luckadjusted

Week 3 2025 · September 21, 2025

Saints at Seahawks, Week 3 2025: who deserved to win?

The Seahawks beat the Saints 44–13, and it was no fluke: replayed with the way both teams actually played, the Seahawks win 9 of 10. The Saints had the bounces: judgment calls alone were worth 5.9 points to the Saints.

Before kickoff the Seahawks were 71% favorites. The biggest swing (Q1, 7:51 left): Return touchdown by the Seahawks, worth 8 points of win probability to the Seahawks.

Final

New Orleans Saints 13
Seattle Seahawks 44

September 21, 2025 · Lumen Field · Closing line: Seahawks −7.5

Luck index +10 Seahawks about even · −10 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. Saints win 1, Seahawks win 9.

  1. 1 NO 37 SEA 30
  2. 2 NO 13 SEA 15
  3. 3 NO 19 SEA 24
  4. 4 NO 10 SEA 19
  5. 5 NO 14 SEA 26
  6. 6 NO 16 SEA 31
  7. 7 NO 19 SEA 37
  8. 8 NO 6 SEA 27
  9. 9 NO 3 SEA 28
  10. 10 NO 10 SEA 46

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 10% of them, Seahawks 90%, counting the 2% still level after regulation as half each. The line is what actually happened: Seahawks by 31.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Saints by 17+0.5%
Saints by 9–162.6%
Saints by 1–85.8%
Level after regulation1.6%
Seahawks by 1–816.8%
Seahawks by 9–1621.4%
Seahawks by 17+51.3%

Where the luck was

Take the luck out

The final margin was Seahawks by 31. Remove the luck, one kind at a time, and it becomes Seahawks by 29.9.

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.

  • B. Grupe, 27 yds made · 97% expected
  • B. Grupe, 52 yds missed · 69% expected
  • J. Myers, 56 yds made · 66% expected
  • B. Grupe, 23 yds made · 98% expected
  • J. Myers, 46 yds made · 82% expected
  • J. Myers, 37 yds made · 92% expected
Bar: expected chance of a make. Filled dot: made. Open dot: missed or blocked.

When it happened

Seahawks’ chance of winning

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 Seahawks were ahead in it, below while the Saints were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 Q1 12:30 The Saints were stopped on 3rd & 23rd & 4th downs · 59% expectedJ. Johnson dropped a catchable passDrops · 7 drops on 161 catchable balls before this +7% SEA NO: Turnover on downs
2 Q1 12:26 The Saints were stopped on 4th & 23rd & 4th downs · 59% expected +6% SEA NO: Opp touchdown
3 Q1 9:57 Unnecessary Roughness on the Saints (Bryan Bresee), 12 yardsJudgment calls · 6 flags in 1506 snaps before, position avg 1 per 323 +3% SEA SEA: Touchdown
4 Q1 8:43 The Saints were stopped on 3rd & 13rd & 4th downs · 72% expected +3% SEA NO: Opp touchdown
5 Q1 7:51 Return touchdown by the SeahawksSpecial teams +8% SEA SEA: Opp touchdown
6 Q1 4:58 Blocked punt by the SeahawksSpecial teams +3% SEA SEA: Touchdown
7 Q1 1:47 Illegal Contact on the Seahawks (Josh Jobe), 5 yards, wiping out the playJudgment calls · 11 flags in 1503 snaps before, position avg 1 per 213 +5% NO NO: Field goal
8 Q1 0:28 The Saints converted 3rd & 73rd & 4th downs · 32% expected +2% NO NO: Field goal

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.

  • Devon Witherspoon (SEA CB), out · 1.4 pts
  • Julian Love (SEA SS), out · 0.5 pts
  • Julian Love (SEA S), out · 0.5 pts
  • Zach Charbonnet (SEA RB), out · 0.3 pts
  • Taliese Fuaga (NO T), out · 0.8 pts
  • 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
  • Dillon Radunz (NO OL), out · 0.3 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 0% · Seahawks 100%

Final margin
Seahawks by 31
Luck in points
1.1 for the Seahawks
Luck-adjusted margin
Seahawks by 29.9
Replay with same day's form
Saints 10% · Seahawks 90% 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 3 2025 games · Saints · Seahawks

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