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Regular season · week 2 · Sunday, Sep 20, 1:00 PM ET

Cincinnati BengalsatHouston TexansEXPERIMENTAL

Reliant Stadium

Cincinnati BengalsHouston TexansSaved on this device

92°F · 5 mph wind from the SE · 1% chance of rain · sunny — the schedule carries no roof for this stadium, so this is the open-air forecast — not used by the model; no weather term enters the numbers below.

Simulation story

5 chapters · read from the published artifact

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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.

CIN @ HOU

Cincinnati Bengals at Houston Texans at Reliant Stadium.

Simulation

What our model expects

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

Projected score

CIN 22 — 27 HOU

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

Win chance

CIN 32.1% · HOU 64.9%

how often each side won in 10,000 simulations · ties 3.0%

Total points (both teams)

8 in 10 simulations landed between 32 and 66

HOU winning margin

a minus means CIN wins by that much · 8 in 10 between -12 and 21

Model details

From the margin-of-victory Elo win head, published exactly as evaluated on held-out 2006–2021 — no shrink toward 50% is applied, and no claim to out-predict the sportsbook market is made. Generated 2026-09-17T14:17:00Z 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

CIN 22 — 27 HOUwin chance CIN 32.1% · HOU 64.9%total 49 (32–66)margin +5

CIN

Likely TD scorers

Chase Brown 55.4% · available role uncertain

Ja'Marr Chase 31.3% · available role uncertain

Tee Higgins 29.5% · available role uncertain

Passing

Joe Burrow 226 pass yds (127–364) · questionable

Rushing leaders

Chase Brown 54 rush yds (15–134) · available role uncertain

Samaje Perine 16 rush yds (2–65) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Josh Johnson 108.5 pass yds/g at WSH

Receiving leaders

Ja'Marr Chase 5 rec · 49 yds · available role uncertain

Chase Brown 4 rec · 31 yds · available role uncertain

Tee Higgins 4 rec · 42 yds · available role uncertain

HOU

Likely TD scorers

David Montgomery 59.8% · available role uncertain

Nico Collins 35.4% · questionable

Woody Marks 30.8% · available role uncertain

Passing

C.J. Stroud 216 pass yds (120–354) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

David Montgomery 56 rush yds (17–135) · available role uncertain

Woody Marks 36 rush yds (8–100) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

David Montgomery 1.4 rec · 11.3 yds/g at DET

Kayshon Boutte 2.3 rec · 38.3 yds/g at NE

Mitchell Tinsley 1.4 rec · 20.4 yds/g at CIN

Receiving leaders

Nico Collins 5 rec · 57 yds · questionable

Dalton Schultz 4 rec · 37 yds · available role uncertain

Xavier Hutchinson 3 rec · 30 yds · available role uncertain

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)
Cincinnati Bengals	10	22	34
Houston Texans	15	27	39

Exact score

The likeliest final scores

from an event-based simulation of touchdowns and field goals, solved onto the median margin and total above

Score (CIN – HOU)	Chance
24–27	0.65%
20–23	0.60%
23–20	0.60%
20–17	0.56%
27–24	0.53%
17–20	0.52%

No single scoreline is likely — these are the most common of hundreds. The projected score above is derived from the medians and answers a different question: the middle of the distribution, not its most common point.

Key numbers

How often it lands on 3, 7, 10 or 14

football's margins pile up on those four — this is the one thing a normal-draw model cannot show you

Margin	This game	Last 3 regular seasons
Decided by exactly 3	9.3%	14.2%
Decided by exactly 7	6.4%	8.3%
Decided by exactly 10	5.4%	4.2%
Decided by exactly 14	4.8%	4.4%
Any of the four	25.9%	31.1%

The right-hand column is what actually happened across 816 regular-season games (2023, 2024, 2025) — the same finals this engine was fitted to. It gets the shape right, with 3 the most common margin by a distance, and it is not calibrated to the number: it puts less weight on 3 and more on 10 than those seasons did.

CIN touchdowns

2.5

HOU touchdowns

2.9

CIN field goals

1.7

HOU field goals

2.0

Tied after regulation

3.3%

Comparison

Us versus the sportsbooks

two independent reads, shown side by side

No current sportsbook capture covers this game.

Player projections · 22 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
Nico Collins	HOU	questionable	5 (2–10)	57 (22–118)	35.4%
Ja'Marr Chase	CIN	role uncertain	5 (1–9)	49 (18–103)	31.3%
Chase Brown	CIN	role uncertain	4 (1–7)	31 (9–69)	55.4%
Tee Higgins	CIN	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	42 (13–95)	29.5%
Dalton Schultz	HOU	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	37 (12–83)	22.8%
Mike Gesicki	CIN	role uncertain	3 (1–6)	33 (8–78)	23.9%
Xavier Hutchinson	HOU	role uncertain	3 (1–6)	30 (7–72)	20.2%
David Montgomery	HOU	role uncertain	2 (0–4)	16 (0–46)	59.8%
Andrei Iosivas	CIN	role uncertain	2 (0–4)	17 (0–50)	14.0%
Samaje Perine	CIN	role uncertain	1 (0–4)	13 (0–41)	25.7%
Drew Sample	CIN	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	11 (0–38)	9.6%
Kayshon Boutte	HOU	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	8 (0–38)	8.7%
Jaylin Noel	HOU	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	9 (0–38)	8.2%
Foster Moreau	HOU	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	9 (0–35)	8.1%

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)
David Montgomery RB	HOU	active uncertain	DET · 17g	1.4 rec · 11.3 yds · 42.1 rush yds
Kayshon Boutte WR	HOU	active uncertain	NE · 19g	2.3 rec · 38.3 yds
Mitchell Tinsley WR	HOU	active uncertain	CIN · 10g	1.4 rec · 20.4 yds
Josh Johnson QB	CIN	active uncertain	WSH · 6g	8.3 rush yds · 108.5 pass 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 22 by TD chance · full list in the board’s TD tab

59.8% David Montgomery · HOU · available role uncertain
55.4% Chase Brown · CIN · available role uncertain
35.4% Nico Collins · HOU · questionable
31.3% Ja'Marr Chase · CIN · available role uncertain
30.8% Woody Marks · HOU · available role uncertain
29.5% Tee Higgins · CIN · available role uncertain

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 v2
simulations: 10,000
input hash: 5230edbba9d87f4b
generated: 2026-09-17T14:17:00Z
kickoff: 2026-09-20T17:00Z
state: UPCOMING

Player-family model provenance (4 published)

Rushing yards: Share-level model: cleared every bar when re-tested on 2014–2021 (14,502 player-games) — a second look at seasons examined once before, not a blind test. Each week's forecast is frozen before the first kickoff and graded; its blind 2026 record is still accumulating (0 graded player-games so far).
Receiving yards: Share-level model: cleared every bar when re-tested on 2014–2021 (27,134 player-games) — a second look at seasons examined once before, not a blind test. Each week's forecast is frozen before the first kickoff and graded; its blind 2026 record is still accumulating (0 graded player-games so far).
Receptions: Share-level model: cleared every bar when re-tested on 2014–2021 (27,134 player-games) — a second look at seasons examined once before, not a blind test. Each week's forecast is frozen before the first kickoff and graded; its blind 2026 record is still accumulating (0 graded player-games so far).
Anytime touchdown: Opportunity touchdown model: cleared every bar on a blind test of 2014–2021 (35,128 player-games never used to build it). Probabilities condition on playing — a player who does not play settles void. Each week's forecast is frozen before the first kickoff and graded; its blind 2026 record is still accumulating (0 graded player-games so far).

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.