For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt. Markdown variants of the ranked boards (dynasty and fantasy rankings for NFL, NBA, MLB and CFB) are available by appending .md to those URLs or by sending Accept: text/markdown; other pages answer 404.
2020 Week 15 · Sat, Dec 19, 2020 · Empower Field at Mile High
Final
BillsBuffalo48
BY 29final margin
BroncosDenver19
Buffalo Bills 48 at Denver Broncos 19. Final.
Bills -5.5 ✓O 49 ✓
The verdict · 2020 Week 15
Buffalo Bills 48, Broncos 19 — and it was over early.
It turned at Q1 10:15, 4th and 7, on Taylor Russolino — 6.3 win-probability points to the Bills on one snap, the largest move of the game.
The snaps that bent it
The biggest swing of the game · Q1 10:15 · 4th and 7
Taylor Russolino
Bills
(10:15) 1-T.Russolino 51 yard field goal is No Good, Wide Right, Center-46-J.Bobenmoyer, Holder-6-S.Martin.
Bills closed -5.5 and covered, winning by 29.
Buffalo Bills 48–19 — never really in doubt late. Biggest swing: Q1 10:15, Bills +6.3% win probability on one snap.
6.3
win-probability points on one snap
The largest move of the game. The two below are drawn against it.
Drew LockBroncosQ1 12:24(12:24) (Shotgun) 3-D.Lock scrambles up the middle to BUF 36 for 13 yards (24-T.Johnson).
5.8pts
Stefon DiggsBillsQ1 8:12(8:12) (Shotgun) 17-J.Allen pass short right to 14-S.Diggs ran ob at DEN 31 for 15 yards. Penalty on DEN-41-D.Bausby, Illegal Contact, declined.
5.7pts
What separated them
Throwing the ball
Bills won this one — +0.69 expected points per dropback, against Broncos at -0.32 expected points per dropback.
Billsthe gap went the way the scoreboard did
Every snap
Bills won this one — +0.50 expected points per snap, against Broncos at -0.13 expected points per snap.
Billsthe gap went the way the scoreboard did
Red zone
Broncos owned this one and still lost it — 3 touchdowns on 3 trips, against Bills at 2 touchdowns on 8 trips.
Broncosthe gap went the other way from the scoreboard
Explosive plays
Bills won this one — 10 chunk plays, against Broncos at 5 chunk plays.
1 other measure was inside a third of the league's own spread — two clubs doing the same thing, so it is not shown.
Drawn from the weekly play-by-play file, which paints on the Monday 4:00 AM ET sync after the game.
The model against the market, the momentum underneath, every drive — scrub to replay it
How the game was won
The model and the market were 8.7 win-probability points apart on the average play, and 30 apart at the widest — with the model the more convinced about Broncos.
MarketModelmodel higher on Broncoshigher on Bills173 of 183 plays carry both curves
(10:15) 1-T.Russolino 51 yard field goal is No Good, Wide Right, Center-46-J.Bobenmoyer, Holder-6-S.Martin.
Swing −6.3 for BroncosExpected points −2.89 for BroncosThe model had Broncos 24 points higher than the market did.play 12
The solid line is the betting market's home win probability; the dashed line is the play-by-play model's. The shaded band between them is the disagreement — emerald where the model liked the home team more, red where it liked the away team more. Drag across the curve or use arrow keys to replay the game; gold diamonds mark the biggest swings.
Highest-leverage plays
1st · 10:15BUF +6% win prob(10:15) 1-T.Russolino 51 yard field goal is No Good, Wide Right, Center-46-J.Bobenmoyer, Holder-6-S.Martin.
1st · 12:24DEN +6% win prob(12:24) (Shotgun) 3-D.Lock scrambles up the middle to BUF 36 for 13 yards (24-T.Johnson).
1st · 8:12DEN +6% win prob(8:12) (Shotgun) 17-J.Allen pass short right to 14-S.Diggs ran ob at DEN 31 for 15 yards. Penalty on DEN-41-D.Bausby, Illegal Contact, declined.
