Bengals 33, Buccaneers 27: 11 Pundits Took the Upset, and Only One Nailed the Margin

Cincinnati beat Tampa Bay 33-27 in the Week 1 opener at Paycor Stadium, and that result settled 31 graded calls we had on file — 25 straight-up winner picks and six score predictions.

The field did not agree. Fourteen of the winner picks had Cincinnati, eleven had Tampa Bay. That is a real split, not a rubber stamp, and it included several of the loudest voices in the business on the wrong side.

The winner picks: right, but not rewarded

Here is the catch for everyone who took the Bengals. Cincinnati was the home team, and our skill number measures whether a pick beats the dumbest available strategy — in a game like this one, picking the home side. Everybody who called Cincinnati was correct (100 accuracy) and earned exactly zero skill credit for it. Albert Breer, Matt Verderame, John Pluym, Eva Geitheim, Brady Quinn, Jonas Knox, LaVar Arrington, AJ Hawk, Richard Sherman, Jason McIntyre and Eric Mangini all banked a hit that a coin with a home-field bias would have matched.

Mangini at least made it sound like a read rather than a default: "This cat can still play. Buccaneers get mauled in the jungle by Joe Burrow and the Bengals." Sherman hedged it on health — "if Joe Burrow's upright, I've got them winning that game" — and got the condition and the result.

The eleven Tampa Bay calls are the expensive ones: zero accuracy, and a full −200 on the skill scale, which is what you get for talking yourself off the obvious answer and being wrong. Kirk Herbstreit put it plainest: "I don't think the Bengals are allowed to win in the month of September... So I'm definitely going with Tampa Bay." Chris Broussard filed it as an upset alert. Shannon Sharpe told Bengals fans to "worry about your team getting beat by Tampa at home." Conor Orr, Mitch Goldich, Mike Kadlick and Gilberto Manzano all had Tampa Bay in their straight-up grids. Judah Fortgang's PFF parlay built the whole thing around Cade Otton exploiting the Bengals' linebackers.

The score predictions all got there

Every one of the six score calls had Cincinnati winning. The difference between them was the number.

Jared Dubin posted Bengals 27, Buccaneers 21 — a six-point Cincinnati win, which is precisely how it finished. That is the cleanest call of the night: 100 accuracy and +31.11 of skill, meaningful value over the naive read of a near-pick'em. John Breech was a point off the margin at 23-16 (97.62, +26.35). Mike Florio had Bengals 27, Buccaneers 24 (92.86, +16.83). Jordan Dajani at 21-20 and Pete Prisco at 29-28 both called a one-point game that came in by six (88.1, +7.3 apiece) — right side, too tight.

Chad Ochocinco Johnson had the direction and then some: "Bango going to put up about 42 points... Tampa ain't going to know what hit them." Cincinnati won, but with 33.

Streak or blip

Dubin's exact margin is the best single call from this game, and it lands on a thin file: 13 graded calls, 66.6 accuracy, with his score predictions averaging 54.66 before this one. One bullseye does not make a forecaster, but it is the right direction.

Breech's record is the more interesting one — 32 graded calls at 68.53 accuracy and a MissedTakes Score of 57.13, which is well clear of the top of our published leaderboard. Both samples are small enough that they are leans, not verdicts.

On the other side, this was not a first stumble for either headline miss. Gregg Rosenthal — who took "the Bucks as a three and a half point underdog in Cincinnati" — has 373 graded calls at 61.54 accuracy overall, but his game picks specifically run 58.68 across 97 calls. He is a mock-draft specialist (75.55 accuracy on 108 draft calls) moonlighting as a handicapper. Nick Wright said it twice: "I think Tampa Bay goes to Cincinnati and wins outright. At the very least, I don't think Cincinnati's beating them by margin." Across 133 graded game picks he sits at 53.54 accuracy and a −5.89 skill score, meaning his game calls as a group have come in slightly behind simply backing the home team. His score predictions, oddly, are his strength (75.47 on 17).

What else this touches

Cincinnati entering the season carried a pile of bets nobody can cash yet: the CBS Sports staff voted the Bengals AFC North winners 10-5 over Baltimore, John Middlekauff and Rich Eisen went the same way, and Joe Burrow MVP picks came in from Steve Hartman, Kurt Warner, Mangini and Dajani — who also has Cincinnati lifting the trophy. One week in, none of that looks any worse.

Tampa Bay's backers have the opposite problem. The same CBS staff made the Buccaneers NFC South favorites 8-6 over New Orleans, and Breech's SportsLine projection has them at 9-8 and winning the division. A road loss in Week 1 does not sink a 9-8 forecast; it does mean the margin for error just got thinner.

Full records for both clubs are on the Bengals and Buccaneers pages, and the season-long standings are on the leaderboard.