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

Minnesota VikingsatChicago BearsEXPERIMENTAL

Soldier Field

Minnesota VikingsChicago BearsSaved on this device

70°F · 20 mph wind from the NE · 48% chance of rain · chance showers and thunderstorms — 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.

MIN @ CHI

Minnesota Vikings at Chicago Bears at Soldier Field.

Simulation

What our model expects

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

Projected score

MIN 22 — 24 CHI

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

Win chance

MIN 46.1% · CHI 50.8%

how often each side won in 10,000 simulations · ties 3.1%

Total points (both teams)

8 in 10 simulations landed between 29 and 63

CHI winning margin

a minus means MIN wins by that much · 8 in 10 between -16 and 18

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

MIN 22 — 24 CHIwin chance MIN 46.1% · CHI 50.8%total 46 (29–63)margin +1

MIN

Likely TD scorers

Justin Jefferson 47.8% · available role uncertain

Aaron Jones 45.2% · available role uncertain

T.J. Hockenson 28.1% · available role uncertain

Passing

J.J. McCarthy 180 pass yds (93–309) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Aaron Jones 37 rush yds (9–102) · available role uncertain

J.J. McCarthy 6 rush yds (0–42) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Jauan Jennings 3.4 rec · 41.8 yds/g at SF

Kyler Murray 176.3 pass yds/g at ARI

Receiving leaders

Justin Jefferson 7 rec · 77 yds · available role uncertain

T.J. Hockenson 4 rec · 36 yds · available role uncertain

Aaron Jones 2 rec · 17 yds · available role uncertain

CHI

Likely TD scorers

D'Andre Swift 65.2% · questionable

Kyle Monangai 42.6% · questionable

Kalif Raymond 40.8% · available role uncertain

Passing

Caleb Williams 231 pass yds (127–381) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

D'Andre Swift 54 rush yds (14–141) · questionable

Kyle Monangai 33 rush yds (6–104) · questionable

Receiving leaders

Kalif Raymond 8 rec · 85 yds · available role uncertain

Luther Burden III 4 rec · 42 yds · available role uncertain

Colston Loveland 3 rec · 34 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)
Minnesota Vikings	10	22	35
Chicago Bears	11	24	35

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 (MIN – CHI)	Chance
17–20	0.89%
20–17	0.80%
27–24	0.73%
24–27	0.71%
20–23	0.59%
17–24	0.57%

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	10.6%	14.2%
Decided by exactly 7	7.2%	8.3%
Decided by exactly 10	6.0%	4.2%
Decided by exactly 14	4.9%	4.4%
Any of the four	28.6%	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.

MIN touchdowns

2.5

CHI touchdowns

2.5

MIN field goals

1.7

CHI field goals

1.7

Tied after regulation

3.8%

Comparison

Us versus the sportsbooks

two independent reads, shown side by side

No current sportsbook capture covers this game.

Player projections · 18 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
Kalif Raymond	CHI	role uncertain	8 (3–15)	85 (40–157)	40.8%
Justin Jefferson	MIN	role uncertain	7 (2–14)	77 (34–145)	47.8%
T.J. Hockenson	MIN	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	36 (11–80)	28.1%
Luther Burden III	CHI	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	42 (13–93)	25.6%
Colston Loveland	CHI	role uncertain	3 (1–7)	34 (9–79)	24.3%
Rome Odunze	CHI	role uncertain	3 (1–6)	34 (7–82)	22.7%
Aaron Jones	MIN	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	17 (0–49)	45.2%
Cole Kmet	CHI	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	19 (0–55)	18.2%
Jordan Addison	MIN	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	22 (0–59)	18.0%
Josh Oliver	MIN	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	21 (0–58)	17.6%
D'Andre Swift	CHI	questionable	1 (0–3)	8 (0–34)	65.2%
Kyle Monangai	CHI	questionable	1 (0–4)	13 (0–43)	42.6%

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)
Jauan Jennings WR	MIN	active uncertain	SF · 17g	3.4 rec · 41.8 yds
Kyler Murray QB	MIN	questionable	ARI · 6g	30.3 rush yds · 176.3 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 17 by TD chance · full list in the board’s TD tab

65.2% D'Andre Swift · CHI · questionable
47.8% Justin Jefferson · MIN · available role uncertain
45.2% Aaron Jones · MIN · available role uncertain
42.6% Kyle Monangai · CHI · questionable
40.8% Kalif Raymond · CHI · available role uncertain
29.7% Caleb Williams · CHI · 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: bb3639ed1113f481
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.