2nd · 6:34DEN +6% win prob(6:34) (Shotgun) 25-M.Gordon left guard for 10 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
1st · 4:12DEN +4% win prob(4:12) (Shotgun) 17-J.Allen pass short right to 88-D.Knox for 9 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
2nd · 10:37DEN +4% win prob(10:37) (Shotgun) 17-J.Allen scrambles up the middle for 24 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
1st · 10:20
SettledThe modelled figures are the league play-by-play model's, not ours.
How the points landed
The margin ledger
Dawson Knox's 9-yard touchdown catch with 4:12 left in the 1st put Buffalo Bills ahead for good. The lead never changed over the 10 scores that followed.
Bills ahead 8–1 on categories, including the biggest gap of the duel — turnovers.
Expected points added, per play
The centre line is an average play. A bar to the right of it is a side that gained more than the situation was worth; a bar to the left is a side that lost ground. All six bars share one scale, ±0.69 points.
Every snapexpected points added per play, all downs
+0.50Bills: +0.50 expected points added per play
−0.13Broncos: −0.13 expected points added per play
Dropping backexpected points added per dropback
+0.69Bills: +0.69 expected points added per play
−0.32Broncos: −0.32 expected points added per play
Running itexpected points added per rush
+0.12Bills: +0.12 expected points added per play
+0.17Broncos: +0.17 expected points added per play
Neither side “wins” volume or play-calling mix, so neither is drawn as a duel: Bills ran 65 snaps at a 66% dropback rate against Broncos’s 63 at 62%. Red-zone trips: Bills 8, Broncos 3.
NoteBills won the down-to-down efficiency fight: 0.50 expected points added per play vs -0.13.
Derived from the play-by-play, no model
The Read
6 of 7 readings cleared their snap floor and were tested against four comparisons: this week's whole slate, the team's own season, the week before, and the team's own ordinary spread. Every bar below is set in that team's own week-to-week swing, never in league points — one team's swing runs 1.6 to 3.1 times the entire league's spread.
Nothing cleared the bars. No reading led the week's slate, set a season mark, reversed the week before, or sat two of the team's own standard deviations off their number — which is what most Sundays look like, and is the finding rather than a gap.
The season-grain rooms, pointed at this one game
Was this normal for them?
6 of 8 readings cleared their snap floor. Every deviation below is measured in that team's own game-to-game swing, not in league points — because one game's swing runs from 1.6 to 3.1 times the whole league's spread.
their week-to-week swingall 32 teams
upper band = their week-to-week swing · lower rule = all 32 teams · scale -37 pts to 35 pts
inside their normal wobble · −4.4 vs their 14.6%, and they swing ±6.0 week to week (−0.73× that swing) · 39 dropbacks
Broncos14.0%
right on their number · −1.0 vs their 14.9%, and they swing ±6.5 week to week (−0.15× that swing) · 43 dropbacks
Play-action rate
Charted from 2022. The columns exist for 2020 and are entirely empty, which is not a season of data.
Blitz rate sent
Charted from 2022. The columns exist for 2020 and are entirely empty, which is not a season of data.
NoteNothing either side did tonight left its own normal range. The widest departure was BUF's sack or hit rate, 10.3% against a season mean of 14.6% — and BUF swings 6.0 points week to week, so that is a Sunday, not a plan.
The Game Day Roster
Who was out, who dressed and never took a snap, and who was on the field how much. Game-day list and snap counts from the weekly roster and snap feeds. Practice-squad and injured-reserve players are not shown — they were never on the game-day list.
Snap, route and expected-points data starts in 2021. This game is older than the usage record, so there is no opportunity read for it — the box score above is the complete picture we hold.
The field map
Every snap, where it happened
The whole game as one hundred yards. The Broncos attack right, the Bills attack left, so a change of possession is a reversal you can see. Reading down is the order the snaps were played — not the clock, so a two-minute drill gets the same room as any other fourteen snaps. This game is final.
Bills←Broncos→
Q1Q2Q3Q4
J.Allen pass+10% win probabilitymoment 2 of 4
(8:12) (Shotgun) 17-J.Allen pass short right to 14-S.Diggs ran ob at DEN 31 for 15 yards. Penalty on DEN-41-D.Bausby, Illegal Contact, declined.
