Updated · market price
Sunday, September 13, 2026 · Paycor Stadium, Cincinnati, OH
Quick Answer
Final (Sunday, September 13, 2026): Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27, Cincinnati Bengals 33 — NFL Week 1, 2026. Our pre-game model had the Bengals by 2.5 (57% to win); the Bengals won, so that call hit. The graded recap below covers how it happened and how each player call on our board resolved.
Settled
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27, Cincinnati Bengals 33Final
Model call: HITOur pre-game model had the Bengals by 2.5 (57% to win). The Bengals won — that call landed.
Closing-line value on the Bengals: -2c — we archived the Bengals at 66c on Sep 7; the last Kalshi price before kickoff was 64c on Sep 12. The market moved against our side before kickoff.
Next: NFL Week 2 predictions →See how the model has done vs Kalshi →
1 actionable market of 1 priced — largest edge 7.5pp on Bengals moneyline.
Edge is model probability minus the market's implied probability, in percentage points. One published number per market: where our sources disagreed we publish the most conservative defensible figure, and where they disagreed by more than 15 points the row is a conflict and carries no stake. ¼ Kelly is the share of a bankroll quarter-Kelly would put on the row at the published price — click it to size against your own bankroll on our Kelly calculator, or call kelly_size from our MCP server inside your own agent.
The only game on the Sunday slate where the line never moved a tick — Cincinnati -3.5, total 50.5, open to close — and one of the few where the market had it almost exactly right. Baker Mayfield lost three fumbles, Cincinnati scored a defensive touchdown before its offense had done anything, and Evan McPherson kicked from 20, 55, 58 and 32.
Buccaneers 27—Bengals 33
Final✓ Call hitThe directional read held: the model had Cincinnati at 57.5% and Cincinnati won by six. The published position is the one that lost. Our edge engine priced Tampa Bay above the market — 42.5% against a Kalshi price that implied less — called it a six-point gap, tiered it MODERATE, and published Tampa Bay at 34.5c. Tampa Bay closed at 35.5c, so we gained a cent of closing-line value on a position that lost. That is the least damaging outcome in the whole Week 1 book and it is still a loss. What is worth flagging is the line itself: DraftKings opened Cincinnati -3.5 with a 50.5 total and closed on the identical number, which is a market telling you it has no new information and no disagreement to absorb. The game landed on sixty points, ten over, and Cincinnati covered by two and a half. A market that does not move is not a market that is wrong; it is a market with nothing to argue about, and those are the games where a six-point model disagreement deserves the most scepticism, not the least.
DraftKings via ESPN, one book. Not the Kalshi price — that block reads our own tape.
The spread did not move.
Q1
Tampa Bay took a 3-0 lead on a Chase McLaughlin field goal. Then Demetrius Knight Jr. picked up a loose ball and ran it back twenty-seven yards. Joe Burrow found Mike Gesicki from two a few minutes later and Cincinnati led 14-3 before the first quarter was out, having generated half of it without the ball.
Q3
Mayfield was efficient by every passing measure — twenty-three of twenty-eight for 216, no interceptions, a 98.8 rating — and put the ball on the ground three times, losing all three. Tampa Bay finished minus-three in turnovers. The Buccaneers were sacked four times for twenty-three yards and never held the ball long enough to use the efficiency.
Q3
Down 27-13 in the third, Trotter intercepted Burrow and returned it thirty-eight yards for a score, cutting it to 27-20 with two minutes left in the quarter. He finished with eleven tackles, a sack, two tackles for loss and the touchdown — the single best individual defensive line of the early window.
Q4
McPherson made all four attempts — 20, 55, 58 and 32 — and the two long ones in the third and fourth quarters were the difference between a one-score game and a two-score game each time Tampa Bay closed. Fifteen points from a kicker in a game decided by six.
