Today· Sep 17Pregame slateSettled· Sep 16

Regular season · week 2 · Sunday, Sep 20, 4:05 PM ET

Jacksonville JaguarsatDenver BroncosEXPERIMENTAL

Empower Field at Mile High

Jacksonville JaguarsDenver BroncosSaved on this device

70°F · 6 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

Skip to the report ↓

› 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.

JAX @ DEN

Jacksonville Jaguars at Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High.

Simulation

What our model expects

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

Projected score

JAX 20 — 24 DEN

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

Win chance

JAX 45.7% · DEN 51.4%

how often each side won in 10,000 simulations · ties 2.9%

Total points (both teams)

8 in 10 simulations landed between 28 and 61

DEN winning margin

a minus means JAX wins by that much · 8 in 10 between -13 and 20

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

JAX 20 — 24 DENwin chance JAX 45.7% · DEN 51.4%total 44 (28–61)margin +4

JAX

Likely TD scorers

Parker Washington 44.5% · available role uncertain

Jakobi Meyers 29.4% · questionable

Brenton Strange 28.6% · available role uncertain

Passing

Trevor Lawrence 238 pass yds (130–394) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Bhayshul Tuten 26 rush yds (4–84) · available role uncertain

Chris Rodriguez Jr. 13 rush yds (1–56) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Chris Rodriguez Jr. 0.2 rec · 2 yds/g at WSH

Quinn Ewers 0.1 rec · -0.9 yds/g at MIA

Receiving leaders

Parker Washington 5 rec · 64 yds · available role uncertain

Jakobi Meyers 3 rec · 33 yds · questionable

Brenton Strange 3 rec · 31 yds · available role uncertain

DEN

Likely TD scorers

RJ Harvey 36.8% · questionable

J.K. Dobbins 33.5% · available role uncertain

Courtland Sutton 25.9% · available role uncertain

Passing

Bo Nix 198 pass yds (109–324) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

J.K. Dobbins 54 rush yds (14–138) · available role uncertain

RJ Harvey 23 rush yds (4–76) · questionable

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Jaylen Waddle 3.8 rec · 54 yds/g at MIA

Receiving leaders

Courtland Sutton 4 rec · 38 yds · available role uncertain

RJ Harvey 3 rec · 28 yds · questionable

Evan Engram 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)
Jacksonville Jaguars	8	20	32
Denver Broncos	12	24	36

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 (JAX – DEN)	Chance
20–17	0.93%
17–20	0.92%
24–27	0.67%
27–24	0.64%
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	11.0%	14.2%
Decided by exactly 7	7.0%	8.3%
Decided by exactly 10	5.4%	4.2%
Decided by exactly 14	4.9%	4.4%
Any of the four	28.3%	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.

JAX touchdowns

2.3

DEN touchdowns

2.6

JAX field goals

1.6

DEN field goals

1.8

Tied after regulation

4.2%

Comparison

Us versus the sportsbooks

two independent reads, shown side by side

No current sportsbook capture covers this game.

Player projections · 23 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
Parker Washington	JAX	role uncertain	5 (2–10)	64 (25–130)	44.5%
Courtland Sutton	DEN	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	38 (11–85)	25.9%
RJ Harvey	DEN	questionable	3 (1–7)	28 (7–67)	36.8%
Jakobi Meyers	JAX	questionable	3 (1–7)	33 (8–78)	29.4%
Brenton Strange	JAX	role uncertain	3 (1–7)	31 (7–74)	28.6%
Brian Thomas Jr.	JAX	questionable	3 (1–6)	33 (7–78)	24.5%
Evan Engram	DEN	role uncertain	3 (1–7)	30 (7–71)	21.6%
Pat Bryant	DEN	role uncertain	3 (1–7)	33 (9–77)	19.9%
Josh Cameron	JAX	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	18 (0–52)	19.3%
Jaylen Waddle	DEN	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	21 (0–58)	15.5%
Troy Franklin	DEN	role uncertain	1 (0–4)	15 (0–46)	14.4%
Lil'Jordan Humphrey	DEN	role uncertain	1 (0–4)	14 (0–45)	12.0%
Austin Trammell	JAX	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	10 (0–38)	11.4%
Marvin Mims Jr.	DEN	questionable	1 (0–4)	14 (0–44)	11.4%
Adam Trautman	DEN	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	11 (0–39)	9.4%

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)
Jaylen Waddle WR	DEN	active uncertain	MIA · 17g	3.8 rec · 54 yds
Chris Rodriguez Jr. RB	JAX	active uncertain	WSH · 15g	0.2 rec · 2 yds · 41.2 rush yds
Quinn Ewers QB	JAX	active uncertain	MIA · 7g	0.1 rec · -0.9 yds · 2.6 rush yds · 127.9 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 23 by TD chance · full list in the board’s TD tab

44.5% Parker Washington · JAX · available role uncertain
36.8% RJ Harvey · DEN · questionable
33.5% J.K. Dobbins · DEN · available role uncertain
29.4% Jakobi Meyers · JAX · questionable
28.6% Brenton Strange · JAX · available role uncertain
26.7% Bhayshul Tuten · JAX · 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: 77c1b0c4188147b0
generated: 2026-09-17T14:17:00Z
kickoff: 2026-09-20T20:05Z
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.