BUF @ HOU
Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans, Sun, Sep 13. This game has been played — what follows is the forecast as it was frozen BEFORE kickoff, not a current read.
Regular season · week 1 · Sunday, Sep 13, 1:00 PM ET · final
Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans
Archived pregame read · published before kickoff. Everything below is the forecast revision the graded record names, read from its committed file and not regenerated. The final was BUF 36 – 31 HOU, from the Week 1 record.
What happened · official box score
Final: BUF 36 – 31 HOU
The played game's official lines, recorded Sep 14, 2026, the same lines the forecasts on this page were graded against. Under each actual is the Official Forecast published before kickoff, with its 80% range.
Buffalo Bills · 36
| Player | Pass yds | Rush yds | Rec | Rec yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Allen | 334Forecast 191 (68–317) · outside range | 23Forecast 20 (2–55) · in range | 0 | 0 | YesForecast 37.5% |
| Dalton Kincaid | 0 | 0 | 5Forecast 2 (0–5) · in range | 130Forecast 22 (0–66) · outside range | NoForecast 22.6% |
| DJ Moore | 0 | 0 | 5 | 100 | Yes |
| James Cook III | 0 | 57Forecast 48 (15–97) · in range | 3Forecast 1 (0–3) · in range | 12Forecast 9 (0–40) · in range | NoForecast 24.2% |
| Khalil Shakir | 0 | 0 | 4Forecast 4 (1–8) · in range | 50Forecast 40 (9–89) · in range | No |
| Joshua Palmer | 0 | 0 | 1Forecast 1 (0–4) · in range | 34Forecast 11 (0–44) · in range | Yes |
| Dawson Knox | 0 | 0 | 1Forecast 2 (0–4) · in range | 7Forecast 17 (0–55) · in range | NoForecast 12.3% |
| Frank Gore Jr. | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | No |
| Ray Davis | 0 | 3Forecast 2 (0–23) · in range | 0 | 0 | NoForecast 9.1% |
| Keon Coleman | 0 | 0 | 1Forecast 2 (0–4) · in range | 1Forecast 17 (0–52) · in range | NoForecast 23.1% |
| Jackson HawesNo line in the official box score | — | — | — | — | —Forecast 12.9% |
| Ty JohnsonNo line in the official box score | — | —Forecast 5 (0–28) | —Forecast 1 (0–3) | —Forecast 10 (0–42) | —Forecast 19.5% |
| Player lines added up | 334 | 86 | 20 | 334 |
27 other Buffalo Bills players appear in the official box score with no passing, rushing or receiving line.
Houston Texans · 31
| Player | Pass yds | Rush yds | Rec | Rec yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C.J. Stroud | 274Forecast 129 (26–252) · outside range | 15Forecast 3 (0–25) · in range | 0 | 0 | NoForecast 12.8% |
| Nico Collins | 0 | 7 | 7Forecast 3 (1–7) · in range | 75Forecast 38 (6–91) · in range | YesForecast 29.2% |
| David Montgomery | 0 | 60 | 3 | 19 | Yes |
| Jaylin Noel | 0 | 0 | 2 | 53 | NoForecast 11.9% |
| Woody Marks | 0 | 42Forecast 38 (13–78) · in range | 1 | -2 | NoForecast 24.3% |
| Dalton Schultz | 0 | 0 | 4Forecast 3 (1–5) · in range | 35Forecast 24 (1–65) · in range | NoForecast 19.8% |
| Xavier Hutchinson | 0 | 0 | 3Forecast 2 (0–5) · in range | 32Forecast 20 (0–59) · in range | No |
| Kayshon Boutte | 0 | 0 | 1 | 21 | No |
| Marlin Klein | 0 | 0 | 1 | 16 | No |
| Foster Moreau | 0 | 0 | 2 | 15 | No |
| Jared Wayne | 0 | 0 | 1 | 12 | No |
| British BrooksNo line in the official box score | — | —Forecast 1 (0–21) | — | — | — |
| Davis MillsNo line in the official box score | —Forecast 65 (0–185) | —Forecast 1 (0–19) | — | — | —Forecast 9.1% |
| Jawhar JordanNo line in the official box score | — | —Forecast 19 (2–53) | — | — | — |
| Cade Stover | 0 | 0 | 1Forecast 1 (0–3) · in range | -2Forecast 7 (0–36) · outside range | No |
| Player lines added up | 274 | 124 | 26 | 274 |
22 other Houston Texans players appear in the official box score with no passing, rushing or receiving line.
