# Bills 36, Ravens 10: Pundits Expected a Shootout, Got a Rout

*Published 2026-11-02 — MissedTakes*

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

Buffalo beat Baltimore 36-10 in Week 8 of the 2026 season, and the 18 pundits with a graded pick on this game split 11-7 toward the Bills. The majority sided with the winner, but not one of the nine pundits who named a final score got within 19 points of the real 26-point margin, and seven pundits picked Baltimore to win outright. Across the 23 graded calls on this game, the average accuracy was 51.

## How did pundits split on the Ravens and Bills?

Eleven of 18 picked Buffalo, seven picked Baltimore, and the Bills' 36-10 win rewarded the majority. The median predicted margin among pundits who gave a number was 3 points, nowhere near the 26-point final gap. [Shanna McCarriston](/pundits/shanna-mccarriston) picked the Bills to win "in a tough battle that comes down to the end," calling it 33-30 on October 31, right on the winner and off by 23 on the score.

## Which pre-game calls held up best?

The clearest calls here came months before kickoff. [John Breech](/pundits/john-breech) wrote in two separate August pieces that Baltimore's "first loss" of the season would come "at Bills in Week 8," naming this exact matchup as the Ravens' undoing before the season had even kicked off. Both calls scored 100 accuracy once the Ravens lost in Buffalo. [Carter Bahns](/pundits/carter-bahns) made a similar case closer to kickoff, writing on October 29 that "the rested Bills are set up to outduel the Ravens whether Lamar Jackson returns or" not, also a 100-accuracy call. [Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright), [Connor Rogers](/pundits/connor-rogers) and [Ryan Wormeli](/pundits/ryan-wormeli) all picked Buffalo straight-up in the days before the game and scored 100 as well.

Among the score predictions, nobody was close. [John Breech](/pundits/john-breech) called Bills 38-31 on October 29 (a 7-point Buffalo margin, missed by 19) and [Steve Palazzolo](/pundits/steve-palazzolo) called Bills 34-27 (also a 7-point margin, also missed by 19), was as good as it got. Breech's earlier October 27 call of Bills 34-24, guessing the Ravens would be without Lamar, was surprisingly accurate, predicting a 10-point Buffalo win instead of a 3-to-7-point one. That garnered a MissedTakes Score of 19.17, the highest of any Bills score call on this game, for moving further from the near-even margin the method expects by default.

## Who missed on Lamar Jackson's return?

Seven pundits picked Baltimore, and all seven scored zero. [Tyler Sullivan](/pundits/tyler-sullivan) wrote on October 29 that he could "see Lamar Jackson showing little to no rust in his return and possibly even leading the Ravens to a road win in Buffalo." [Matt Harmon](/pundits/matt-harmon) and [Nate Tice](/pundits/nate-tice) also took Baltimore that week, Tice citing Buffalo's defense as "such a negative right now." [Bill Simmons](/pundits/bill-simmons) hedged even while picking the Ravens: "I don't believe in the Bills at all. But it's in Buffalo, so who knows?" On the score side, [Chris Broussard](/pundits/chris-broussard) called a 38-34 Ravens win, [Chris Simms](/pundits/chris-simms) called it 28-27, and [Jordan Dajani](/pundits/jordan-dajani) called it 30-28, the three biggest misses on the board at 30, 27 and 28 points off the final margin.

## Did this interrupt any hot streaks?

Bill Simmons has one hit in three graded game-outcome calls this season, an accuracy of 33.33, and this Ravens pick was one of the two misses. Tyler Sullivan's outcome picks are right 65.56% of the time across 48 graded calls this season, making this one of the exceptions rather than the norm for him. John Breech's game-outcome picks sit at 44.5 accuracy across 45 graded calls, well below his 59.57 accuracy on score predictions over 150 graded calls. His two preseason "first loss" calls on Baltimore sit on the stronger side of that mixed outcome record, not the typical result for him.

![Buffalo had the bigger half of a split field](/posts/visuals/2fe0edee-71f9-441c-8544-9a3566a93784.png)

![Every score call undersold the final margin](/posts/visuals/74087f28-2599-41b1-ab74-7efc898c6875.png)

## What were pundits saying about these two clubs for the season?

Preseason, pundits saw Baltimore as the bigger team: John Breech projected the Ravens at 12-5 and AFC North champions on September 7, and Nick Wright had them at 13-4 and the AFC's No. 1 seed on September 3. Buffalo's preseason calls ran cooler by comparison. Breech had the Bills at 11-6 on September 7-8, and Wright settled on 11-6 and an AFC East title by September 18. Buffalo's club page carries [390 graded calls this season](/nfl/teams/bills), more than the [133 built up around Baltimore](/nfl/teams/ravens), on a leaderboard still topped by Bryan DeArdo's 80.96 MissedTakes Score.