Week 9, SNF Bengals-Bills: Advanced Review
Week 9, SNF Bengals-Bills: Advanced Review
The Bills somehow lose again, despite a positive adjusted score differential, with turnovers especially costly
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 2023 & 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
CIN vs BUF
Once again, my adjusted scores refuse to let the Bills have a negative performance despite the actual score. Coming out of this one, the narrative might very well be that the Bills were “lucky” to get it to only a 6-point loss, down 24-10 with 8:08 remaining in the fourth quarter and adding an ultimately meaningless touchdown and 2-point conversion on their final drive.
It’s possible that the Bengals defense was playing soft on that drive, and the numbers from it are distorting the overall figures that go into the adjusted scores. However, excluding the Bills last touchdown drive, their success rate only moves down marginally to 52% from 55%, still materially better than that of the Bengals.
The biggest play driving the Bengals victory was a somewhat fluky flip-fumble from Dalton Kincaid that cost the Bills 4.7 expected points and 10.7% win probability, with those numbers slightly understated by the fact that avoiding a fumble on the play would have set up 2nd & 1 on the Bengals 13 yard-line, a fantastic context to score points (i.e. high expected points). Josh Allen also threw an ill-advised interception down a score on the Bills half of the field, making the total turnover advantage for the mistake-free Bengals at +8.1 EPA.
The biggest positive play of the game for the Bengals was a 3rd & 7 dumpoff to Drew Sample that improbably ended up as a 22-yard touchdown and added 1.6 more expected points than any other Bengals play. My adjusted scores formula discounts this type of gain, at -1 air yards and 23 yards gained after the catch. These big-YAC plays happen, but they are less sustainable. In the case of Sample, he had three catches for 10 total yards coming into the game.
The Bengals next biggest win probability gain was a beauty of a pass from Joe Burrow, finding Tyler Boyd for a 3rd & 10 conversion with the game tied 7-7 in the first quarter (+11.6%).
Allen wasn’t bad by any means in this game, but his headline efficiency was trumped by Burrow, +0.18 to +0.28 EPA per play. Both quarterbacks were accurate by CPOE, but Allen took more risks down the field (8.1-yard aDOT to 5.9), and also made more mistakes.
Burrow now have back-to-back best games of the season with his improving health, averaging +0.37 EPA per play in Weeks 7 & 8, after posting a uncharacteristic -0.09 in Weeks 1-6.
