luckadjusted

Week 5 2025 · October 5, 2025

Patriots at Bills, Week 5 2025: who deserved to win?

The Patriots beat the Bills 23–20, but the Bills played well enough to win it: they take 6 of 10 replays with the same day's form. Luck ran their way: fumble bounces alone were worth 3.1 points to the Patriots.

Before kickoff the Bills were 71% favorites. The biggest swing (Q4, 0:20 left): A. Borregales made 52-yard field goal, worth 23 points of win probability to the Patriots.

Final

New England Patriots 23
Buffalo Bills 20

October 5, 2025 · New Era Field · Closing line: Bills −7.5

Luck index +62 Patriots very lucky · −62 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. Patriots win 4, Bills win 6.

  1. 1 NE 41 BUF 23
  2. 2 NE 30 BUF 20
  3. 3 NE 33 BUF 27
  4. 4 NE 19 BUF 17
  5. 5 NE 34 BUF 36
  6. 6 NE 30 BUF 35
  7. 7 NE 16 BUF 24
  8. 8 NE 30 BUF 42
  9. 9 NE 14 BUF 30
  10. 10 NE 27 BUF 49

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

Patriots win 38% of them, Bills 62%, counting the 3% still level after regulation as half each. The line is what actually happened: Patriots by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Patriots by 17+5.5%
Patriots by 9–1610.3%
Patriots by 1–819.6%
Level after regulation2.7%
Bills by 1–826.1%
Bills by 9–1618.7%
Bills by 17+17.2%

Where the luck was

Take the luck out

The final margin was Patriots by 3. Remove the luck, one kind at a time, and it becomes Bills by 4.3.

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.

  • A. Borregales, 30 yds made · 96% expected
  • M. Prater, 31 yds made · 96% expected
  • A. Borregales, 19 yds made · 99% expected
  • M. Prater, 45 yds made · 84% expected
  • A. Borregales, 52 yds made · 70% expected
Bar: expected chance of a make. Filled dot: made. Open dot: missed or blocked.

When it happened

Bills’ 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 Bills were ahead in it, below while the Patriots were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 Q3 3:22 Offensive Pass Interference on the Bills (Khalil Shakir), 10 yardsJudgment calls · 3 flags in 2055 snaps before, position avg 1 per 403 +9% NE NE: Touchdown
2 Q4 6:22 The Patriots were stopped on 3rd & 53rd & 4th downs · 42% expectedFalse Start on the Patriots, 4 yardsPre-snap flags +12% BUF NE: Punt
3 Q4 4:52 J. Cook dropped a catchable passDrops · 12 drops on 137 catchable balls before this +9% NE BUF: Field goal
4 Q4 4:47 The Bills converted 3rd & 63rd & 4th downs · 38% expected +11% BUF BUF: Field goal
5 Q4 2:46 K. Shakir dropped a catchable passDrops · 3 drops on 188 catchable balls before this +11% NE BUF: Field goal
6 Q4 1:07 The Patriots were stopped on 3rd & 53rd & 4th downs · 42% expected +9% BUF NE: Field goal
7 Q4 0:20 A. Borregales made 52-yard field goalKicks · 70% expected for him, 1 of 1 from 45+ before +23% NE –
8 Q4 0:15 Offensive Holding on the Bills (Joe Andreessen), 10 yardsJudgment calls · 0 flags in 511 snaps before, position avg 1 per 445 +12% 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.

  • Ed Oliver (BUF DT), out · 0.5 pts
  • Tyler Bass (BUF K), out (IR) · 0.3 pts
  • Tylan Grable (BUF T), out (IR) · 0.2 pts
  • Cameron Johnston (BUF P), out (IR) · 0.2 pts
  • T.J. Sanders (BUF DT), out · 0.1 pts
  • Layden Robinson (NE G), out (IR) · 0.4 pts
  • K'Lavon Chaisson (NE LB), 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

Patriots 32% · Bills 68%

Final margin
Patriots by 3
Luck in points
7.3 for the Patriots
Luck-adjusted margin
Bills by 4.3
Replay with same day's form
Patriots 38% · Bills 62% 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 5 2025 games · Patriots · Bills

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