Week 17 Saturday Football: Advanced Reviews

All the advanced stats, visualizations and commentary for Patriots-Chargers, Bengals-Broncos & Rams-Cardinals

The adjusted scores quantify team play quality, with emphasis on stable metrics (success rate) and downplaying higher variance events (turnovers, special team, penalties, fumble luck, etc). Adjusted expected points added (EPA), in conjunction with opportunity-based metrics like total plays and drives, projects adjusted points. Adjusted scores have been tested against actual scores and offer slightly better predictive ability, though their primary benefit is explanatory.

All 2024-2022 and historical Adjusted Scores and other site metrics are available in a downloadable format to paid subscribers via Google Sheet.

Find previous advanced reviews here

** Adjusted Scores table:

• “Pass” - Pass rate over expectation (based on context of each play and historical averages

• “Success” - Success rate on offense, a key metric in adjusted score vs actual

• “H & A” - Home or away team

NE vs LAC (-6)

The Los Angeles Chargers secured a playoff spot with a thorough demolition of the New England Patriots. The Chargers outgained the Patriots 428-181, running 77 plays to the Patriots 48. The Chargers are now locked into a Wild Card spot, with not a whole lot to play for next week, outside of potentially positioning for a preferred playoff opponent.

The Chargers were dominant by the more fundamental offensive success rate, but not as much as the final score. The Patriots lost the turnover count, though only by a single giveaway, costing them 5.6 expected points. The defining feature of the game was third-down success.

The Patriots went 2-for-10, losing 10.2 expected points on those tries, whereas the Chargers were 10-for-17, gaining +7.1. The Patriots also went 0-for-3 on fourth down conversion attempts (-9.9), while the Chargers were 2-for-2 (+5.6). In total, the Chargers had a net late-down advantage of +32.8 EPA, an enormous figure.

This was Justin Herbert’s strongest EPA total and efficiency game of the season, though only pushing him into the top-14 for EPA per play this season. For total EPA, Herbert isn’t any higher, as the Chargers had implemented more of a low-volume passing offense the first half of the season.

The Chargers remain a playoff threat to the big guns of the AFC, evening if their play has been up-and-down this season. At least theoretically, they could combine a hot run by Herbert with strong defense to beat just about anyone. That said, they’ve fallen short this season against other playoff-tier competition - losses to the Bucs, Ravens, Cardinals and Chiefs (2x) - while piling up point-differential on some of the worst teams in the NFL.

CIN (-3.5) vs DEN