Reporting verified 2026-09-13. Further sources: ESPN box score — Buccaneers at Bengals · ESPN game page — Buccaneers at Bengals · ESPN — Week 1 highlights: best plays, moments, touchdowns
Trey Hendrickson signed with Baltimore, and Cincinnati rebuilt its whole defensive front around a trade for Dexter Lawrence and free-agent signings Boye Mafe and Jonathan Allen. Tampa Bay counters with one of the best offensive lines in football and a deep defensive front of its own. The board above carries a Lean on this game; the trenches are why the two rosters rate so close.
Buccaneers protection · Bengals pass rush
Tristan Wirfs posted a career-best season at left tackle, and Luke Goedeke did not allow a sack or a hit all year on the right side. They face a Bengals front that did not exist in January: Cincinnati sent a first-round pick for Dexter Lawrence and signed Mafe and Allen, and none of the three has played a game together. Shemar Stewart, the second-year edge, is doubtful with a knee injury on top of that.
Bengals protection · Buccaneers pass rush
Cincinnati's line grades in the bottom half, but it got meaningfully better down the stretch last year behind left guard Dylan Fairchild and right tackle Amarius Mims, who had one game below a 70.0 grade from Week 12 on. Tampa Bay's front — Vita Vea, Calijah Kancey and rookie first-round edge Rueben Bain Jr., a full participant Friday with no designation — is described by the beat as a top-five unit with reserves that rival other teams' starters.
Bengals pass offense · Buccaneers secondary
Chase (knee) and Higgins (foot) were both full participants and are expected to play. Winfield is one interception away from a rare career combination of picks, sacks and tackles, and Chase is within reach of third place on the Bengals' all-time receptions list. This is a star-power collision, not a mismatch in either direction, and the Buccaneers' answer to it depends on who lines up at corner.
Source: Bengals — Week 1 game preview
Buccaneers pass offense · Bengals secondary
Mike Evans is no longer on the roster, and Jalen McMillan, who moved into his starting spot, is doubtful with a knee injury — so Chris Godwin and Emeka Egbuka carry the load. Cincinnati plays man coverage more than most teams, and DJ Turner was among the stingiest corners in the league in it last season. Turner practiced limited all week with a hamstring but carries no designation, and Zac Taylor says he plays. Egbuka's production falls off sharply against man, which is precisely the look he will see.
Source: Bengals On SI — everything you need to know for Week 1
Buccaneers run offense · Bengals run defense
Tampa Bay was a middle-of-the-pack rushing team last season, with Bucky Irving back healthy and Kenny Gainwell added in free agency. Cincinnati's run defense finished dead last, and the Bengals' own preview copy owns the number. Sean Tucker is doubtful with a hamstring, which thins the rotation behind Irving but not the matchup. This is the single most lopsided pairing in the game.
Source: Bengals — Week 1 game preview
Quarterbacks
Mayfield has owned this matchup across his career and has never lost a Week 1 start. Burrow is confirmed healthy and starting after missing significant time last season, and he led the league in passing yards as recently as 2024. A healthy Burrow is the best player on the field; Mayfield's record here is the best trend on it. Neither is a number the model sees.
Source: Buccaneers — Week 1 game preview
Reporting verified 2026-09-11. Further sources: Buccaneers — Week 1 game preview · Bengals — Week 1 game preview · Bengals — Week 1 injury report · Bucs Nation — final Week 1 injury report · PFF — 2026 NFL offensive line rankings · Pro Football Rumors — Bengals offseason in review · Pewter Report — Vita Vea and an elite Bucs defensive line · Buccaneers — Week 1 depth chart
TB
-0.6
CIN
-0.6
Our number and the market agree on this one — the gaps are elsewhere on the board. Get the full Week 1 card free, every game priced against our model.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Buccaneers
43%
model win prob
Bengals
57%
model win prob
Run this matchup yourself → Full PWR board for all 32 → Player prop gaps for this game →
42%
Madden 27
58%
Madden 27
Go Pro · 26% off your first year
Pro is the layer around the free game edges: model win probability against the live Kalshi price on every market, edge alerts in Discord the moment a gap opens, and the full win-total, championship and projection boards.
$111 for the first year, then $150/yr. Code applies automatically. Ends Dec 31. Monthly is $14.99/mo.
