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Regular season · week 1 · Sunday, Sep 13, 1:00 PM ET · started

New Orleans SaintsatDetroit LionsEXPERIMENTAL

Ford Field

New Orleans SaintsDetroit LionsSaved on this device

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 NO 30 – 31 DET, from the Week 1 record.

Simulation story

5 chapters · the forecast as it stood before the start

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› 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.

NO @ DET

New Orleans Saints at Detroit Lions, 2026-09-13. This game has been played — what follows is the forecast as it was frozen BEFORE kickoff, not a current read.

Simulation

What our model expects

10,000 simulated games · model nfl-regular-season-public-v1

Projected score

NO 19 — 29 DET

the middle of our simulated outcomes, not a call on the exact final

Win chance

NO 30.9% · DET 67.0%

how often each side won in 10,000 simulations · ties 2.1%

Total points (both teams)

8 in 10 simulations landed between 31 and 65

DET winning margin

a minus means NO wins by that much · 8 in 10 between -8 and 27

Model details

From the replay-validated Elo-logistic head, published exactly as evaluated on a held-out 2025 season — no shrink toward 50% is applied, and no claim to beat the market is made. Generated 2026-09-13T13:48:01Z under model nfl-regular-season-public-v1 and frozen pre-kickoff; every forecast is settled against the official result.

Projected scorecard

expected statistical summaries · not one simulated game

NO 19 — 29 DETwin chance NO 30.9% · DET 67.0%total 48 (31–65)margin +9

Likely TD scorers

Chris Olave 39.4%

Tyler Shough 20.1%

Devaughn Vele 14.9%

Passing

Tyler Shough 139 pass yds (28–270)

Rushing leaders

Alvin Kamara 27 rush yds (6–61) · questionable

Kendre Miller 13 rush yds (0–42)

New arrivals · not in these numbers

Per game at their previous club — history, not a projection.

Travis Etienne Jr. 2.1 rec · 17.9 yds/g at JAX

Noah Fant 2.6 rec · 22.2 yds/g at CIN

Cedric Tillman 1.7 rec · 22.2 yds/g at CLE

Receiving leaders

Chris Olave 5 rec · 55 yds

Juwan Johnson 3 rec · 29 yds

Devaughn Vele 2 rec · 25 yds

DET

Likely TD scorers

Jahmyr Gibbs 52.6%

Isaac TeSlaa 41.9%

Sam LaPorta 28.5%

Passing

Jared Goff 177 pass yds (64–303) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Jahmyr Gibbs 56 rush yds (23–107)

New arrivals · not in these numbers

Per game at their previous club — history, not a projection.

Isiah Pacheco 1.3 rec · 7.7 yds/g at KC

Receiving leaders

Amon-Ra St. Brown 5 rec · 54 yds

Jahmyr Gibbs 3 rec · 24 yds

Sam LaPorta 3 rec · 28 yds

pass interceptions · First/last/2+ touchdown — withheld, with the exact bar each failed

pass interceptions: RESEARCH_ONLY
First/last/2+ touchdown: DISABLED — no ordering model and no calibration receipt of their own; never derived from anytime probabilities

Range

How wide the outcomes are

the 10th to 90th percentile of each team's simulated score

Team	Low (10th)	Projected	High (90th)
New Orleans Saints	7	19	32
Detroit Lions	17	29	41

Comparison

Us versus the sportsbooks

two independent reads, shown side by side

Our win chance

67.0%

DET to win

Sportsbook win chance

73.9%

DET to win, read from 8 sportsbooks' odds with their built-in margin removed

Difference

-6.9 pp

ours minus the sportsbooks', in percentage points — not a recommendation

Total points: ours vs sportsbooks

48 vs 50

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 2026-09-13T13:48:01Z — before kickoff.

Player projections · 15 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 expected receptions.

Player	Team	Availability	Receptions (10th–90th)	Rec yards (10th–90th)	TD chance
Chris Olave	NO	projected active	5 (2–9)	55 (16–110)	39.4%
Amon-Ra St. Brown	DET	projected active	5 (2–9)	54 (16–112)	24.6%
Jahmyr Gibbs	DET	projected active	3 (1–6)	24 (1–63)	52.6%
Sam LaPorta	DET	projected active	3 (1–6)	28 (2–72)	28.5%
Jameson Williams	DET	projected active	3 (1–6)	34 (3–84)	28.4%
Juwan Johnson	NO	projected active	3 (1–6)	29 (3–75)	13.4%
Devaughn Vele	NO	projected active	2 (1–5)	25 (0–68)	14.9%
Kevin Austin Jr.	NO	projected active	2 (0–5)	19 (0–56)	10.9%
Alvin Kamara	NO	questionable	2 (0–4)	15 (0–48)	10.2%
Isaac TeSlaa	DET	projected active	1 (0–3)	5 (0–37)	41.9%
Brock Wright	DET	projected active	1 (0–3)	10 (0–42)	13.9%

New arrivals · not in the simulated numbers above

Per game at their previous team — history, not a projection.

Player	Team	Availability	Last club	Per game (prior club)
Isiah Pacheco RB	DET	out	KC · 16g	1.3 rec · 7.7 yds · 30.7 rush yds
Travis Etienne Jr. RB	NO	active uncertain	JAX · 20g	2.1 rec · 17.9 yds · 60.2 rush yds
Noah Fant TE	NO	active uncertain	CIN · 13g	2.6 rec · 22.2 yds
Cedric Tillman WR	NO	active uncertain	CLE · 13g	1.7 rec · 22.2 yds

Families not shown, and the exact bar each failed (2)

pass interceptions: RESEARCH_ONLY
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

52.6% Jahmyr Gibbs · DET
41.9% Isaac TeSlaa · DET
39.4% Chris Olave · NO
28.5% Sam LaPorta · DET
28.4% Jameson Williams · DET
24.6% Amon-Ra St. Brown · DET

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: How often each side won across the simulations, after the calibration described above.
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.
Experimental: Published while its out-of-sample record is still accumulating. Every forecast is frozen before kickoff and graded against the official result.

Provenance

Where this came from

model: nfl-regular-season-public-v1 v1
simulations: 10,000
input hash: b4e952464449e896
generated: 2026-09-13T13:48:01Z
kickoff: 2026-09-13T17:00Z
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.

Educational and paper-only — not betting advice.