luckadjusted

Week 16 2020 · December 28, 2020

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

Bills at Patriots, Week 16 2020: who deserved to win?

The Bills beat the Patriots 38–9, and it was no fluke: replayed with the way both teams actually played, the Bills win 9 of 10. The Patriots had the bounces: judgment calls alone were worth 2.5 points to the Patriots.

Before kickoff the Bills were 70% favorites. The biggest swing (Q1, 0:01 left): Defensive Offside on the Patriots, 5 yards, wiping out the play, worth 13 points of win probability to the Bills.

Final

Buffalo Bills 38
New England Patriots 9

December 28, 2020 · Gillette Stadium · Closing line: Bills −7

Luck index +7 Bills about even · −7 Patriots

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 9, Patriots win 1.

  1. 1 BUF 39 NE 7
  2. 2 BUF 41 NE 16
  3. 3 BUF 45 NE 24
  4. 4 BUF 35 NE 17
  5. 5 BUF 31 NE 16
  6. 6 BUF 19 NE 7
  7. 7 BUF 24 NE 15
  8. 8 BUF 30 NE 24
  9. 9 BUF 24 NE 21
  10. 10 BUF 23 NE 27

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 93% of them, Patriots 7%, counting the 1% still level after regulation as half each. The line is what actually happened: Bills by 29.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bills by 17+54.8%
Bills by 9–1621.1%
Bills by 1–817.1%
Level after regulation1.3%
Patriots by 1–84.2%
Patriots by 9–161.2%
Patriots by 17+0.2%

Where the luck was

Take the luck out

The final margin was Bills by 29. Remove the luck, one kind at a time, and it becomes Bills by 26.0.

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.

  • N. Folk, 45 yds made · 80% expected
  • T. Bass, 22 yds made · 99% expected
  • Extra point missed · 93% 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 0% and as high as 63%. 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 10:58 The Bills fumbled and recovered it themselvesFumble bounces · loose balls are close to 50/50 +6% BUF BUF: Field goal
2 Q1 6:46 T. Bass made 22-yard field goalKicks · 99% expected for him +7% NE BUF: Touchdown
3 Q1 6:03 The Patriots were stopped on 3rd & 73rd & 4th downs · 32% expected +6% BUF NE: Punt
4 Q1 3:55 The Bills converted 4th & 53rd & 4th downs · 44% expected +8% BUF BUF: Touchdown
5 Q1 0:51 The Bills converted 4th & 13rd & 4th downs · 76% expected +13% BUF BUF: Touchdown
6 Q1 0:01 Defensive Offside on the Patriots, 5 yards, wiping out the playPre-snap flags +13% BUF BUF: Touchdown
7 Q2 10:39 The Patriots missed an extra pointKicks · extra points are made about 94% of the time +8% BUF NE: Punt
8 Q2 8:32 The Bills converted 4th & 23rd & 4th downs · 64% expected +7% BUF BUF: Touchdown

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.

  • Stephon Gilmore (NE CB), out (IR) · 1.1 pts
  • Isaiah Wynn (NE OL), out (IR) · 0.4 pts
  • Lawrence Guy (NE DL), out · 0.3 pts
  • Ja'Whaun Bentley (NE LB), out · 0.3 pts
  • Ryan Izzo (NE TE), out (IR) · 0.3 pts
  • John Brown (BUF WR), out (IR) · 0.6 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 100% · Patriots 0%

Final margin
Bills by 29
Luck in points
3.0 for the Bills
Luck-adjusted margin
Bills by 26.0
Replay with same day's form
Bills 93% · Patriots 7% 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 2020 games · Bills · Patriots

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