luckadjusted

Week 8 2020 · November 1, 2020

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

Saints at Bears, Week 8 2020: who deserved to win?

The Saints beat the Bears 26–23 and were the better team on the day: replayed with the same form, they win 8 of 10. The Bears had the bounces: kicks alone were worth 5.2 points to the Bears.

Before kickoff the Saints were 66% favorites. The biggest swing (Q4, 0:18 left): C. Santos made 51-yard field goal, worth 30 points of win probability to the Bears.

Final (OT)

New Orleans Saints 26
Chicago Bears 23

November 1, 2020 · Soldier Field · Closing line: Saints −5.5

Luck index +24 Saints about even · −24 Bears

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. Saints win 8, Bears win 2.

  1. 1 NO 54 CHI 24
  2. 2 NO 37 CHI 15
  3. 3 NO 20 CHI 3
  4. 4 NO 37 CHI 24
  5. 5 NO 34 CHI 23
  6. 6 NO 37 CHI 30
  7. 7 NO 17 CHI 13
  8. 8 NO 16 CHI 14
  9. 9 NO 16 CHI 19
  10. 10 NO 3 CHI 19

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

Saints win 76% of them, Bears 24%, counting the 2% still level after regulation as half each. The line is what actually happened: Saints by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Saints by 17+31.8%
Saints by 9–1619.3%
Saints by 1–824.3%
Level after regulation2.0%
Bears by 1–812.7%
Bears by 9–166.6%
Bears by 17+3.4%

Where the luck was

Take the luck out

The final margin was Saints by 3. Remove the luck, one kind at a time, and it becomes Saints by 11.1.

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.

  • W. Lutz, 38 yds made · 86% expected
  • C. Santos, 44 yds made · 75% expected
  • W. Lutz, 27 yds missed · 97% expected
  • C. Santos, 29 yds made · 94% expected
  • W. Lutz, 27 yds made · 97% expected
  • W. Lutz, 39 yds made · 85% expected
  • C. Santos, 51 yds made · 58% expected
  • W. Lutz, 35 yds made · 90% expected
Bar: expected chance of a make. Filled dot: made. Open dot: missed or blocked.

When it happened

Bears’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 88%. 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 Bears were ahead in it, below while the Saints were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 Q3 1:33 The Saints were stopped on 4th & 13rd & 4th downs · 75% expected +13% CHI NO: Touchdown
2 Q4 1:38 The Bears converted 4th & 83rd & 4th downs · 28% expected +17% CHI CHI: Field goal
3 Q4 0:38 The Bears converted 4th & 23rd & 4th downs · 57% expected +21% CHI CHI: Field goal
4 Q4 0:18 C. Santos made 51-yard field goalKicks · 58% expected for him, 5 of 10 from 45+ before +30% CHI CHI: Punt
5 QOT 5:21 The Bears converted 3rd & 153rd & 4th downs · 19% expected +19% CHI CHI: Punt
6 QOT 4:42 The Bears were stopped on 3rd & 103rd & 4th downs · 25% expected +14% NO CHI: Punt
7 QOT 1:51 Illegal Contact on the Bears (Buster Skrine), 5 yardsJudgment calls · 4 flags in 1228 snaps before, position avg 1 per 237 +13% NO NO: Field goal
8 QOT 1:40 W. Lutz made 35-yard field goalKicks · 90% expected for himDelay of Game on the Saints, 5 yardsPre-snap flags +20% NO –

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.

  • Cody Whitehair (CHI OL), out · 0.5 pts
  • James Daniels (CHI OL), out (IR) · 0.4 pts
  • Michael Thomas (NO WR), out · 1.2 pts
  • Emmanuel Sanders (NO WR), out (IR) · 0.8 pts
  • Nick Easton (NO C/G), out · 0.2 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

Saints 93% · Bears 7%

Final margin
Saints by 3
Luck in points
8.1 for the Bears
Luck-adjusted margin
Saints by 11.1
Replay with same day's form
Saints 76% · Bears 24% 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 8 2020 games · Saints · Bears

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