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Regular season · week 2 · Sunday, Sep 20, 8:20 PM ET

Indianapolis ColtsatKansas City ChiefsEXPERIMENTAL

Arrowhead Stadium

Indianapolis ColtsKansas City ChiefsSaved on this device

75°F · 7 mph wind from the NNE · 72% chance of rain · showers and thunderstorms likely — 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.

IND @ KC

Indianapolis Colts at Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium.

Simulation

What our model expects

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

Projected score

IND 20 — 25 KC

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

Win chance

IND 31.9% · KC 65.2%

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

Total points (both teams)

8 in 10 simulations landed between 29 and 63

KC winning margin

a minus means IND wins by that much · 8 in 10 between -11 and 22

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

IND 20 — 25 KCwin chance IND 31.9% · KC 65.2%total 45 (29–63)margin +5

IND

Likely TD scorers

Jonathan Taylor 75.9% · available role uncertain

Tyler Warren 28.3% · available role uncertain

Alec Pierce 26.1% · available role uncertain

Passing

Daniel Jones 198 pass yds (107–329) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Jonathan Taylor 86 rush yds (29–194) · available role uncertain

Anthony Richardson 6 rush yds (0–41) · questionable

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Keenan Allen 4.7 rec · 44.6 yds/g at LAC

Receiving leaders

Tyler Warren 4 rec · 37 yds · available role uncertain

Keenan Allen 4 rec · 40 yds · available role uncertain

Alec Pierce 3 rec · 45 yds · available role uncertain

Likely TD scorers

Kenneth Walker III 63.0% · available role uncertain

Rashee Rice 30.5% · available role uncertain

Travis Kelce 26.1% · available role uncertain

Passing

Patrick Mahomes 212 pass yds (115–353) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Kenneth Walker III 73 rush yds (21–178) · available role uncertain

Emmett Johnson 14 rush yds (1–57) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Kenneth Walker III 2 rec · 19.3 yds/g at SEA

Justin Fields 0 rec · 0 yds/g at NYJ

Receiving leaders

Kenneth Walker III 5 rec · 48 yds · available role uncertain

Rashee Rice 4 rec · 40 yds · available role uncertain

Travis Kelce 4 rec · 46 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)
Indianapolis Colts	8	20	32
Kansas City Chiefs	14	25	37

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 (IND – KC)	Chance
17–20	0.83%
20–23	0.64%
20–17	0.62%
20–27	0.60%
17–27	0.59%
27–24	0.58%

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	10.0%	14.2%
Decided by exactly 7	6.2%	8.3%
Decided by exactly 10	5.8%	4.2%
Decided by exactly 14	5.1%	4.4%
Any of the four	27.1%	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.

IND touchdowns

2.3

KC touchdowns

2.8

IND field goals

1.5

KC field goals

1.9

Tied after regulation

3.7%

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
Kenneth Walker III	KC	role uncertain	5 (1–10)	48 (18–99)	63.0%
Rashee Rice	KC	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	40 (13–88)	30.5%
Tyler Warren	IND	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	37 (12–81)	28.3%
Travis Kelce	KC	role uncertain	4 (1–9)	46 (16–100)	26.1%
Keenan Allen	IND	role uncertain	4 (1–9)	40 (14–85)	24.0%
Alec Pierce	IND	role uncertain	3 (1–7)	45 (13–101)	26.1%
Xavier Worthy	KC	role uncertain	3 (1–8)	37 (11–83)	24.7%
Josh Downs	IND	role uncertain	3 (1–7)	32 (8–76)	21.2%
Jonathan Taylor	IND	role uncertain	2 (0–6)	23 (4–60)	75.9%
Emmett Johnson	KC	role uncertain	1 (0–4)	16 (0–50)	25.7%
Brashard Smith	KC	role uncertain	1 (0–4)	13 (0–42)	20.5%
Noah Gray	KC	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	8 (0–34)	8.3%
Tyquan Thornton	KC	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	7 (0–35)	8.0%

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)
Kenneth Walker III RB	KC	active uncertain	SEA · 20g	2 rec · 19.3 yds · 67 rush yds
Justin Fields QB	KC	active uncertain	NYJ · 11g	0 rec · 0 yds · 36.5 rush yds · 118.6 pass yds
Keenan Allen WR	IND	active uncertain	LAC · 18g	4.7 rec · 44.6 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

75.9% Jonathan Taylor · IND · available role uncertain
63.0% Kenneth Walker III · KC · available role uncertain
30.5% Rashee Rice · KC · available role uncertain
28.3% Tyler Warren · IND · available role uncertain
26.1% Travis Kelce · KC · available role uncertain
26.1% Alec Pierce · IND · 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: be7a9898ddbee531
generated: 2026-09-17T14:17:00Z
kickoff: 2026-09-21T00:20Z
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.