Today· Sep 24Pregame slateSettled· Sep 23

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

Los Angeles ChargersatBuffalo BillsEXPERIMENTAL

Highmark Stadium

Los Angeles ChargersBuffalo BillsSaved on this device

67°F · 7 mph wind from the N · 4% 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

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.

LAC @ BUF

Los Angeles Chargers at Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium.

Simulation

What our model expects

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

Projected score

LAC 20 — 27 BUF

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

Win chance

LAC 20.8% · BUF 76.7%

how often each side won in 10,000 simulations · ties 2.5%

Total points (both teams)

8 in 10 simulations landed between 30 and 64

BUF winning margin

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

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

LAC 20 — 27 BUFwin chance LAC 20.8% · BUF 76.7%total 47 (30–64)margin +7

LAC

Likely TD scorers

Omarion Hampton 48.3% · available role uncertain

Ladd McConkey 25.2% · available role uncertain

Quentin Johnston 25.0% · available role uncertain

Passing

Justin Herbert 216 pass yds (117–359) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

Omarion Hampton 53 rush yds (15–131) · available role uncertain

Trey Lance 15 rush yds (1–62) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

Marquez Valdes-Scantling 2.2 rec · 17.7 yds/g at PIT

David Njoku 2.9 rec · 26.1 yds/g at CLE

Theo Wease Jr. 2.7 rec · 40.5 yds/g at MIA

Receiving leaders

Ladd McConkey 4 rec · 40 yds · available role uncertain

Quentin Johnston 3 rec · 34 yds · available role uncertain

Tre Harris 2 rec · 28 yds · available role uncertain

BUF

Likely TD scorers

James Cook 59.4% · available role uncertain

Josh Allen 55.2% · available role uncertain

Dalton Kincaid 35.5% · available role uncertain

Passing

Josh Allen 241 pass yds (132–399) · available role uncertain

Rushing leaders

James Cook 68 rush yds (20–165) · available role uncertain

Josh Allen 28 rush yds (5–89) · available role uncertain

New arrivals · not in these numbers

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

DJ Moore 3 rec · 39.4 yds/g at CHI

Receiving leaders

Dalton Kincaid 5 rec · 59 yds · available role uncertain

Khalil Shakir 4 rec · 46 yds · available role uncertain

James Cook 2 rec · 18 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)
Los Angeles Chargers	8	20	32
Buffalo Bills	15	27	39

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 (LAC – BUF)	Chance
17–20	0.76%
24–27	0.69%
27–24	0.64%
20–23	0.60%
17–27	0.59%
17–23	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	9.8%	14.2%
Decided by exactly 7	6.4%	8.3%
Decided by exactly 10	5.4%	4.2%
Decided by exactly 14	4.6%	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.

LAC touchdowns

2.3

BUF touchdowns

2.9

LAC field goals

1.5

BUF field goals

2.0

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 · 20 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
Dalton Kincaid	BUF	role uncertain	5 (1–9)	59 (22–125)	35.5%
Khalil Shakir	BUF	role uncertain	4 (1–9)	46 (16–97)	28.7%
Ladd McConkey	LAC	role uncertain	4 (1–8)	40 (12–91)	25.2%
Quentin Johnston	LAC	role uncertain	3 (1–7)	34 (9–80)	25.0%
James Cook	BUF	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	18 (0–50)	59.4%
Ty Johnson	BUF	role uncertain	2 (0–4)	15 (0–47)	27.4%
DJ Moore	BUF	questionable	2 (0–5)	27 (3–71)	26.0%
Keon Coleman	BUF	questionable	2 (0–6)	25 (4–63)	19.8%
Josh Palmer	BUF	role uncertain	2 (0–4)	18 (0–55)	19.1%
Tre Harris	LAC	role uncertain	2 (0–6)	28 (4–71)	17.0%
Oronde Gadsden II	LAC	role uncertain	2 (0–5)	19 (0–55)	14.7%
Omarion Hampton	LAC	role uncertain	1 (0–3)	10 (0–37)	48.3%
Dawson Knox	BUF	role uncertain	1 (0–4)	14 (0–44)	15.7%
Brenen Thompson	LAC	questionable	1 (0–3)	9 (0–37)	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)
DJ Moore WR	BUF	questionable	CHI · 21g	3 rec · 39.4 yds
Marquez Valdes-Scantling WR	LAC	active uncertain	PIT · 6g	2.2 rec · 17.7 yds
David Njoku TE	LAC	out	CLE · 12g	2.9 rec · 26.1 yds
Theo Wease Jr. WR	LAC	active uncertain	MIA · 6g	2.7 rec · 40.5 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 20 by TD chance · full list in the board’s TD tab

59.4% James Cook · BUF · available role uncertain
55.2% Josh Allen · BUF · available role uncertain
48.3% Omarion Hampton · LAC · available role uncertain
35.5% Dalton Kincaid · BUF · available role uncertain
28.7% Khalil Shakir · BUF · available role uncertain
27.4% Ty Johnson · BUF · 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: ee0a2c3b2ce800d7
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.