luckadjusted

Week 16 2019 · December 21, 2019

No FTN charting for this game (drops and interception-worthy throws are not modelled).

Bills at Patriots, Week 16 2019: who deserved to win?

The Patriots beat the Bills 24–17 and were the better team on the day: replayed with the same form, they win 8 of 10. The Bills had the bounces: judgment calls alone were worth 5.4 points to the Bills.

Before kickoff the Patriots were 70% favorites. The biggest swing (Q3, 10:50 left): Offensive Pass Interference on the Patriots (Julian Edelman), 10 yards, wiping out the play, worth 21 points of win probability to the Bills.

Final

Buffalo Bills 17
New England Patriots 24

December 21, 2019 · Gillette Stadium · Closing line: Patriots −7

Luck index +22 Patriots about even · −22 Bills

Each team’s own plays from this game, resampled into new drives 4,000 times: with the way both teams actually played, how often does this performance win? How the replay works

Ten replays. Bills win 2, Patriots win 8.

  1. 1 BUF 29 NE 19
  2. 2 BUF 20 NE 17
  3. 3 BUF 14 NE 16
  4. 4 BUF 27 NE 31
  5. 5 BUF 13 NE 20
  6. 6 BUF 13 NE 23
  7. 7 BUF 3 NE 16
  8. 8 BUF 17 NE 34
  9. 9 BUF 10 NE 32
  10. 10 BUF 13 NE 42

Three other ways to ask

Each answers a different question, so none of them replaces the replay above.

The closing betting line, turned into a probability. What everyone knew before the game.

The line plus what this game showed, weighted by how much one game can tell. It stays close to the line because one game says little.

Every kick, fumble bounce, drop, conversion and judgment call redrawn; everything else fixed. The narrowest view of luck.

How 4,000 replays ended

Bills win 22% of them, Patriots 78%, counting the 2% still level after regulation as half each. The line is what actually happened: Patriots by 7.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bills by 17+2.4%
Bills by 9–165.8%
Bills by 1–812.2%
Level after regulation2.5%
Patriots by 1–826.3%
Patriots by 9–1621.1%
Patriots by 17+29.7%

Where the luck was

Take the luck out

The final margin was Patriots by 7. Remove the luck, one kind at a time, and it becomes Patriots by 10.3.

Each row takes one kind of luck out of the margin. Color shows which team it helped. Luck shares are the fitted ones (how much of each component is luck).

The kicks

How likely each kicker was to make that kick (his own record, the distance and the weather), and what happened.

  • S. Hauschka, 35 yds made · 92% expected
  • N. Folk, 36 yds made · 91% expected
  • N. Folk, 51 yds made · 67% expected
  • N. Folk, 20 yds made · 99% expected
Bar: expected chance of a make. Filled dot: made. Open dot: missed or blocked.

When it happened

Patriots’ chance of winning

As low as 31% and as high as 100%. Numbers mark the biggest luck moments, listed below.

nflfastR’s in-game win probability. It ignores the betting line, so it starts near even. Shaded above the middle while the Patriots were ahead in it, below while the Bills were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 Q1 12:50 The Patriots fumbled and the Bills recoveredFumble bounces · loose balls are close to 50/50 +8% BUF NE: Touchdown
2 Q2 6:51 The Patriots converted 4th & 13rd & 4th downs · 73% expected +8% NE NE: Field goal
3 Q3 10:50 Offensive Pass Interference on the Patriots (Julian Edelman), 10 yards, wiping out the playJudgment calls · 6 flags in 905 snaps before, position avg 1 per 331 +21% BUF BUF: Touchdown
4 Q3 9:58 N. Folk made 51-yard field goalKicks · 67% expected for him, 1 of 3 from 45+ before +7% NE NE: Punt
5 Q3 5:53 Offensive Pass Interference on the Patriots (Ben Watson), 10 yards, wiping out the playJudgment calls · 1 flag in 396 snaps before, position avg 1 per 253 +12% BUF BUF: Punt
6 Q4 2:42 Illegal Formation on the Bills, 5 yards, wiping out the playPre-snap flags +9% NE NE: End of game
7 Q4 1:55 The Bills were stopped on 3rd & 93rd & 4th downs · 21% expected +10% NE BUF: Turnover on downs
8 Q4 1:12 The Bills were stopped on 4th & 153rd & 4th downs · 18% expected +9% NE –

Missing players

Key players (usually on the field for half the snaps or more) who missed this game or part of it, valued by position and quality. The same players are missing in every replay, so this counts as luck in points only.

  • Jonathan Jones (NE CB), out · 0.4 pts
  • Ty Nsekhe (BUF T), out · 0.4 pts

Adjust the assumptions

Disagree with how much of a fumble bounce or a pass interference call is luck? Change it and the coin-flip replay reruns in your browser.

Only coin-flips re-rolled

Bills 6% · Patriots 94%

Final margin
Patriots by 7
Luck in points
3.3 for the Bills
Luck-adjusted margin
Patriots by 10.3
Replay with same day's form
Bills 22% · Patriots 78% unchanged: why
How much of each is luck?

0% treats it as skill, 100% as pure luck. The tick is our fit.

What counts

We tested momentum on 19,000 lucky breaks and found none, so it's off by default. Why

Flip a play

Force the other outcome, in this game and in every replay: a made kick becomes a miss, a stop becomes a conversion, a flag goes the other way.

About these numbers

Play-by-play and win probability from nflfastR via nflverse; kicks valued against each kicker’s own record; drops and interception-worthy throws from FTN charting (not available for this game); injuries from snap counts and injury reports. No FTN charting for this game (drops and interception-worthy throws are not modelled).

Methodology and validation · All Week 16 2019 games · Bills · Patriots

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