Week 2 Monday Night Texans-Buccaneers & Raiders-Chargers: Advanced Reviews

Baker Mayfield continues his magic for the Bucs, and the Raiders offense falls apart against the Chargers

The adjusted scores quantify team play quality, with emphasis on stable metrics (success rate) and downplaying higher variance events (turnovers, special team, penalties, fumble luck, etc). Adjusted expected points added (EPA), in conjunction with opportunity-based metrics like total plays and drives, projects adjusted points. Adjusted scores have been tested against actual scores and offer slightly better predictive ability, though their primary benefit is explanatory.

All 2025-2022 and historical Adjusted Scores and other site metrics are available in a downloadable format to paid subscribers via Google Sheet.

Find previous advanced reviews here

** Adjusted Scores table:

• “Pass” - Pass rate over expectation (based on context of each play and historical averages

• “Success” - Success rate on offense, a key metric in adjusted score vs actual

• “H & A” - Home or away team

HOU (-2.5) vs TB

This contest ended up a lot closer than the adjusted scores saw the fundamentals, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers posting a vastly superior offensive success rate than the Houston Texans (52.4% to 39.6%) and EPA efficiency (77th percentile to 32nd).

The Texans stayed in the game with tremendous advantage on special teams (15.5 EPA), mostly due to miscues from the Bucs. The Bucs had a 38-yard field goal blocked (-4.1 EPA, more than three because of field position gained), a blocked punt (-3.5 EPA) and gave up a 53-yard return on another punt (-2.9 EPA).

The Bucs were still able to win despite those mistakes, helped by a vast outperformance on late downs, converting half of the 14 times they got to third down, whereas the Texans only converted 2-of-9 times. The Texans actually gained more yards per play (5.9 to 5.0), but couldn’t sustain drives and create enough opportunities. The Texans also failed to convert either of their two red-zone possessions into touchdowns (the Bucs were 2-for-3).