Giants 28, Cowboys 20: 34 of 42 Graded Calls Had Dallas Winning

The Giants beat the Cowboys 28-20 in Week 1 at MetLife Stadium, and in doing so settled 42 graded predictions we had on file — 34 straight-up winner picks and eight score predictions. Dallas was on 34 of the 42.

The verdict on the field

Of the 34 winner picks, 27 had Dallas and seven had the Giants. Of the eight score predictions, seven had Dallas winning and one had New York. Add it up and eight of 42 graded calls landed on the right team.

The seven correct winner picks scored a perfect 100 for accuracy but zero for skill. They were right, but no better than a coin flip. The 27 Dallas picks scored zero accuracy and the maximum penalty our game-pick scale allows.

Mike Florio, by two points

Mike Florio went through all 16 Week 1 games and wrote, plainly: *"Giants 23, Cowboys 21."* Wrong side of the scoreboard by four points and wrong on the margin by six — he called a two-point Giants win, it finished by eight — but that score pick graded out at 85.7 accuracy and was the only one of the 42 calls here to clear the baseline (+12.1 skill). In a game where the field's collective instinct was the road favorite, he was the only person on record with the home team and a number.

Florio's wider record is strong and thin at the same time: 85.7 accuracy across 22 graded calls, a MissedTakes Score of 41.9, and 15 of those graded calls are score predictions, where he averages 61.8. Twenty-two calls is a lean, not a résumé. But this one was the best call in the building.

The rest of the score predictions:

John Breech had the closest margin of anyone — Cowboys 30-23, a seven-point game that finished as an eight-point game — just with the teams reversed. Chris Broussard's 34-17 Dallas call was the furthest off, at 28.6.

The right side without the credit

Four voices took the Giants outright before kickoff and were paid in accuracy, not skill. LaVar Arrington: *"I'm taking the New York Super Giants for the upset."* Chad Millman and Simon Hunter both put New York in an underdog money-line parlay — Hunter noted the Giants were plus-140.

The most interesting of them is Danny Parkins, because he was on both sides. In August he projected an 11-6 Cowboys season that included a win over the Giants. By September 11 he had turned: *"Division game at night, home dog, love the Giants to win that game outright... I'm picking the Giants straight up in an upset."* Both calls graded here — the August one as a miss, the September one as a hit. Parkins sits at 61.8 accuracy over 91 graded calls with a MissedTakes Score of −6.4; on game picks specifically he's 60 percent across 25 calls and slightly below the naive default (−18.4). He changed his mind in the direction the game went, which is more than most of the field managed.

The misses, by name

Pat McAfee said it out loud on his show: *"Cowboys favored by three at MetLife... I will as well."* Nick Wright was direct — *"I do expect Dallas to win this game."* Eric Mangini staked his weekly-chips segment on it: *"I feel so confident about it. I'm going, no. 10 on the Dallas Cowboys."* Nick Shook took Dallas −2.5 and added *"I picked them to win by 15."* The Sports Illustrated staff picks column put Albert Breer, Conor Orr, Gilberto Manzano, Mitch Goldich, Matt Verderame, John Pluym, Mike Kadlick and Eva Geitheim on Dallas as a bloc.

Two took bigger damage than the rest because they'd said it more than once. Jason McIntyre had three calls settle here, including *"I'll be fading those bums all season. Give me the Cowboys, minus two and a half"* and an August prediction that the Giants would open 0-2. For McIntyre that's a bad week inside a decent record — 60.5 accuracy over 113 graded calls, 65.4 on game picks.

Orr is the other case, and it reads differently. Three of his calls settled here: his Week 1 pick, his 6-11 Giants projection with the Week 1 loss built in, and his 12-5 Cowboys forecast — *"which gave me the confidence to have Dallas sweeping the Giants."* His graded game picks now stand at 11.1 accuracy across 18 calls, a MissedTakes Score of −151.1. Eighteen calls is still a small file, but this was not a first stumble.

What else this touches

Dallas was the consensus NFC East pick and the pile of season calls resting on that has not aged a week yet: 48 division-winner calls in our files name the Cowboys, including a CBS Sports staff vote of Cowboys 8, Eagles 6, Giants 1. Most of the win-total range on New York sits between six and eight — Orr at 6-11, Nick Wright at 7-10, Breech at 8-9 — while Parkins has the Giants at 11 wins and winning the division. One week in, the low end of that range is the one with a hole in it.

Full files: New York Giants, Dallas Cowboys, and the leaderboard. How the skill number works is in the scoring methodology.