Q1 8:12 · Bills · 3rd & 8 at DEN 46 · gained 15 · +2.45 EP · +10.0% win probability
171 snaps placed · 12 without a recorded yard line, left off the map · 4 marked moments — the largest win-probability swings, one per drive.
The Film Room · post-game
Post-game film: 183 plays across 22 drives, personnel groupings on 183 snaps. Everything here paints once the weekly sync ingests the game — there is no live play-level feed in this product, so nothing on this page updates while a game is being played.
Possession by possession
The field rail
10 of 22 drives ended in points. The longest march was BUF moving 95 yards from the BUF 5 for a touchdown. Each bar is the ground a drive actually covered; DEN attacks right, BUF attacks left. Hatching marks a trip inside the twenty.
Every snap
Play stream
183 of 183 plays
Team
Quarter
Down
Play type
Expected points added
Event
Charted
Plays shown
183
EPA per play
+0.16
Success rate
46%
Yards
789
Who was on the field
Personnel groupings
Offensive grouping on every pass and run. A group needs five snaps in this game before it gets a number — under that the sample is a coin flip and the cell reads a dash instead. The names of the eleven on the field are only recorded from 2023 onward, so this game gives the grouping without the roster.
Broncos1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR47+0.1355%
Bills1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR37+0.5670%
Bills1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR15+0.4733%
Broncos1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR14-0.9457%
Bills1 RB, 0 TE, 4 WR8+0.9488%
Broncos1 RB, 3 TE, 1 WR2——
Bills2 RB, 0 TE, 3 WR2——
Bills0 RB, 1 TE, 4 WR1——
Bills1 RB, 2 TE, 0 WR1——
Bills1 RB, 2 TE, 1 WR1——
snapsepapass rate
183 plays · ranked by the win probability each one moved
Every play
Ball
When
Play
Only
Who
183 plays
Bar length is win probability the play moved
1st quarter39 plays
No good11 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Bills 33
FormationShotgunOffense on the fieldOne back and four receiversDefense on the fieldThree linemen, two linebackers and six backsRoute runHitchCoverageCover 1, man with a free safetyMan or zoneManIn the boxFive defendersRushing the passerFivePressure (charted)The passer was kept cleanTime to throw3.5 seconds
Bills6Broncos0
Bills7Broncos0
Touchdown16 plays, from the Bills 41 to the Broncos 9
Punt7 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Bills 45
The period ended4 plays, from the Bills 5 to the Bills 15
2nd quarter59 plays
Bills13Broncos0
Bills14Broncos0
Touchdown10 plays, from the Bills 17 to the Broncos 24
Punt5 plays
Bills14Broncos6
Bills14Broncos7
Touchdown7 plays, from the Bills 35 to the Bills 10
Punt5 plays, from the Bills 24 to the Bills 28
Punt4 plays, from the Broncos 5 to the Broncos 7
Bills20Broncos7
Bills21Broncos7
Touchdown9 plays, from the Bills 41 to the Broncos 5
Bills21Broncos13
Touchdown17 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Bills 6
The period ended2 plays
3rd quarter45 plays
Bills27Broncos13
Bills28Broncos13
Touchdown10 plays, from the Broncos 43 to the Broncos 1
Bills34Broncos13
Touchdown2 plays
Bills35Broncos13
Punt5 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Broncos 29
Turnover on downs5 plays, from the Bills 32 to the Broncos 4
Punt5 plays, from the Broncos 4 to the Broncos 5
Bills38Broncos13
Field goal13 plays, from the Bills 42 to the Broncos 1
The period ended4 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Broncos 28
4th quarter40 plays
Punt5 plays, from the Broncos 37 to the Bills 49
Bills41Broncos13
Field goal12 plays, from the Bills 5 to the Broncos 9
Bills41Broncos19
Touchdown14 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Bills 8
Bills47Broncos19
Bills48Broncos19
Touchdown3 plays
The period ended5 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Broncos 28
Win probability is the league play-by-play model, 98.5% of plays · a dash means none was published
