# Cardinals 33, Cowboys 30: One Pundit Picked the Winner, Thirteen Picked Dallas

*Published 2026-11-01 — MissedTakes*

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

The Arizona Cardinals beat the Dallas Cowboys 33-30 in Week 8, and of the 14 pundits we tracked who picked a side before kickoff, 13 took Dallas. We graded 16 calls on this game, and together they averaged 13 accuracy out of 100.

## How did pundits split on this one?

Thirteen of 14 pundits picked the Cowboys, and only [Jesse Holley](/pundits/jesse-holley) picked the Cardinals. Every other outlet we tracked for this game picked Dallas, and the three pundits who went further and called a score all had the Cowboys winning by double digits. The median predicted margin for Dallas was 12 points; Arizona won outright.

Among the 13 who took Dallas: [Chris Simms](/pundits/chris-simms), [Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright), [Pete Prisco](/pundits/pete-prisco) (twice), [Pardon My Take](/pundits/pardon-my-take), [Steve Palazzolo](/pundits/steve-palazzolo), [Sam Monson](/pundits/sam-monson), [Richard Sherman](/pundits/richard-sherman), [Mitchell Eisenstein](/pundits/mitchell-eisenstein), [Randy Gurzi](/pundits/randy-gurzi), [John Breech](/pundits/john-breech), [Michael Irvin](/pundits/michael-irvin) (twice, in a preseason schedule exercise), [Jeff Cavanaugh](/pundits/jeff-cavanaugh) and [Clarence Hill](/pundits/clarence-hill).

![One pick out of fourteen backed Arizona](/posts/visuals/da5bd9ec-d7b6-4917-8306-24d1aa09a3c0.png)

## Whose call held up best?

Jesse Holley's pick of the Cardinals is the only correct winner call we graded on this game, and it scored 100 accuracy with a MissedTakes Score of +200, the maximum credit for picking a road team over the team everyone else picked. Holley made the call on September 3, deep into a game-by-game projection of the Cowboys' full schedule: "Until they do it, the Cowboys for me lose their third game in a row."

Among the pundits who predicted a final score, John Breech's call of Cowboys 27-23 (October 27) came closest, missing the final margin by 7 points. Breech still had Dallas winning, but his score prediction carries a MissedTakes Score of +5.85, above zero, which means it beat picking the home team. That 7-point miss was smaller than the other two score predictions on this game, which missed by 15 and 19 points.

## Which calls missed by the most?

Pete Prisco's two identical calls of Cowboys 37-21 (October 28 and October 30) missed the final margin by 19 points, the largest gap of the three score predictions we graded. "Dallas big, Prisco says. How big? Three possessions. It's a 37-21 Cowboys win in his eyes," he wrote. Each call scored 19.05 accuracy with a MissedTakes Score of -40.15.

Chris Simms' call of Cowboys 35-23 (October 30) missed the final margin by 15 points and scored 28.57 accuracy with a MissedTakes Score of -24.82: "I got the cowboys winning. I got a thirty five twenty three." The 13 pundits who picked Dallas to win outright without a score, including Richard Sherman ("Give me Dallas in this game. I think they're going to win this one going away") and Randy Gurzi, who flagged this exact matchup on October 27 while previewing a strong Dallas stretch of the schedule, all scored 0 accuracy on the winner call.

## Does this extend a run for anyone here?

Pete Prisco has 156 graded score predictions overall, with an average accuracy of 57.56 on that prediction type; this game's 19.05 sits well below that figure, but with that much history behind him, one game doesn't move his record much. John Breech has 201 graded calls across all types, with an average accuracy of 59.57 on score predictions; his 47.62 here is 11.95 points under that average, a smaller gap than the one separating Prisco's call here from his own number. Jesse Holley has 13 graded calls total, with an average accuracy of 57.64; a correct road-team pick like this one carries real weight against a record that small.

## What do the preseason calls on these clubs say now?

John Breech's CBS Sports column on September 7 had the Cowboys finishing 10-7 and the Cardinals finishing 3-14. Michael Irvin predicted a 13-4 Cowboys season on September 2, while Jeff Cavanaugh settled on 12-5 after going game-by-game through Dallas' schedule on September 3. On the Arizona side, Donnie Druin said on September 6 that "Arizona should at very bare minimum surpass that three-win total from last season."

Dallas also drew heavy support to win the NFC East outright: we've graded 56 division-winner calls on the [Cowboys](/nfl/teams/cowboys) this season, including Richard Sherman's September 9 pick and Rich Eisen's October 5 pick. Arizona drew no division-winner calls among the ones we've graded, though [15 separate win-total calls](/nfl/teams/cardinals) on the Cardinals ranged from Nick Wright's 3-14 to Gregg Rosenthal's four-or-five-win outlook. For how these pundits compare across the full field, Bryan DeArdo's 80.96 MissedTakes Score currently tops the [leaderboard](/nfl/leaderboard).