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

Cincinnati BengalsatPittsburgh SteelersEXPERIMENTAL

Acrisure Stadium

Cincinnati BengalsPittsburgh SteelersSaved on this device

64°F · 10 mph wind from the N · 0% chance of rain · mostly sunny — 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.

CIN @ PIT

Cincinnati Bengals at Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium.

Simulation

What our model expects

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

Projected score

CIN 21 — 25 PIT

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

Win chance

CIN 47.5% · PIT 49.6%

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

PIT winning margin

a minus means CIN wins by that much · 8 in 10 between -14 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 2026-09-24T19:52:17Z 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

CIN 21 — 25 PITwin chance CIN 47.5% · PIT 49.6%total 46 (29–63)margin +3

CIN

Likely TD scorers

Chase Brown 53.5% · available role uncertain

Ja'Marr Chase 40.9% · available role uncertain

Tee Higgins 33.6% · available role uncertain

Passing

Joe Burrow 223 pass yds (126–362) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Chase Brown 62 rush yds (19–149) · available role uncertain

Samaje Perine 11 rush yds (1–52) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Josh Johnson 108.5 pass yds/g at WSH

Receiving leaders

Ja'Marr Chase 5 rec · 55 yds · available role uncertain

Tee Higgins 4 rec · 55 yds · available role uncertain

Chase Brown 3 rec · 28 yds · available role uncertain

PIT

Likely TD scorers

Jaylen Warren 35.9% · questionable

Rico Dowdle 27.1% · questionable

DK Metcalf 24.4% · available role uncertain

Passing

Aaron Rodgers 188 pass yds (105–309) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Jaylen Warren 45 rush yds (11–120) · questionable

Rico Dowdle 24 rush yds (4–77) · questionable

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Rico Dowdle 2.1 rec · 16.9 yds/g at CAR

Michael Pittman Jr. 4.6 rec · 45.3 yds/g at IND

Isaiah Hodgins 1.7 rec · 19.2 yds/g at NYG

Receiving leaders

DK Metcalf 4 rec · 45 yds · available role uncertain

Pat Freiermuth 3 rec · 27 yds · available role uncertain

Jaylen Warren 2 rec · 22 yds · questionable

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)
Cincinnati Bengals	10	21	33
Pittsburgh Steelers	13	25	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 (CIN – PIT)	Chance
17–20	0.89%
20–17	0.86%
20–23	0.73%
24–27	0.69%
27–24	0.60%
23–20	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	10.8%	14.2%
Decided by exactly 7	6.8%	8.3%
Decided by exactly 10	5.6%	4.2%
Decided by exactly 14	4.8%	4.4%
Any of the four	27.9%	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.

CIN touchdowns

2.4

PIT touchdowns

2.6

CIN field goals

1.7

PIT field goals

1.8

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 · 19 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
Ja'Marr Chase	CIN	role uncertain	5 (2–10)	55 (22–112)	40.9%
Tee Higgins	CIN	role uncertain	4 (1–9)	55 (20–117)	33.6%
DK Metcalf	PIT	role uncertain	4 (1–9)	45 (16–96)	24.4%
Chase Brown	CIN	role uncertain	3 (1–7)	28 (8–64)	53.5%
Pat Freiermuth	PIT	role uncertain	3 (1–6)	27 (5–66)	17.7%
Jaylen Warren	PIT	questionable	2 (0–5)	22 (3–57)	35.9%
Rico Dowdle	PIT	questionable	2 (0–4)	16 (0–46)	27.1%
Mike Gesicki	CIN	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	20 (0–56)	16.5%
Roman Wilson	PIT	role uncertain	2 (0–6)	23 (3–59)	14.4%
Germie Bernard	PIT	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	22 (1–57)	13.7%
Michael Pittman	PIT	questionable	2 (0–4)	17 (0–50)	10.2%
Samaje Perine	CIN	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	10 (0–37)	20.0%
Erick All	CIN	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	8 (0–34)	8.7%
Darnell Washington	PIT	role uncertain	1 (0–4)	13 (0–42)	8.5%

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)
Rico Dowdle RB	PIT	questionable	CAR · 20g	2.1 rec · 16.9 yds · 54.7 rush yds
Michael Pittman Jr. WR	PIT	questionable	IND · 18g	4.6 rec · 45.3 yds
Isaiah Hodgins WR	PIT	active uncertain	NYG · 6g	1.7 rec · 19.2 yds
Josh Johnson QB	CIN	active uncertain	WSH · 6g	8.3 rush yds · 108.5 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 19 by TD chance · full list in the board’s TD tab

53.5% Chase Brown · CIN · available role uncertain
40.9% Ja'Marr Chase · CIN · available role uncertain
35.9% Jaylen Warren · PIT · questionable
33.6% Tee Higgins · CIN · available role uncertain
27.1% Rico Dowdle · PIT · questionable
24.4% DK Metcalf · PIT · 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: 7fe37d0a6544bc42
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.