Shown: the passing, rushing and receiving lines and touchdowns GameTimePicks records; defensive and kicking statistics are not recorded here. “Player lines added up” sums the players' lines, so team passing yards are before sack yardage. TD means a rushing, receiving, return or recovery touchdown; a thrown one does not count. “—” means the player has no line in the official box score. Every graded forecast for Week 1 is on the NFL week report.
Regular season · week 1 · Sunday, Sep 13, 1:00 PM ET · Reliant Stadium
Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans
Buffalo Bills43.1% to winPregame projection
23–25
the middle of the outcomes, not a call on the exact final
Houston Texans54.0% to winHouston Texans were the projected winner, 54.0% to win.
About 3% chance of a tie after regulation is not assigned to either team.
Expected margin
HOU +2
8 in 10 outcomes between -15 and +20
Expected total
48
8 in 10 outcomes between 31 and 65
Official Forecast · frozen before kickoff · graded after
The authorized GameTimePicks output for a game or player, frozen before the start and never edited afterwards. Each one is graded against the official result once the game is final, and results are published as games are graded. Player results grade the official player board's own pre-kickoff projections, each under the model and version that made it — the same projections the game pages and Weekly leaders show. The supporting simulations some game pages show are not graded in these results, so none of these results describe them.
Simulation story
5 chapters · the forecast as it stood before the start› Loading the matchup model› Reading the outcome distribution from 10,000 simulated games› Preparing the score scenariosPress Play to step through what the model expects, chapter by chapter, or read the report below.
Projected scorecard
expected statistical summaries · not one simulated gameBUF 23 — 25 HOUwin chance BUF 43.1% · HOU 54.0%total 48 (31–65)margin +2
BUF
Likely TD scorers
Josh Allen 37.5%
James Cook III 24.2%
Keon Coleman 23.1%
Passing
Josh Allen 191 pass yds (68–317)
Rushing leaders
James Cook III 48 rush yds (15–97)
Josh Allen 20 rush yds (2–55)
Receiving leaders
Khalil Shakir 4 rec · 40 yds
Keon Coleman 2 rec · 17 yds
Dalton Kincaid 2 rec · 22 yds
HOU
Likely TD scorers
Nico Collins 29.2%
Woody Marks 24.3%
Dalton Schultz 19.8%
Passing
C.J. Stroud 129 pass yds (26–252)
Rushing leaders
Woody Marks 38 rush yds (13–78)
Jawhar Jordan 19 rush yds (2–53)
Receiving leaders
Nico Collins 3 rec · 38 yds
Dalton Schultz 3 rec · 24 yds
Xavier Hutchinson 2 rec · 20 yds
pass interceptions · First/last/2+ touchdown — withheld, with the exact bar each failed
- pass interceptions: research only, not published as a forecast
- First/last/2+ touchdown: DISABLED — no ordering model and no calibration receipt of their own; never derived from anytime probabilities
Comparison
Us versus the sportsbooks
two independent reads, shown side by side
Our win chance
54.0%
HOU to win
Sportsbook win chance
47.9%
HOU to win, read from 8 sportsbooks' odds with their built-in margin removed
Difference
+6.1 pp
ours minus the sportsbooks', in percentage points — not a recommendation
Total points: ours vs sportsbooks
48 vs 44.5
our projected total against the sportsbooks' over/under line
The sportsbook numbers are the books' own, shown for context. A difference is a difference — this model has not been shown to beat the market.
Prices captured — before kickoff.
Player projections · 20 modelled
The player board
Every modelled player, with his availability. Players listed out carry no volume projection.
Every receiving family for one player on one row, ranked by median receptions.
