this result tracks with his standing record rather than overturning it.

Filice's 11-point miss looks worse in isolation than his season does. Across 28 graded score predictions he's at 66.48% accuracy, with a sample the site still treats as thin, so one wide miss moves that record more than it would for someone with a deeper history.

Sherman's two correct calls build on an already strong line: 79.06% accuracy on 26 graded score predictions and 71.05% on 73 graded outcome picks, the best marks of the week's main characters. Breech's exact-margin call fits a more middling season, 53.12% accuracy across 95 graded score predictions, making this one of his sharper weeks rather than a pattern.

Beyond Week 5

San Francisco is 5-0; Seattle, the defending champion, is 3-2. Neither club's 2026 win-total or playoff calls have been settled by the season yet, so nobody can claim credit or blame on those fronts tonight. For a longer view of how the field's win-total calls on these two clubs have gone in recent seasons, or how either pundit above is doing across everything they've predicted, see the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks team pages, and the overall leaderboard.