Wild Card Saturday Football: Advanced Reviews

All the advanced stats, visualizations and commentary for Texans-Chargers and Ravens-Steelers

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

HOU vs LAC (-3)

The Houston Texans got a solid win at home against the Los Angeles Chargers, though neither team was particularly impressive. The adjusted scores saw the result as a bit wider than the actual fundamental play differential between the two teams, but still solidly a Texans win.

The Texans’ offense looked moribund for the first quarter-and-a-half of this game, with Chargers’ mistakes giving away opportunities to extend their early 6-0 lead. Then all sudden the Texans were able to move the ball a little, putting up 10 points before halftime and never looking back.

The Chargers had virtually no chance of getting back into the game due to turnovers, with Justin Herbert throwing on three of their final four drives (plus one before that). There was a long touchdown pass to Ladd McConkey stuck between the picks, and even that play was a bit lucky for the Bolts.

The Chargers converted the 3rd & 26 (!!) when Texans deep safety on the play Calen Bullock was envisioning a pick-6 in his head and then got out of position to make the tackle, letting McConkey run half the field for the score (+8.5 EPA). Even still, the Chargers EPA efficiency was in the 1st percentile. They simply couldn’t extend drives, going 2-for-11 converting the rest of their third downs (-7.0 EPA), plus 0-for-1 on fourth (-3.4).