luckadjusted

Wild Card 2025 · January 11, 2026

Bills at Jaguars, Wild Card 2025: who deserved to win?

The Bills beat the Jaguars 27–24, but it was a coin flip: replayed with the way both teams played, the Bills win 4 of 10. Luck ran their way: kicks alone were worth 4.5 points to the Bills.

Before kickoff the Jaguars were 54% favorites. The biggest swing (Q4, 0:59 left): the Jaguars were intercepted on a well-placed throw, worth 33 points of win probability to the Bills.

Final

Buffalo Bills 27
Jacksonville Jaguars 24

January 11, 2026 · TIAA Bank Stadium · Closing line: Jaguars −1.5

Luck index +56 Bills lucky · −56 Jaguars

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 4, Jaguars win 6.

  1. 1 BUF 30 JAX 10
  2. 2 BUF 26 JAX 14
  3. 3 BUF 36 JAX 31
  4. 4 BUF 26 JAX 24
  5. 5 BUF 18 JAX 20
  6. 6 BUF 24 JAX 29
  7. 7 BUF 27 JAX 35
  8. 8 BUF 24 JAX 35
  9. 9 BUF 16 JAX 31
  10. 10 BUF 10 JAX 31

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 44% of them, Jaguars 56%, counting the 6% still level after regulation as half each. The line is what actually happened: Bills by 3.

Show as a table
Final margin in the replaysShare of replays
Bills by 17+8.6%
Bills by 9–1612.6%
Bills by 1–822.6%
Level after regulation6.3%
Jaguars by 1–822.4%
Jaguars by 9–1615.5%
Jaguars by 17+12.0%

Where the luck was

Take the luck out

The final margin was Bills by 3. Remove the luck, one kind at a time, and it becomes Bills by 2.4.

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.

  • M. Prater, 50 yds made · 74% expected
  • C. Little, 54 yds missed · 69% expected
  • M. Prater, 47 yds made · 79% expected
  • C. Little, 43 yds made · 84% expected
Bar: expected chance of a make. Filled dot: made. Open dot: missed or blocked.

When it happened

Jaguars’ chance of winning

As low as 0% and as high as 75%. 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 Jaguars were ahead in it, below while the Bills were.
#WhenWhat happenedWin probability forNext drive
1 Q2 5:42 The Bills converted 3rd & 23rd & 4th downs · 55% expected +7% BUF BUF: Touchdown
2 Q3 8:16 M. Prater made 47-yard field goalKicks · 79% expected for him, 54 of 73 from 45+ before +7% BUF BUF: Punt
3 Q3 2:45 The Jaguars converted 3rd & 43rd & 4th downs · 46% expected +11% JAX JAX: Touchdown
4 Q3 0:51 The Jaguars converted 3rd & 23rd & 4th downs · 61% expected +8% JAX JAX: Touchdown
5 Q4 10:47 G. Davis dropped a catchable passDrops · 6 drops on 160 catchable balls before this +10% JAX BUF: Touchdown
6 Q4 7:17 Defensive Holding on the Bills (Christian Benford), 5 yardsJudgment calls · 14 flags in 3229 snaps before, position avg 1 per 213 +11% JAX JAX: Touchdown
7 Q4 1:10 The Bills converted 4th & 13rd & 4th downs · 76% expected +22% BUF BUF: Touchdown
8 Q4 0:59 The Jaguars were intercepted on a well-placed throwInterceptions · 0% expected to stay out of the defense's hands +33% BUF –

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.

  • Jourdan Lewis (JAX CB), out (IR) · 0.3 pts
  • Cole Van Lanen (JAX OL), out · 0.3 pts
  • Terrel Bernard (BUF LB), out · 0.4 pts
  • Josh Palmer (BUF WR), out (IR) · 0.4 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 67% · Jaguars 33%

Final margin
Bills by 3
Luck in points
0.6 for the Bills
Luck-adjusted margin
Bills by 2.4
Replay with same day's form
Bills 44% · Jaguars 56% 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 Wild Card 2025 games · Bills · Jaguars

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