Lions 19, Vikings 15: Two Pundits Called the Margin Down to the Point
Drafted by a language model from MissedTakes' graded data, then reviewed and approved by Ben Garves before publishing. How our posts are made
How many pundits picked Detroit over the unbeaten Vikings?
Sixteen of the 20 pundits with a graded call on this game picked the Lions to beat the Vikings, and Detroit won, 19-15. Minnesota arrived at 6-0, and only four pundits, Greg Jennings, Tyler Sullivan, Matt Verderame and John Breech, took the unbeaten Vikings on the road. The field's lean was correct, and the average accuracy across the 23 graded calls on this game came out to 80.
Which score predictions got Detroit's margin right?
Chris Simms and Jordan Dajani both named a four-point Detroit win, matching the final margin of Lions 19, Vikings 15 down to the point. Simms, on-air the day before kickoff, said: "I'm gonna go twenty one seventeen on lions." Dajani wrote: "Prediction: Lions 24, Vikings 20." Each call scored a MissedTakes Score of 13.52, above picking the home team by name alone, because the margin itself was right rather than just the winner.
That distinction matters because the Lions were the home team. The other eleven pundits who picked Detroit to win without a score each scored zero on the MissedTakes Score, since picking the home team earns nothing extra by itself. Joe House's outcome pick, "I think that Minnesota loses this football game, but not by 10," proved correct without added precision credit: the Lions won by four. Mitchell Eisenstein (Lions 23-16, a seven-point margin) and Jared Dubin (Lions 23-14, a nine-point margin) also had Detroit right but overshot the final margin, missing by 3 and 5 points.
Who missed on the Vikings' unbeaten record?
Four pundits backed Minnesota, and none of their calls came out well. Greg Jennings said, "I'm going with the Vikings over to Detroit Lions," a pick that scored -161 on the MissedTakes Score. Tyler Sullivan's column argued that "since 2015, teams that are 6-0 or better as underdogs are 4-1 straight up," and also scored -161. Matt Verderame, writing on October 11, three weeks before kickoff, called the Lions one of Minnesota's "two winnable games" left on the schedule; that call scored -178, the lowest MissedTakes Score of any pundit on this game. John Breech predicted a 19-16 Vikings win twice, writing "PICK: Vikings 19-16 over Lions," and scored -70.82: Breech had the final score's shape backward by four points on the winner and three on the margin.
Did this game change how these pundits' records look?
Not by much for most of them. Chris Simms carries an overall accuracy of 52.93 and a MissedTakes Score of -7.38 across 77 graded calls, with his score predictions specifically averaging -14.8 across 75 of those; this four-point call, which scored 13.52, sits well above that average. John Breech has 201 graded calls this season, with a 58.47 accuracy and a 20.23 score overall; his score predictions alone average 8.4 across 150 calls, so this Vikings miss adds another below-average call to a type where he already sits under the field. Tyler Sullivan's overall game-outcome accuracy is 65.56 across 48 graded calls with a 26.96 score in that category, meaning this -161 miss on Minnesota cuts against what had been a positive record picking winners.
What are pundits still saying about these two clubs this season?
John Breech projected the Lions to finish 12-5 as NFC North champions and the Vikings for a 9-8 wild-card berth in his early-September simulations, part of Detroit's 51 graded division-winner calls tracked this season. Mike Florio, who sits second on MissedTakes' pundit leaderboard, said on October 16 the Vikings "will win the NFC North" and be "the number one seed in the NFC." Colin Cowherd put Detroit's win total at "11 or 12 games" back in August, one of 18 graded season win-total calls logged for the Lions, while Minnesota has drawn 26 such calls, ranging from Conor Orr's 9-8 to Jason McIntyre's "11 or 12 win team."