luckadjusted

Week 1 2025 · September 7, 2025

Cardinals at Saints, Week 1 2025: who deserved to win?

The Cardinals beat the Saints 20–13 and were the better team on the day: replayed with the same form, they win 6 of 10. The Saints had the bounces: judgment calls alone were worth 2.2 points to the Saints.

Before kickoff the Cardinals were 67% favorites. The biggest swing (Q1, 2:11 left): Illegal Contact on the Cardinals (Max Melton), 5 yards, wiping out the play, worth 14 points of win probability to the Saints.

Final

Arizona Cardinals 20
New Orleans Saints 13

September 7, 2025 · Mercedes-Benz Superdome · Closing line: Cardinals −6

Luck index +40 Cardinals lucky · −40 Saints

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. Cardinals win 6, Saints win 4.

  1. 1 ARI 23 NO 0
  2. 2 ARI 21 NO 6
  3. 3 ARI 28 NO 16
  4. 4 ARI 19 NO 10
  5. 5 ARI 24 NO 19
  6. 6 ARI 9 NO 7
  7. 7 ARI 16 NO 18
  8. 8 ARI 10 NO 16
  9. 9 ARI 10 NO 20
  10. 10 ARI 7 NO 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

Cardinals win 60% of them, Saints 40%, counting the 3% still level after regulation as half each. The line is what actually happened: Cardinals by 7.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Cardinals by 17+11.9%
Cardinals by 9–1618.3%
Cardinals by 1–829.0%
Level after regulation2.5%
Saints by 1–820.2%
Saints by 9–1612.6%
Saints by 17+5.5%

Where the luck was

Take the luck out

The final margin was Cardinals by 7. Remove the luck, one kind at a time, and it becomes Cardinals by 3.3.

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.

  • C. Ryland, 42 yds made · 85% expected
  • B. Grupe, 36 yds made · 93% expected
  • C. Ryland, 50 yds made · 71% expected
  • B. Grupe, 37 yds missed · 92% expected
  • C. Ryland, 46 yds blocked · 78% expected
  • B. Grupe, 28 yds made · 97% expected
Bar: expected chance of a make. Filled dot: made. Open dot: missed or blocked.

When it happened

Saints’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 69%. 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 Saints were ahead in it, below while the Cardinals were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 Q1 8:11 Defensive Pass Interference on the Saints (Kool-Aid McKinstry), 13 yardsJudgment calls · 0 flags in 713 snaps before, position avg 1 per 213 +10% ARI ARI: Field goal
2 Q1 2:33 Offensive Holding on the Saints, 10 yardsJudgment calls +7% ARI ARI: Touchdown
3 Q1 2:11 Illegal Contact on the Cardinals (Max Melton), 5 yards, wiping out the playJudgment calls · 0 flags in 777 snaps before, position avg 1 per 213 +14% NO NO: Touchdown
4 Q2 8:46 The Saints converted 3rd & 53rd & 4th downs · 40% expected +8% NO NO: Field goal
5 Q2 4:46 The Cardinals converted 3rd & 103rd & 4th downs · 28% expected +6% ARI ARI: Touchdown
6 Q2 2:07 The Cardinals converted 3rd & 123rd & 4th downs · 25% expected +14% ARI ARI: Touchdown
7 Q3 4:03 The Saints were stopped on 3rd & 53rd & 4th downs · 41% expected +7% ARI NO: Missed field goal
8 Q4 0:04 The Saints were stopped on 4th & 103rd & 4th downs · 27% expected +8% ARI –

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.

  • Trevor Penning (NO T), out · 0.5 pts
  • Chase Young (NO DE), out · 0.5 pts
  • Foster Moreau (NO TE), out (IR) · 0.4 pts
  • Taysom Hill (NO TE), out (IR) · 0.3 pts
  • Nick Saldiveri (NO G), out (IR) · 0.2 pts
  • Sean Murphy-Bunting (ARI CB), out (IR) · 0.7 pts
  • Christian Jones (ARI T), out (IR) · 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

Cardinals 66% · Saints 34%

Final margin
Cardinals by 7
Luck in points
3.7 for the Cardinals
Luck-adjusted margin
Cardinals by 3.3
Replay with same day's form
Cardinals 60% · Saints 40% 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; injuries from snap counts and injury reports.

Methodology and validation · All Week 1 2025 games · Cardinals · Saints

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