# Steelers 26, Buccaneers 19: Bryan DeArdo's One-Point Miss Topped Takes | MissedTakes

*Published 2026-10-19 — MissedTakes*

*Drafted by a language model from MissedTakes' graded data, then reviewed and approved by Ben Garves before publishing.*

The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 26-19 on the road in Week 6, and most of the pundits we tracked had the right side before kickoff. We graded 20 calls this game settled, and the sharpest score prediction, from [Bryan DeArdo](/pundits/bryan-deardo), missed the final margin by a single point.

## How many pundits took the Steelers to win in Tampa?

Eleven of the 16 pundits we tracked on this game picked the Steelers, one voice per pundit counted; five sided with the Buccaneers. The majority had it right. Picking Pittsburgh was also the harder call: Tampa Bay was hosting, and a reader who simply took the home team in every Week 6 game would have landed on the Buccaneers here, so every Steelers pick had to beat that baseline, not just agree with it.

![Eleven of 16 picked the team that won](/posts/visuals/a10c13ab-51de-4e9f-9340-ab982a563b33.png)

[Connor Rogers](/pundits/connor-rogers) said two days out: "I don't think the Bucks are very good." [Richard Sherman](/pundits/richard-sherman) leaned on the backfield: "Jalen Warren has been very elusive and dynamic. I got Pittsburgh in this game." Both calls graded out at full accuracy, each worth a skill bump of 172 against the naive home-team default.

## Whose score call came closest to the final margin?

DeArdo's was. He called Pittsburgh winning 19-13 three days before kickoff, expecting the Steelers' pass rush to bother Tampa Bay's rookie quarterback, and the final 26-19 left his predicted margin just one point off (graded accuracy: 97.62). Four other pundits also put a score on this game, and none got closer.

| Pundit | Predicted score | Margin called | Missed by |
| --- | --- | ---: | ---: |
| Bryan DeArdo | Steelers 19-13 | Steelers +6 | 1 |
| Chris Simms | Steelers 24-20 | Steelers +4 | 3 |
| Tyler Sullivan | Buccaneers 24-23 | Buccaneers +1 | 8 |
| John Breech | Buccaneers 20-17 | Buccaneers +3 | 10 |
| Pete Prisco | Buccaneers 26-21 | Buccaneers +5 | 12 |

![DeArdo's one-point miss was closest to the final margin](/posts/visuals/b043efab-1d19-44c2-baf9-08d7d1f2e820.png)

Chris Simms also had the Steelers winning, 24-20, missing the margin by three points for a 92.86 accuracy grade. Both of the top two scores shared the right winner; no one who predicted a Buccaneers win got within single digits of the actual margin.

## Who missed by betting on a Tampa Bay upset?

Three pundits besides the ones in that table called the Buccaneers outright and scored zero on the pick: [Tyler Sullivan](/pundits/tyler-sullivan), Mike Kadlick and Conor Orr. Sullivan's was the most detailed miss, predicting before kickoff that the "Steelers score less than 20 points in loss to Bucs" and that Pittsburgh was "firmly on upset alert." Pittsburgh scored 26. [John Breech](/pundits/john-breech) and [Pete Prisco](/pundits/pete-prisco) also took Tampa Bay on the scoreboard; Breech wrote that "the Buccaneers defense has quietly been playing good football all season," which held up well enough to keep the game within one score, but not well enough to win it.

## Does this extend or break anyone's track record?

DeArdo's hit fits a thin but clean recent sample: across 26 graded calls this season his score predictions run 81.55 accuracy and his outright picks are a perfect 4-for-4, though that is a small number of calls to lean on. Sullivan's miss is a different story. He's an established name here with 137 graded calls this season, and his season-long score-prediction accuracy (59.2) and outcome-pick accuracy (71.18) were both already below this week's result before Tampa Bay ever kicked off; this game didn't move either number much. Breech, also an established body of work at 160 graded calls, has struggled specifically on outright winner picks (41.79 accuracy) even though his score predictions land closer to average (53.36); Sunday's call matched both numbers almost exactly. Prisco's 45.24 on this one sat just under his season score-prediction average of 54.36, hardly a departure.

## How does this change the season-long calls on these two clubs?

Season win-total calls on both clubs are still unsettled with 13 weeks left, so one game doesn't close any of those books, but the shape of the arguments has shifted. Pundits who pegged the Steelers for a .500-ish season built partly on the idea that Pittsburgh's defense would keep games close rather than win them outright; a seven-point road win over a team several of the same pundits thought could reach nine wins cuts against that read. For where these two clubs and their pundits stand from here, see the [Pittsburgh Steelers](/nfl/teams/steelers) and [Tampa Bay Buccaneers](/nfl/teams/buccaneers) team pages, and the overall [leaderboard](/nfl/leaderboard) for how this week moved the standings.