# Buccaneers 16, Falcons 0: Ten of 14 Pundits Picked the Wrong Team

*Published 2026-11-02 — MissedTakes*

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

Tampa Bay beat Atlanta 16-0 in Week 8, and ten of the 14 pundits with a pick in [our record](/nfl/games/2026-week-8-falcons-at-buccaneers) took the team that got shut out. We tracked 15 graded calls on this game, and the average accuracy across them came to 31 out of 100.

## Which way did the pundits split?
Ten of 14 pundits picked the Falcons; only four took the Buccaneers. That is a sizable lean toward the team that scored zero points. The four who backed Tampa Bay were right across the board. Still, ten of 14 pundits expected a different game than the one Tampa Bay played.

![Ten pundits backed the team that was shut out](/posts/visuals/ee790805-122c-4e4f-8c14-0761fb255055.png)

## Which calls got it right?
[Pete Prisco](/pundits/pete-prisco) came closest among the pundits who named a score. On October 28, Prisco wrote: "Tampa Bay wins it. Pick: Bucs 23, Falcons 17." His predicted home margin of 6 missed the actual 16-point margin by 10, good for a score of 21.18 and an accuracy of 76.19 on this call. [Chris Long](/pundits/chris-long) was a day behind on timing but just as directionally right, telling his audience on October 30: "Damn. I think I got the Bucks... I think I got the Bucks 23 to 19." His predicted margin of 4 missed by 12, for a score of 13.52.

Two pundits called the winner straight-up without a score. [John Middlekauff](/pundits/john-middlekauff) said on October 30, "if Tampa gets some momentum off that win and generate pressure, I like Tampa in this game," and [Nate Tice](/pundits/nate-tice) went with "I'm gonna go Bucks" the day before. Both scored 100 accuracy, but a MissedTakes Score of zero. Why? The score measures how much better a call did than the 50-50 chance of picking the home team.

## What did the Falcons pickers get wrong?
Ten pundits took Atlanta to win on the road, and the Buccaneers scored 16 unanswered points. On the score-prediction side, [Chris Simms](/pundits/chris-simms) called it "twenty three twenty" for Atlanta on October 30, missing the margin by 19 (accuracy 19.05, score -70.82). [Jared Dubin](/pundits/jared-dubin) published the same Falcons 23-17 pick twice, on October 29 and again October 30, missing by 22 both times (score -59.32 each). [Jordan Dajani](/pundits/jordan-dajani) had Falcons 26-24, missing by 18 (score -74.65), and [John Breech](/pundits/john-breech) had Falcons 30-23, missing by 23 (score -55.48).

Among the straight winner picks, [Connor Rogers](/pundits/connor-rogers) wrote on October 30, "So give me the Falcons with the upset." [Matt Harmon](/pundits/matt-harmon) picked "Falcons here, get a win on the road" the day before, and [Richard Sherman](/pundits/richard-sherman) went with Atlanta "just because they beat the San Francisco 49ers." [Tyler Sullivan](/pundits/tyler-sullivan) and the Pardon My Take crew also sided with the Falcons. Every one of those five calls scored 0 accuracy and -161 on the MissedTakes Score, the penalty for picking against the home team and losing. [Andrew Hughes](/pundits/andrew-hughes) made the earliest call of the group, writing on October 19 that Tampa Bay could be headed for "an 0-3 stretch right before the trade deadline" that included this game; his call scored -172, slightly worse than the others because it came 13 weeks out from the end of the season.

Every score prediction in the group undersold how lopsided this game would be. The two Buccaneers backers topped out at a 6-point margin. The four Falcons backers who named scores all had Atlanta winning. None came within 10 points of the real 16-point margin.

## How did this fit each pundit's record?
Prisco's correct call fits a pundit with 156 graded calls and a career accuracy of 58.37, including 153 score predictions that average a score of 7.65. This call's 21.18 sits above that mark. Sherman's miss looks different against his own record: 192 graded calls, a career accuracy of 68.03 on game outcome picks specifically, and a MissedTakes Score of 18.32 in that category. This call's -161 sits well below his typical mark in that category. Hughes has the smallest record among this group: this call is one of just two graded takes tied to his name, and both are misses, leaving him at 0 accuracy and a MissedTakes Score of -86 overall.

## What were pundits saying about these two clubs before Week 8?
Before the season, [Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright) picked the Buccaneers to finish 11-6 atop the NFC South, while [John Breech](/pundits/john-breech) projected Atlanta for a 6-11 season even as his October 28 simulation had the 3-4 Falcons winning that same division. [Mike Florio](/pundits/mike-florio) wrote in August that the Falcons "could win the division in 2026" if they got anything from the quarterback position. Atlanta's [192 graded calls](/nfl/teams/falcons) and Tampa Bay's [206 graded calls](/nfl/teams/buccaneers) both sit well ahead of this result, and the [overall leaderboard](/nfl/leaderboard) is still topped by Bryan DeArdo's MissedTakes Score of 80.96.