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Regular season · week 2 · Sunday, Sep 20, 4:25 PM ET

Seattle SeahawksatArizona CardinalsEXPERIMENTAL

State Farm Stadium

Seattle SeahawksArizona CardinalsSaved on this device

100°F · 5 mph wind from the S · 0% 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.

SEA @ ARI

Seattle Seahawks at Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium.

Simulation

What our model expects

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

Projected score

SEA 26 — 20 ARI

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

Win chance

SEA 75.1% · ARI 22.0%

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

Total points (both teams)

8 in 10 simulations landed between 30 and 63

ARI winning margin

-7

a minus means SEA wins by that much · 8 in 10 between -24 and 9

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

SEA 26 — 20 ARIwin chance SEA 75.1% · ARI 22.0%total 46 (30–63)margin -7

SEA

Likely TD scorers

Jaxon Smith-Njigba 48.7% · available role uncertain

Jadarian Price 36.8% · available role uncertain

Zach Charbonnet 35.8% · available role uncertain

Passing

Drew Lock 109 pass yds (49–204) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Jadarian Price 44 rush yds (10–119) · available role uncertain

Zach Charbonnet 30 rush yds (5–91) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Emanuel Wilson 0.8 rec · 6.5 yds/g at GB

Receiving leaders

Jaxon Smith-Njigba 8 rec · 97 yds · available role uncertain

Cooper Kupp 3 rec · 34 yds · questionable

Jadarian Price 2 rec · 14 yds · available role uncertain

ARI

Likely TD scorers

Trey McBride 42.8% · available role uncertain

James Conner 39.5% · available role uncertain

Jeremiyah Love 36.9% · available role uncertain

Passing

Jacoby Brissett 225 pass yds (127–364) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Tyler Allgeier 40 rush yds (10–107) · available role uncertain

James Conner 36 rush yds (8–102) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Tyler Allgeier 0.8 rec · 5.6 yds/g at ATL

Kendrick Bourne 2.5 rec · 36.7 yds/g at SF

Receiving leaders

Trey McBride 7 rec · 73 yds · available role uncertain

Kendrick Bourne 5 rec · 53 yds · available role uncertain

Michael Wilson 4 rec · 50 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)
Seattle Seahawks	15	26	39
Arizona Cardinals	8	20	31

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 (SEA – ARI)	Chance
20–17	0.75%
27–24	0.68%
23–20	0.65%
17–20	0.59%
27–10	0.57%
24–27	0.56%

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	9.9%	14.2%
Decided by exactly 7	6.2%	8.3%
Decided by exactly 10	5.3%	4.2%
Decided by exactly 14	4.8%	4.4%
Any of the four	26.1%	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.

SEA touchdowns

2.9

ARI touchdowns

2.2

SEA field goals

2.0

ARI field goals

1.5

Tied after regulation

3.6%

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
Jaxon Smith-Njigba	SEA	role uncertain	8 (3–15)	97 (45–179)	48.7%
Trey McBride	ARI	role uncertain	7 (3–13)	73 (33–136)	42.8%
Kendrick Bourne	ARI	role uncertain	5 (2–10)	53 (20–107)	25.9%
Michael Wilson	ARI	role uncertain	4 (1–9)	50 (18–105)	28.9%
Cooper Kupp	SEA	questionable	3 (1–7)	34 (9–80)	21.3%
James Conner	ARI	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	21 (1–56)	39.5%
Jeremiyah Love	ARI	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	20 (0–55)	36.9%
Jadarian Price	SEA	role uncertain	2 (0–4)	14 (0–44)	36.8%
Trey Benson	ARI	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	22 (2–57)	31.8%
Tory Horton	SEA	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	21 (0–57)	17.9%
Marvin Harrison Jr.	ARI	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	27 (3–69)	17.9%
AJ Barner	SEA	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	19 (0–53)	15.6%
Rashid Shaheed	SEA	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	19 (0–55)	15.6%
Zach Charbonnet	SEA	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	9 (0–36)	35.8%
Tyler Allgeier	ARI	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	9 (0–35)	35.7%

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)
Tyler Allgeier RB	ARI	active uncertain	ATL · 17g	0.8 rec · 5.6 yds · 30.2 rush yds
Kendrick Bourne WR	ARI	active uncertain	SF · 15g	2.5 rec · 36.7 yds
Emanuel Wilson RB	SEA	active uncertain	GB · 20g	0.8 rec · 6.5 yds · 28.5 rush 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

48.7% Jaxon Smith-Njigba · SEA · available role uncertain
42.8% Trey McBride · ARI · available role uncertain
39.5% James Conner · ARI · available role uncertain
36.9% Jeremiyah Love · ARI · available role uncertain
36.8% Jadarian Price · SEA · available role uncertain
35.8% Zach Charbonnet · SEA · 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: 7e499456ba81bf4b
generated: 2026-09-17T14:17:00Z
kickoff: 2026-09-20T20:25Z
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.