Every signal graded in public, losers left on the board. See the record →
Our margin distribution against every Kalshi spread strike listed for this game. A single line says we lean one way; the ladder says whether that is about the middle of the distribution or its tail.
Our number is published at the called strike only; the market curves are complete.
| Rung | Market | Model | Gap | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bengals −0.5 | — | 🔒 | — | not listed | |||||||||||||||
| Bengals −1.5 | — | 🔒 | — | not listed | |||||||||||||||
| Bengals −2.5 | — | 🔒 | — | not listed | |||||||||||||||
| Bengals −3.5 | — | 🔒 | — | not listed | |||||||||||||||
| Bengals −4.5 | — | 🔒 | — | not listed | |||||||||||||||
| Bengals −6.5 | — | 🔒 | — | not listed | |||||||||||||||
| Bengals −7.5 | — | 🔒 | — | not listed | |||||||||||||||
| Bengals −9.5 | — | outside range | — | not listed | |||||||||||||||
3 more rungsBengals −10.5 → Bengals −14.5 · outside our published band, market only
| |||||||||||||||||||
Rung-by-rung numbers are a Pro feature. Unlock Pro →
Gold is our distribution, parchment is the Kalshi contract at each strike; the band between them is green where our probability is higher and purple where it is lower. We publish our number only where we have measured it to be calibrated, between 30% and 70%; rungs outside that range show the market only. A contract pays $1 if it settles YES, so a price in cents is an implied probability. Prediction markets carry risk; contracts can settle at $0.
10,000 simulated seasons on our preseason power ratings — real NFL tiebreakers, real 2026 schedule, no injuries or market prices. The season sim fits its own home-field (2.0 points, from played games); the game model above uses +2.5. How it works →
Week 1 is the widest-error week of the season for every model, ours included — nothing about 2026 is on tape yet, and the ratings are priors, not measurements. With that stated plainly: the Bengals rate -0.6 (21st), the Buccaneers -0.6 (18th), and the model opens on the Bengals by 2.5, 57% to win. Every number on this page will move more between now and kickoff than it will in any week that follows.
Season-long, the model can barely split them: 8.6 projected wins for the Bengals against 8.3 for the Buccaneers, favored in 8 and 7 of their 17 respectively. Two teams heading for the same neighborhood in the standings tend to produce exactly this kind of line. This game sits 13th-hardest on the Bengals' schedule and 7th-hardest on the Buccaneers'.
The sharpest unit gap in the game runs one way: the Buccaneers offense grades +0.4 (18th of 32) against a Bengals defense at -2.1 (25th) — 2.5 points of separation on our scale, and the single biggest reason the line sits where it does. Going the other direction, the Bengals offense (+0.7, 15th) meets the Buccaneers defense (-1.1, 20th), a 1.8-point gap. Special teams adds to it: the Bengals grade +0.8, 5th in the league, against +0.2 (26th) on the other side — close to a point of hidden margin.
The series is dead level: 3-3 across 6 regular-season meetings since 2002. They last met in 2022: Bengals won 34-23 in December. Over their last 4 meetings the Bengals are 3-1. History says these two are hard to separate, which is the one place it agrees with the ratings.
Calibration check, because a near-even number is the easiest kind to overtrust: across 3266 walk-forward games (2013-2024) the model gave a side 55-60% in 797 of them, and those sides won 57%. The Bengals at 57% are in that band. A margin that thin is why we would rather wait for a price than call it a lean.
Kalshi's KXNFLGAME-26SEP13TBCIN contract implies 50% for the Bengals against our 57% — a 7.5-point gap. That clears our 5-point threshold, which flags the Bengals as the value side.
Prediction markets are not sportsbooks — you trade a contract that settles at $1 or $0, not a wager against a house line. Informational only; trade responsibly.
This game has been played, so nothing above is a live market. Our pre-game model number was 57% for the Bengals. Those are kept as the record of what the model said before kickoff, not as a quote you can act on — the contract has settled at $1 or $0.
