Bengals 35, Ravens 13: Right About the Upset, Wrong About How Big It Was
Drafted by a language model from MissedTakes' graded data, then reviewed and approved by Ben Garves before publishing. How our posts are made
The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Baltimore Ravens 35-13 in Week 7, and most of the field predicted the upset, just not how lopsided it would get. Of the 14 pundits whose calls we graded on this game, 11 took the Bengals to win outright. Nobody who gave a final score for this game got within 15 points of the actual 22-point margin.
Who picked the winner in Bengals-Ravens?
Eleven of 14 graded pundits took Cincinnati, only three sided with Baltimore, and the Bengals' 35-13 win made the majority look good. That's not a coin-flip split, it's close to four in five pundits already leaning toward the team that pulled it off, with the hinge for most being whether Lamar Jackson would play.
The win backed up the pundits who took Cincinnati as the road team, which the site's scoring treats as the harder call since picking the home team is the free, no-skill default. Six of the 11 Bengals pickers made simple winner calls and each scored 100 accuracy for it, well clear of just taking Baltimore.
What was the sharpest call before kickoff?
Kevin Wildes said it: "I am taking the Bengals over the Ravens... I know the Bengals are rested and ready to go." Nate Tice hedged but still landed on Cincinnati: "If Lamar's playing, I would go Ravens... but I'm gonna go with the Bengals just because I know what Tyre Huntley is." John Middlekauff leaned the same way on October 23: "I think I'm leaning Cincinnati here, but historically it makes you a little nervous going into Baltimore." All three were graded 100 accuracy for taking the road team over the site's home-team default.
How far off were the score predictions?
Six pundits named a final score for this game, and every one of them undersold the blowout. Tyler Sullivan came closest with a predicted 30-23 Bengals win, a seven-point Ravens margin against an actual margin of -22, missing by 15 points, the tightest of the six. Nobody else got within 19.
| Pundit | Call | Ravens margin | Missed by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tyler Sullivan | Bengals 30-23 | -7 | 15 |
| Chris Simms | Bengals 30-27 | -3 | 19 |
| John Breech | Bengals 27-24 | -3 | 19 |
| Jordan Dajani | Bengals 29-27 | -2 | 20 |
| Pete Prisco | Bengals 24-23 | -1 | 21 |
| Jared Dubin | Ravens 30-26 | +4 | 26 |
Across all six score predictions, even the pundits who correctly picked Cincinnati treated this as a nail-biter. Pete Prisco's "upset" call had the Bengals winning by a single point. The actual margin was 22. The average grade across the game's 15 graded calls landed at 62 out of 100, pulled down less by who won than by how close everyone thought it would be.
Who got this one wrong?
Jared Dubin was the only pundit to predict a Ravens win with a final score, calling it 30-26 Baltimore; his 7.14 accuracy on this call was the lowest grade of anyone in the group. Mitchell Eisenstein and Richard Sherman both bet on Baltimore conditional on Lamar Jackson's health. Sherman's call from October 21 read: "If Lamar Jackson plays, I think Baltimore wins this game. If he doesn't, I think Cincinnati walks away with the win... If he's playing, give me Baltimore." Both calls graded 0 accuracy, the same grade as simply defaulting to the home team, since that's exactly what the pick amounted to.
Did this fit these pundits' usual form?
Sullivan's closest-call finish was a clear step up from his typical output: Sullivan's season average skill on score predictions sits at 19.53 across 101 graded calls, and this one scored 107.36. Dubin's miss, by contrast, barely moved his needle. His season average skill on score calls is already negative (-9.27 across 83 graded calls), and this one actually graded a touch better than that at 11.93, extending a pattern more than breaking one. Sherman's miss stands out more because it bucks his form: his game-outcome accuracy sits at 65.19% across 88 graded picks, a decent hit rate that this particular call did not extend.
What does this result mean for the AFC North race?
Cincinnati's blowout complicates a division storyline the pundits have argued over all season. A wide stretch of preseason division-winner calls backed the Bengals to win the AFC North, while others, including John Breech, who had Baltimore projected as division leaders at 4-2 as recently as October 21, favored the Ravens. None of those season-long calls are decided yet, but a 35-13 road win over your chief rival is the kind of result that tilts an argument. For how these two clubs' seasons are shaping up, see the Ravens and Bengals team pages, and the full pundit leaderboard for who's calling these games best over the long run.