Today · Oct 3 · 18 events Games under way Settled· Sep 30

Regular season · week 4 · Sunday, Oct 4, 8:20 PM ET

Detroit LionsatCarolina PanthersEXPERIMENTAL

Bank of America Stadium

Detroit LionsCarolina PanthersSaved on this device

69°F · 1 mph wind from the N · 59% chance of rain · rain showers 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.

DET @ CAR

Detroit Lions at Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium.

Simulation

What our model expects

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

Projected score

DET 27 — 24 CAR

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

Win chance

DET 58.8% · CAR 38.0%

how often each side won in 10,000 simulations · ties 3.2%

Total points (both teams)

8 in 10 simulations landed between 34 and 68

CAR winning margin

-4

a minus means DET wins by that much · 8 in 10 between -20 and 13

Live game state

Live beta

The left side is what the live source reports right now. The right side is the GameTime forecast made before kickoff — it is frozen and does not change while the game is played.

Live now

Checking the live feed…

Pregame GameTime · frozen

DET: 27 (59% pregame win chance)
CAR: 24 (38% pregame win chance)

Forecast frozen at Oct 3, 2:37 PM ET. It does not change during the game.

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 2026-10-03T18:37:22Z 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

DET 27 — 24 CARwin chance DET 58.8% · CAR 38.0%total 51 (34–68)margin -4

DET

Likely TD scorers

Jahmyr Gibbs 77.1%

Amon-Ra St. Brown 58.5%

Sam LaPorta 29.3%

Passing

Jared Goff 245 pass yds (139–394)

Rushing — withheld for DET: the players' modelled shares add up to 102% of the team's carries, more than exists — shown again once the shares are reconciled

Receiving leaders

Amon-Ra St. Brown 6 rec · 61 yds

Jahmyr Gibbs 4 rec · 37 yds

Sam LaPorta 3 rec · 33 yds

CAR

Likely TD scorers

Chuba Hubbard 44.3%

Jalen Coker 33.5% · questionable

Tetairoa McMillan 27.9%

Passing

Bryce Young 233 pass yds (130–380)

Rushing leaders

Chuba Hubbard 49 rush yds (13–127)

AJ Dillon 10 rush yds (0–48)

Receiving leaders

Jalen Coker 4 rec · 44 yds · questionable

Tetairoa McMillan 4 rec · 43 yds

Chuba Hubbard 2 rec · 13 yds

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

Model detail — who this forecast leaves out (4)

Rushing DET — Withheld for this game: the players' modelled shares add up to more of the team's opportunity than exists; these numbers are not renormalised to fit.
Isiah Pacheco DET — Role not yet observed: no game for DET yet this season — role at DET not yet observed.Historical prior, not used in these numbers: 16 games for KC, 1.3 rec · 7.7 rec yds · 30.7 rush yds per game.
Jonathon Brooks CAR — Not playing: Listed Injured Reserve.
Xavier Legette CAR — Not playing: Listed Out.

Range

How wide the outcomes are

the 10th to 90th percentile of each team's simulated score

Team	Low (10th)	Projected	High (90th)
Detroit Lions	16	27	39
Carolina Panthers	12	24	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 (DET – CAR)	Chance
27–24	0.64%
20–17	0.60%
27–20	0.60%
20–23	0.57%
24–27	0.56%
17–20	0.53%

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	9.7%	14.2%
Decided by exactly 7	6.4%	8.3%
Decided by exactly 10	5.7%	4.2%
Decided by exactly 14	4.8%	4.4%
Any of the four	26.6%	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.

DET touchdowns

2.9

CAR touchdowns

2.6

DET field goals

2.0

CAR field goals

1.8

Tied after regulation

3.5%

Comparison

Us versus the sportsbooks

two independent reads, shown side by side

Our win chance

38.0%

CAR to win

Sportsbook win chance

36.5%

CAR to win, read from 8 sportsbooks' odds with their built-in margin removed

Difference

+1.4 pp

ours minus the sportsbooks', in percentage points — not a recommendation

Total points: ours vs sportsbooks

51 vs 51

our projected total against the sportsbooks' over/under line

The sportsbook numbers are the books' own, shown for context. A difference is a difference — this model is not validated to out-predict the sportsbook market.

Prices captured 2026-10-03T18:08:15Z — before kickoff.

Player projections · 18 modelled

The player board

Every modelled player, with his availability. Players listed out carry no volume projection.

Jahmyr GibbsMatchupDET vs CARStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes -330Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks77.1%
Amon-Ra St. BrownMatchupDET vs CARStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes -120Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks58.5%
Chuba HubbardMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes -125Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks44.3%
Jalen CokerMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETquestionableMarketDraftKingsYes +200Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks33.5%
Sam LaPortaMatchupDET vs CARStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +195Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks29.3%
Tetairoa McMillanMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +155Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks27.9%
Jameson WilliamsMatchupDET vs CARStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +200Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks24.7%
Darren WallerMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +245Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks24.4%
Justin JacksonMatchupDET vs CARStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketNot offeredModelGameTimePicks17.1%
Isaac TeSlaaMatchupDET vs CARStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +500Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks15.0%
Tommy TrembleMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +550Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks14.0%
AJ DillonMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +700Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks12.8%
John Metchie IIIMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +800Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks12.0%
Sione VakiMatchupDET vs CARStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +600Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks11.5%
Ja'Tavion SandersMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +4000Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks11.0%
Mitchell EvansMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +950Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks8.9%
Jared GoffMatchupDET vs CARStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +1200Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks8.7%
Bryce YoungMatchupCAR vs DETStartSun 8:20 PM ETMarketDraftKingsYes +475Captured Sat 12:52 PM ETModelGameTimePicks7.3%

Model detail — who this forecast leaves out (4)

Rushing DET — Withheld for this game: the players' modelled shares add up to more of the team's opportunity than exists; these numbers are not renormalised to fit.
Isiah Pacheco DET — Role not yet observed: no game for DET yet this season — role at DET not yet observed.Historical prior, not used in these numbers: 16 games for KC, 1.3 rec · 7.7 rec yds · 30.7 rush yds per game.
Jonathon Brooks CAR — Not playing: Listed Injured Reserve.
Xavier Legette CAR — Not playing: Listed Out.

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 18 by TD chance · full list in the board’s TD tab

77.1% Jahmyr Gibbs · DET
58.5% Amon-Ra St. Brown · DET
44.3% Chuba Hubbard · CAR
33.5% Jalen Coker · CAR · questionable
29.3% Sam LaPorta · DET
27.9% Tetairoa McMillan · CAR

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: 54517ccf74524954
generated: 2026-10-03T18:37:22Z
kickoff: 2026-10-05T00:20Z
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 (216 graded player-games so far).
Receiving yards: props-v1 evaluation: n=3575, all promotion bars pass
Receptions: props-v1 evaluation: n=3575, all promotion bars pass
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 (524 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. These ratings are built from results, not from who is playing: they do not know that a starting quarterback has been ruled out. Our player projections do remove players who cannot play; the team win chance beside them does not. We tested whether adding that would help, using perfect hindsight about whether each team's main quarterback actually played — on 855 games from 2023 to 2025 it improved the win rating on average but was WORSE in one of the three seasons, so it did not clear the bar we hold these ratings to and we left the rating alone.

Educational and paper-only — not betting advice.