2 venues price this game on their own exchange; the rest resell the Kalshi contract or list it without a price we can quote. Home-side price shown.
| Venue | Bengals | Trade |
|---|---|---|
| Kalshi | 50% 50c | Trade on Kalshi → |
| Novig | 64% 64c | Open Novig → |
| Polymarket | no captured price for this game — international book | Sign-up offer → |
| Robinhoodsame Kalshi contract | 50% 50c | Open Robinhood → |
| Coinbasesame Kalshi contract | 50% 50c | Open Coinbase → |
| DraftKings Predictions | price not available — sign-up offer → | Sign-up offer → |
| FanDuel Predicts | price not available — sign-up offer → | Sign-up offer → |
| Fanatics Markets | price not available — sign-up offer → | Sign-up offer → |
A price under a venue name is that venue’s own; Robinhood and Coinbase list the same Kalshi contract. DraftKings Predictions, FanDuel Predicts and Fanatics Markets run on exchanges we have no price feed for, so they carry an offer and no number. We earn a referral credit or commission when you sign up through these links; it never changes the price or the model. Disclosure.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27, Cincinnati Bengals 33 — final, played Sunday, September 13, 2026; our pre-game model had the Bengals by 2.5 (57% to win), and the Bengals won, so that call hit. The full graded recap, with every player call resolved, is on this page.
Before kickoff our power-rating model favored the Bengals by 2.5 points, a 57% win probability over the Buccaneers. That number is kept on this page as the record of the call; Kalshi's KXNFLGAME-26SEP13TBCIN market has since settled, so no price on it is live.
Less reliable than any other week, and we would rather say so. The -0.6 / -0.6 ratings behind the 2.5-point line are preseason priors built from prior-season performance and roster change — no 2026 snaps are in them. Week 1 is the point of maximum uncertainty for the model and for the market, which is also why prices move most in it.
The contract is KXNFLGAME-26SEP13TBCIN on Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated exchange open to traders in all 50 states. Bengals YES is quoted around 50c against our 57% model number. There is no point spread — you buy a yes or no contract on a team and it settles at $1 or $0.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers visit the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, September 13, 2026 — a Sunday game in NFL Week 1, at Paycor Stadium, Cincinnati, OH.
Across all 17 games the model projects the Bengals at 8.6 wins (favored in 8) and the Buccaneers at 8.3 (favored in 7). This game ranks 13th-hardest on the Bengals' schedule and 7th-hardest on the Buccaneers', by model win probability.
Kalshi prices this game as event KXNFLGAME-26SEP13TBCIN. The Bengals YES contract sits around 50c, which is an implied 50% — against our model's 57%. That is a 7.5pp gap, and a contract price in cents is already a probability, so no odds conversion is needed.
This game has been played, so the Week 1 market KXNFLGAME-26SEP13TBCIN has settled — there is no position left to take on it. While it was open it traded as an event contract rather than a point spread: Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange open to traders in all 50 states, you bought a YES or NO contract on a team between 1c and 99c, and it settled at $1 or $0, so the price paid was the break-even probability. Kalshi lists the next week's games on the same terms.
57% of the time. Over 3266 walk-forward games from 2013-2024 — trained only on prior seasons, no market line as an input — the model put a team in the 55-60% range 797 times, and those teams won 57% of them. The Bengals at 57% over the Buccaneers sit in that band, off a 2.5-point model line. Straight-up across all 3266 graded games the model picked winners at 59.6%, with a Brier score of 0.236 against 0.25 for a coin flip.
Our model puts it at 58% against a market price implying 50%, an edge of +7.5 points. Model 57% vs market 50% on CIN. We rate it lean, sized at 3.7% of bankroll at quarter Kelly.
Every Thursday before kickoff: the full Week 1 card, market price vs our number. Free.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
The engine behind these numbers is callable from Claude, ChatGPT or Grok through our MCP server — every Kalshi prop this week priced venue by venue, spread and win-total ladders against the whole distribution, correlation-aware same-game combos, and the weekly game edges. The free tools answer with no key and no account.
See the in-season NFL tools →Prediction markets carry risk. Contracts can settle at $0. Informational only — not financial advice. Trade responsibly.
