Thursday Night Football – Expected Points Matrix & Pick Results
Thursday Night Football Final Score
Bills 24 Bucs 18
Algorithm Results:
Bills -9.38 Loss (error -3.38)
Expected Points Analysis:
Learn More: NFL 2023 Week 8 Games – Expected Points Matrix
Bucs Passing Offense: 28.81
“This means the Bucs should be able to pass against the Bills at just slightly below the league passing average. I just looked up that the avg passing yardage this year so far is 221 yards/game. Thus we would forcast the Broncos to pass for 200 – 220 yards.”
Bucs net passing yards = 224 yards
Bills Passing Offense: 89.9
“The Bills have a very good to excellent passing game going against a Bucs passing defense that is slightly below average(league average -16.6, BUCS -23.7). The Bills should be able to pass the ball very effectively against the Bucs. ”
Bills net passing yards = 312 yards
Bucs Rushing Offense: -24.2
“The Bucs have real difficulty runnning the ball as evidenced by the -25.54 rush EP. The Bills rush defense at -1.34 is just ever so slightly below league average of 2.6 for rushing defense. This tiny difference is not enough to change the Bucs rushing EP very much so the Bucs are going to have difficulty running against the Bills.”
Bucs Rushing Yards = 78 yards
Bills Rushing Offense: -3.39
“The -3.39 EP for the Bill rushing is almost right on the league average. So the Bills should have a average day rushing the ball. An average NFL day, not an average Bills day.”
Bills Rushing Yards = 115 (NFL avg 110.7)
Conclusion
While the Algorithm missed on the pick, setting a line of Bills -9.38, the Expected Points Matrix was bang on. It is not always going to be this reliable, football is inherently a chaotic game played with an oblong irregular sphere. But for this game at least, it could not have been more accurate as to how each team could/should move the ball.
The very fact that with 3 minutes to go, the Bills could have covered, the Bucs could have covered(and did), and the Bucs could have won outright(slim chance but we saw the opportunity) shows you that even with a dead on read of how a NFL game will play out, it is always going to be difficult to predict final scores and spread winners/loses.
I will try to write up a full Expected Points Matrix review next week after all the games have been played. It will need to be monitored over the next few weeks to see how reliable an indicator it is, but so far it is off to a good start.
Best of luck to your teams this weekend!