| Player | Team | Availability | Receptions (10th–90th) | Rec yards (10th–90th) | TD chance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Khalil Shakir | BUF | 4 (1–8) | 40 (9–89) | — | |
| Nico Collins | HOU | projected active | 3 (1–7) | 38 (6–91) | 29.2% |
| Dalton Schultz | HOU | projected active | 3 (1–5) | 24 (1–65) | 19.8% |
| Keon Coleman | BUF | projected active | 2 (0–4) | 17 (0–52) | 23.1% |
| Dalton Kincaid | BUF | projected active | 2 (0–5) | 22 (0–66) | 22.6% |
| Dawson Knox | BUF | projected active | 2 (0–4) | 17 (0–55) | 12.3% |
| Xavier Hutchinson | HOU | 2 (0–5) | 20 (0–59) | — | |
| James Cook III | BUF | projected active | 1 (0–3) | 9 (0–40) | 24.2% |
| Cade Stover | HOU | 1 (0–3) | 7 (0–36) | — | |
| Joshua Palmer | BUF | 1 (0–4) | 11 (0–44) | — |
Families not shown, and the exact bar each failed (2)
- pass interceptions: research only, not published as a forecast
- First/last/2+ touchdown: DISABLED — no ordering model and no calibration receipt of their own; never derived from anytime probabilities
Scoring outlooktop 6 of 13 by TD chance · full list in the board’s TD tab
- 37.5% Josh Allen · BUF
- 29.2% Nico Collins · HOU
- 24.3% Woody Marks · HOU
- 24.2% James Cook III · BUF
- 23.1% Keon Coleman · BUF
- 22.6% Dalton Kincaid · BUF
Anytime-scorer probability means scoring a touchdown — never throwing one. Void if the player does not play; questionable players carry their state above.
Reading key
What these numbers mean
- Projected score
- The middle outcome across every simulated game — not a prediction of the exact final.
- Win chance
- The model's chance for each side to win, from its team-strength rating — not a count of simulated wins. The simulated games show their own win share, and the difference, in Simulated game outcomes.
- 80% range
- Eight in ten simulated games landed inside this band. Real games land outside it too.
- pp (percentage points)
- The plain difference between two percentages. A gap is a difference, not an advantage.
- Official Forecast
- The authorized GameTimePicks output for a game or player, frozen before the start and never edited afterwards. Each one is graded against the official result; its record on games played after it was frozen is still accumulating.
Technical detailsModel version, input fingerprint, timestamps and the per-family evaluation basis.
Where this came from
- model
- nfl-regular-season-public-v1 v1
- simulations
- 10,000
- input hash
- 41709a5e2b6e2884
- generated
- kickoff
- state
- SETTLED
Player-family model provenance (3 published)
- Receiving yards: props-v1 evaluation: n=3575, all promotion bars pass
- Receptions: props-v1 evaluation: n=3575, all promotion bars pass
- Anytime touchdown: anytime-td-v1 calibration: held-out 2025 n=3965, beats both baselines; DNP settles void, so probabilities condition on playing
Our win chances come from a team rating that weights how decisively teams win. Tested on 4,281 past games it had never seen (2006–2021), it scored 0.629 on log loss (lower is better) — better than our previous rating's 0.642 and a coin flip's 0.693, but short of the sportsbooks' own odds at 0.610. It has NOT been shown to beat the sportsbook market. Where our win and margin ratings disagree on the favourite, the previous rating is used for that game. The 2026 season evaluation still runs under bars frozen in August, so every forecast stays experimental. These ratings are built from results, not from who is playing: they do not know that a starting quarterback has been ruled out. Our player projections do remove players who cannot play; the team win chance beside them does not. We tested whether adding that would help, using perfect hindsight about whether each team's main quarterback actually played — on 855 games from 2023 to 2025 it improved the win rating on average but was WORSE in one of the three seasons, so it did not clear the bar we hold these ratings to and we left the rating alone.
Educational and paper-only — not betting advice.
More
Other games with a simulation
- CAR @ GBThursday, Oct 29, 8:15 PM ET
- ARI @ DALSunday, Nov 1, 1:00 PM ET
- ATL @ TBSunday, Nov 1, 1:00 PM ET
- BAL @ BUFSunday, Nov 1, 1:00 PM ET
- CLE @ PITSunday, Nov 1, 1:00 PM ET
- IND @ JAXSunday, Nov 1, 1:00 PM ET
- LV @ NYJSunday, Nov 1, 1:00 PM ET
- MIN @ DETSunday, Nov 1, 1:00 PM ET
- TEN @ CINSunday, Nov 1, 1:00 PM ET
- LAC @ LARSunday, Nov 1, 4:05 PM ET
- KC @ DENSunday, Nov 1, 4:25 PM ET
- NE @ MIASunday, Nov 1, 4:25 PM ET
- PHI @ WSHSunday, Nov 1, 8:20 PM ET
- CHI @ SEAMonday, Nov 2, 8:15 PM ET