Jets 23, Titans 10: The Field Went 10-for-25 on a Game It Called a Coin Flip
The New York Jets went to Nashville in Week 1 of the 2026 season and won 23-10. Twenty-five graded predictions were riding on that game — 22 straight-up winner picks and three score calls — and 15 of them had Tennessee.
That is the whole story in one line: the field leaned home, and the road team won by 13.
The split
Nine of the 22 winner picks took the Jets. Thirteen took the Titans. Add the score predictions — one for New York, two for Tennessee — and the field finished 10-for-25 on the side.
Picking the home team here was also the default. Our skill number measures a call against what you'd get by just taking the home side every week, and in this game the home side was Tennessee. So a Titans pick got you nothing: zero for accuracy, and no credit for beating a baseline you were simply copying. A Jets pick was the opposite — right, and right in a way the lazy answer wasn't. Every correct straight-up Jets call in this game scored 100 for accuracy and the maximum skill credit.
The calls that landed
The sharpest pre-game reasoning came from the betting side. Judah Fortgang's PFF top-down breakdown took "New York Jets to get the better of the Tennessee Titans in Week 1," arguing Geno Smith would see little disruption from Tennessee's pass rush while Cam Ward struggled against New York's heavy man coverage. Bryan DeArdo's CBS Sports preview landed on the same side for a different reason: "it should be enough for the Jets to win what should be a competitive Week 1 game. Pick: Jets +1.5." Tyler Sullivan flagged it as an upset candidate a day earlier — "If Ward is just serviceable in the opener ... New York will have a puncher's chance."
Two people got there while holding their nose. Gregg Rosenthal: "I'm going to take the Jets, but I don't feel great about it." Chad Millman: "I'll take the New York jets jets. I'm going to, I'll live with it. I'll live with the shame." Both scored the same as the people who sounded certain. Confidence isn't graded here; the pick is.
Eva Geitheim, Albert Breer, Conor Orr and Mike Kadlick also had the Jets on their full-slate picks, against Gilberto Manzano, John Pluym, Matt Verderame and Mitch Goldich on the Titans — a straight 4-4 split among colleagues running the same slate.
The score calls
Three people put numbers on it, and the margins matter.
Pete Prisco's CBS column had Jets 23, Titans 19 — the Jets' 23 exactly, with the margin four points where it turned out to be 13. That's the best graded call on the game (78.57 accuracy) and comfortably ahead of the baseline, which scored 17.78 here.
Mike Florio had Titans 20, Jets 17 and John Breech had Titans 16-13. Both called a three-point game and both called it for the wrong team; both graded 26.19 — a hair above the baseline for reading a close, low-scoring game, and nowhere near a hit.
The misses
Eric Cohen wrote that "Tennessee starts 1-0 but it won't be an easy watch", calling the Jets the third-worst team in the league. Kirk Herbstreit was blunt about his method: "I'm going, Titans at home. Homer. I'm doing it." AJ Hawk said "even the Titans at home." Richard Sherman thought Tennessee "may find a way to win that," with the team rallying behind its coach.
Jason McIntyre made the same call twice on back-to-back shows: "Sala gets revenge and Titans beat my Jets." Lane Mills built the most elaborate case — first penciling the Jets in as one of Tennessee's six wins back in August, then arguing in September that a rebuilt Titans team should break a five-year season-opening losing streak "against a beatable opponent like the New York Jets."
What it means for their records
Rosenthal is the one established grader in the group: 373 graded calls, 61.54% accuracy overall, 58.68% on straight-up winner picks across 97 of them, and he took Pundit of the Week for accuracy in late August at 93.1. A reluctant road pick that landed is exactly what that record looks like on a good day.
Millman has 26 graded calls, 53.85% accuracy — but his winner picks specifically have averaged worse than just taking the home team. This was the corrective, not the pattern. Prisco has only 17 graded calls with us, so his 65.72% on score predictions is a lean, not a record.
For Mills, the Jets game accounts for both of his graded calls so far, and both missed. That's a start, not a verdict. Breech, who got caught twice here, is at 68.53% across 32 graded calls — this one goes in the loss column without changing much.
What the season still owes
The result made several pending calls look worse and one or two look shrewd. John Breech has the Titans at 3-14 and the Jets at 6-11; Mills reaffirmed his Titans 6-11 call after the opener and Carter Bahns now says Tennessee won't clear about five wins. Pat McAfee predicted all four AFC South teams make the playoffs — a call the season has 17 more weeks to answer, and one week less room to be right.
Track the rest as it settles: Tennessee Titans, New York Jets, and the leaderboard.