Today· Sep 24Pregame slateSettled· Sep 23

Regular season · week 3 · Sunday, Sep 27, 1:00 PM ET

Carolina PanthersatCleveland BrownsEXPERIMENTAL

Huntington Bank Field

Carolina PanthersCleveland BrownsSaved on this device

67°F · 12 mph wind from the N · 1% chance of rain · sunny — 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.

CAR @ CLE

Carolina Panthers at Cleveland Browns at Huntington Bank Field.

Simulation

What our model expects

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

Projected score

CAR 19 — 22 CLE

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

Win chance

CAR 46.7% · CLE 50.4%

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

Total points (both teams)

8 in 10 simulations landed between 24 and 58

CLE winning margin

a minus means CAR wins by that much · 8 in 10 between -15 and 19

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 2026-09-24T19:52:17Z 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

CAR 19 — 22 CLEwin chance CAR 46.7% · CLE 50.4%total 41 (24–58)margin +2

CAR

Likely TD scorers

Chuba Hubbard 44.6% · available role uncertain

Jalen Coker 41.7% · questionable

Tetairoa McMillan 33.9% · available role uncertain

Passing

Bryce Young 235 pass yds (130–387) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Chuba Hubbard 38 rush yds (8–107) · available role uncertain

AJ Dillon 10 rush yds (0–49) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

John Metchie III 3.2 rec · 28.4 yds/g at NYJ

Darren Waller 3 rec · 35.4 yds/g at MIA

Receiving leaders

Jalen Coker 5 rec · 64 yds · questionable

Tetairoa McMillan 5 rec · 60 yds · available role uncertain

Chuba Hubbard 2 rec · 15 yds · available role uncertain

CLE

Likely TD scorers

Quinshon Judkins 36.8% · available role uncertain

Denzel Boston 32.6% · available role uncertain

KC Concepcion 28.4% · available role uncertain

Passing

Deshaun Watson 229 pass yds (127–376) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Quinshon Judkins 39 rush yds (10–100) · available role uncertain

Deshaun Watson 21 rush yds (3–75) · available role uncertain

Receiving leaders

Denzel Boston 4 rec · 51 yds · available role uncertain

KC Concepcion 4 rec · 43 yds · available role uncertain

Harold Fannin Jr. 4 rec · 39 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)
Carolina Panthers	8	19	31
Cleveland Browns	10	22	33

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 (CAR – CLE)	Chance
17–20	1.08%
20–17	1.01%
27–24	0.66%
17–24	0.62%
10–20	0.60%
23–20	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	11.4%	14.2%
Decided by exactly 7	7.1%	8.3%
Decided by exactly 10	6.1%	4.2%
Decided by exactly 14	4.9%	4.4%
Any of the four	29.5%	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.

CAR touchdowns

2.3

CLE touchdowns

2.4

CAR field goals

1.6

CLE field goals

1.6

Tied after regulation

4.4%

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
Jalen Coker	CAR	questionable	5 (2–11)	64 (26–127)	41.7%
Tetairoa McMillan	CAR	role uncertain	5 (1–10)	60 (22–126)	33.9%
Denzel Boston	CLE	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	51 (17–111)	32.6%
KC Concepcion	CLE	role uncertain	4 (1–9)	43 (16–91)	28.4%
Harold Fannin Jr.	CLE	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	39 (12–87)	24.8%
Chuba Hubbard	CAR	role uncertain	2 (0–4)	15 (0–45)	44.6%
Quinshon Judkins	CLE	role uncertain	2 (0–6)	23 (4–57)	36.8%
Darren Waller	CAR	role uncertain	2 (0–4)	15 (0–47)	18.4%
Jerry Jeudy	CLE	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	25 (3–64)	17.5%
Xavier Legette	CAR	questionable	2 (0–4)	19 (0–56)	16.2%
Tommy Tremble	CAR	role uncertain	2 (0–4)	16 (0–48)	14.8%
Raheim Sanders	CLE	role uncertain	1 (0–4)	13 (0–42)	15.8%
Ja'Tavion Sanders	CAR	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	11 (0–39)	11.3%

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)
John Metchie III WR	CAR	active uncertain	NYJ · 9g	3.2 rec · 28.4 yds
Darren Waller TE	CAR	active uncertain	MIA · 8g	3 rec · 35.4 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

44.6% Chuba Hubbard · CAR · available role uncertain
41.7% Jalen Coker · CAR · questionable
36.8% Quinshon Judkins · CLE · available role uncertain
33.9% Tetairoa McMillan · CAR · available role uncertain
32.6% Denzel Boston · CLE · available role uncertain
28.4% KC Concepcion · CLE · 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: 1adeebbeec3a17d7
generated: 2026-09-24T19:52:17Z
kickoff: 2026-09-27T17:00Z
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 (111 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 (200 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 (200 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 (267 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.