ESPN graphics team pranks ‘NFL Live’ with Bengals picks instead of Chiefs: ‘Are we being trolled?’

Unanimous picks often have a way of going wrong. But the unanimous ones from ESPN’s NFL Live cast Friday for Sunday’s Cincinnati Bengals-Kansas City Chiefs game went wrong in a new and different way, and did so days before the actual game.

That came with, following several minutes of analysis from the various panelists on all the factors in favor of the Chiefs, a reveal of a picks graphic that had them all picking the Bengals, which they quickly distanced themselves from:

After several minutes of the “NFL Live” cast discussing how they like the Chiefs over the Bengals, their graphics department trolled them by showing them all picking Cincinnati. That drew quick rebuttals and disclaimers: “We all picked the Chiefs, actually!” pic.twitter.com/4NKxF8kkiD

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 13, 2024

The various reactions there are pretty amusing, from Laura Rutledge’s “Wait a second!” to Mina Kimes’ “That’s not right!” and Ryan Clark’s “No, no, no!” And this came just a week after “The NFL Live curse” of unanimous predictions struck for the first time this season, and in a Bengals’ game, with the cast all incorrectly picking Cincinnati to beat the New England Patriots.

And Kimes later confirmed on X/Twitter that this was purposeful trolling, not a graphics error:

To be clear – this was our graphics department pranking us bc we all picked KC lol https://t.co/t1ae2fkotQ

— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) September 13, 2024

We’ll see whether the panelists or the graphics department wind up being right on Sunday. But if the Bengals do somehow win (the Chiefs are six-point favorites), this will really be a remarkable moment in the history of unanimous picks gone wrong.

[Awful Announcing on X/Twitter]