Rams 35, Raiders 21: 17 of 21 Pundits Had the Winner, None Had the Margin
Drafted by a language model from MissedTakes' graded data, then reviewed and approved by Ben Garves before publishing. How our posts are made
How did pundits split on Rams at Raiders?
Seventeen of the 21 pundits we tracked picked the Rams to beat the Raiders in Week 7, one pick per pundit, and Los Angeles won 35-21 on the road. Only four pundits, John Middlekauff, Hondo Carpenter, Mitchell Eisenstein and Pat Gustavson, took the Raiders at home. The majority call was right, and five of the Rams backers went further and named an exact score.
Who had the closest score prediction?
John Breech came closest among the five pundits who named an exact score, writing "Rams 27-23 over Raiders" for CBS Sports on October 20. His predicted home margin of -4 missed the final -14 margin by 10 points, the smallest gap of the group. Chris Simms (Rams 23-20), Travis Rodgers (Rams 13-10, calling it "sick to my stomach") and Tyler Sullivan (Rams 30-27, posted twice) all had the Rams by 3, missing by 11. Pete Prisco's "Rams 28, Raiders 27" missed by 13. Every pundit who named a score had the right winner, and every one undersold how badly Las Vegas would lose.
Three pundits who called only a winner, not a score, did better than the group that guessed close: Connor Rogers, Matt Harmon and Richard Sherman each picked the Rams outright in the days before kickoff and scored full accuracy with a MissedTakes Score of 167, since beating the pick of the home Raiders is what the score rewards.
Who called this result months before kickoff?
Several winner picks on the Rams predate the season by weeks. Rich Eisen predicted on August 17 that the Raiders would lose all four of their October games, saying on air: "October schedule is home for Kansas City at New England, home for Buffalo, home for the Rams. Yeah. They're not gonna win." That call graded to full accuracy and a score of 200, the top of the scale, since it came 18 weeks out. O'Shea Jackson Jr. (guest-hosting, May 29), Michael Brockers (May 19), Rob Bushka (May 19) and Gavin Carlson (May 19) all picked the Rams to beat the Raiders as part of full-season, game-by-game projections made before training camp, each also scoring 200. Closer to kickoff, Mark Gunnels wrote on October 11 that the Raiders' "cute 3-0 start" would "soon turn into 3-4" on losses to the Bills and Rams; that call scored 178.
Which pundits had the Raiders winning?
All four pundits who took Las Vegas scored zero. John Middlekauff said on October 23: "I like the Raiders in this spot." Mitchell Eisenstein, two days earlier: "I think the Raiders are going to win this game." Pat Gustavson, October 20: "Raiders are winning this week." Hondo Carpenter made the call twice, writing on October 20 that the Raiders had a real shot "with the Rams limping into Allegiant Stadium," then again on October 23 that Los Angeles was "walking into a buzzsaw."
Carpenter's two Raiders picks are his entire graded game-winner record we've tracked for him: 0 accuracy across 2 graded calls, both on this game. His overall record runs on roster-spot calls instead, where he's at 87.5 accuracy over 11 graded; picking game winners is where he has nothing to point to yet. By contrast, Mike Florio's October 13 pick, calling the Rams-Raiders game "winnable" on the way to a possible 5-3 start, graded to full accuracy and a score of 172, adding to a game-winner record that sits at 54.17 accuracy across 7 graded calls, below the 70.2 overall accuracy that has him second on our pundit leaderboard.
What do the season calls on these two clubs say now?
Preseason win-total calls on the Raiders ranged from Nick Wright's 3-14 (September 1 and 2) to Akbar Gbaja-Biamila's 12-5, relayed on-air October 12; John Breech had Las Vegas at 5-12 in two separate September pieces. On the Rams, Breech put Los Angeles at 14-3 and the NFC's top seed in both of his September columns, while Michael Brockers and Rob Bushka each said 13-4 back in May. Dozens of division-winner calls went to the Rams to take the NFC West, including Colin Cowherd, Pete Prisco and Garrett Podell; no pundit in our Raiders calls picked Las Vegas to win the AFC West. On the Raiders' playoff chances, Hondo Carpenter set a postseason target of "2028, if not sooner," while ESPN's Dan Orlovsky called the team a "legit playoff team" on October 6. The Raiders' 133 graded calls and the Rams' 262 live on their respective pages, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.