# Joe Marino Sweeps the Week on Linebacker Grades and a Bills Roster Call | MissedTakes Weekly

*Published 2026-10-05 — MissedTakes*

[Joe Marino](/pundits/joe-marino) takes both Pundit of the Week honors for the week of September 28–October 4 — MissedTakes Score (142.07) and Accuracy (90.96) — on a slate of 11 graded calls spread across just two articles. It's a rare clean sweep: most weeks split the two awards between different voices, and the last one-person sweep was [John Middlekauff](/pundits/john-middlekauff)'s, for the week of September 7–13. Last week split again ([Lance Zierlein](/pundits/lance-zierlein) on score, Middlekauff on accuracy), which makes Marino's week stand out even more.

![Joe Marino's Week 40](/posts/visuals/b9b8893e-ec9f-43e7-9991-6b82b3e5e102.png)

## What actually won it

Marino's week breaks into two pieces. The smaller one: a final projection of the Bills' 53-man roster after the preseason finale, where he called Buffalo cornerback Kani Walker to make the cut off a one-sentence hedge ("I can definitely be wrong about this, but I have Walker making it for now"). Walker made it, and because the naive expectation for a fringe roster name is that he doesn't repeat on a 53, the call graded at the maximum 200 skill points.

The bigger piece, by volume, was graded five months after he wrote it: a breakdown stacking all 14 inside linebackers in the 2026 draft class and assigning each a round grade. Nine of those 11 individual player grades came back at 100 accuracy once the actual draft class landed — Sonny Styles (top-10 grade, actually picked 7th), Arvell Reese (first-round grade, picked 5th, and correctly ordered as the class's No. 2 linebacker), Anthony Hill, C.J. Allen, Jacob Rodriguez, Kaleb Elarms-Orr and Jimmy Rolder all landed in the range Marino assigned them.

It wasn't flawless. Marino had Kyle Louis in third-round territory; he went 138th overall, a reach that graded at 19.28. And Deontae Lawson, pegged for the fourth-to-fifth round, went undrafted before later signing with Philadelphia — a miss worth zero. Those two calls are the only blemishes in an otherwise green slate, which is how an 11-take week nets a 90.96 average.

![Every Marino call graded this week](/posts/visuals/f5420fc1-af34-4f0f-a9c1-f6f64ae01345.png)

Marino's full record now sits at 170 graded takes across 12 articles this season (77.57 accuracy, a 46.24 MissedTakes Score, good for third on the overall board), with roster-spot calls making up the bulk of his volume (148 graded, 70.49 accuracy) and his smaller mock-draft slate running hotter (76.94 accuracy on 17 graded picks). This week's sample — built almost entirely on the linebacker grades — pulled his weekly numbers well above either of those season-long rates, which is the nature of an 11-take week: strong, but not a new baseline for his season.

## The week in review

Across the site, 2,442 takes were graded over the seven days, with 720 new ones published — a volume dominated by one thing: 1,904 of those graded calls were mock draft picks, the 2026 class settling into its actual slots months after pundits filed their boards. Game outcome picks (204), score predictions (162) and roster-spot calls (116) made up most of the rest.

The best and worst individual calls of the week both came from the roster-spot pile, plus one standout from outside it. [Rich Eisen](/pundits/rich-eisen) posted a maximum-grade week with an early top-10 power-ranking slate (Rams first, Chargers second) that also included a Rookie of the Year tip and picks across all nine international series games — a wide net that paid off completely. Roster projections from [John Shipley](/pundits/john-shipley) (Jaguars practice squad), [Patricia Traina](/pundits/patricia-traina) (Giants 53-man) and [Ralph Ventre](/pundits/ralph-ventre) and [Randy Gurzi](/pundits/randy-gurzi) (both on the Bills) also graded perfectly.

The misses ran the other direction on the same kind of call: [Tom Jensen](/pundits/tom-jensen)'s 49ers cutdown projection, [Alain Poupart](/pundits/alain-poupart)'s Dolphins roster call, and an unsigned PFF preseason recap attributed to [Nathan Jahnke](/pundits/nathan-jahnke) all graded to zero, alongside a separate Gurzi call suggesting the Seahawks would chase three specific free agents. Roster-spot projections are a volatile category generally — precise by design, which means they're exactly right or they're not — and this week's results, with Bills calls grading well while 49ers, Dolphins and Seahawks calls graded at zero, is a reminder that the format rewards being right about one team's room as much as it rewards any particular pundit's track record.