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2021 Week 12 · Sun, Nov 28, 2021 · Empower Field at Mile High
Final
ChargersLos Angeles13
BY 15final margin
BroncosDenver28
Los Angeles Chargers 13 at Denver Broncos 28. Final.
Chargers -2.5 upset
The verdict · 2021 Week 12
Denver Broncos 28, Chargers 13 — with the result never quite settled.
It turned at Q3 1:29, 4th and 4, on Jalen Guyton — 12.7 win-probability points to the Chargers on one snap, the largest move of the game, and it still was not enough.
The snaps that bent it
The biggest swing of the game · Q3 1:29 · 4th and 4
Jalen Guyton
Chargers
(1:29) (Shotgun) 10-J.Herbert pass short right to 15-J.Guyton to DEN 19 for 15 yards (31-J.Simmons).
U 47.5 ✓
Chargers closed -2.5 and lost outright — an upset against the closing number.
Denver Broncos 28–13. Biggest swing: Q3 1:29, Chargers +12.7% win probability on one snap.
12.7
win-probability points on one snap
The largest move of the game. The two below are drawn against it.
Dustin HopkinsBroncosQ3 7:58(7:58) 6-D.Hopkins 52 yard field goal is No Good, Wide Left, Center-54-M.Overton, Holder-1-T.Long.
10.3pts
Patrick SurtainBroncosQ4 14:37(14:37) (Shotgun) 10-J.Herbert pass deep right intended for 87-J.Cook INTERCEPTED by 2-P.Surtain at DEN -2. Touchback.
11.7pts
What separated them
Staying on schedule
Chargers owned this one and still lost it — 51% of snaps stayed on schedule, against Broncos at 40% of snaps stayed on schedule.
Chargersthe gap went the other way from the scoreboard
Red zone
Broncos won this one — 3 touchdowns on 3 trips, against Chargers at 2 touchdowns on 3 trips.
Broncosthe gap went the way the scoreboard did
Running the ball
Broncos won this one — +0.06 expected points per carry, against Chargers at -0.16 expected points per carry.
Broncosthe gap went the way the scoreboard did
Third down
Broncos won this one — 7 of 11 on third down, against Chargers at 7 of 14 on third down.
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 9.1 win-probability points apart on the average play, and 15 apart at the widest — with the model the more convinced about Broncos.
MarketModelmodel higher on Broncoshigher on Chargers157 of 168 plays carry both curves
(1:29) (Shotgun) 10-J.Herbert pass short right to 15-J.Guyton to DEN 19 for 15 yards (31-J.Simmons).
Swing −12.7 for BroncosExpected points −3.63 for BroncosThe model had Broncos 12 points higher than the market did.play 121
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
3rd · 1:29DEN +13% win prob(1:29) (Shotgun) 10-J.Herbert pass short right to 15-J.Guyton to DEN 19 for 15 yards (31-J.Simmons).
4th · 14:37LAC +12% win prob(14:37) (Shotgun) 10-J.Herbert pass deep right intended for 87-J.Cook INTERCEPTED by 2-P.Surtain at DEN -2. Touchback.
3rd · 7:58LAC +10% win prob(7:58) 6-D.Hopkins 52 yard field goal is No Good, Wide Left, Center-54-M.Overton, Holder-1-T.Long.
2nd · 1:22LAC +10% win prob(1:22) (Shotgun) 3-D.Lock pass short right intended for 9-K.Hinton INTERCEPTED by 33-D.James at LAC 48. 33-D.James to DEN 47 for 5 yards (9-K.Hinton). Penalty on DEN-73-C.Fleming, Ineligible Downfield Pass, declined.
2nd · 12:50DEN +8% win prob(12:50) (Shotgun) 33-J.Williams up the middle for 9 yards, TOUCHDOWN.
4th · 11:42DEN +7% win prob(11:42) (Shotgun) 5-T.Bridgewater pass short left to 33-J.Williams to DEN 49 for 14 yards (43-M.Davis).
SettledThe modelled figures are the league play-by-play model's, not ours.
How the points landed
The margin ledger
Teddy Bridgewater's 11-yard rushing touchdown with 4:39 left in the 1st put Denver Broncos ahead for good. The lead never changed over the 5 scores that followed.
Lead
1st4:39Teddy Bridgewater·11-yd TD run11-yard rushing touchdownLead never changed again+70–7
4th4:44Jared Cook·16-yd TD catch16-yard touchdown catchfrom Justin Herbertfrom Justin Herbert · two-point no good+613–28
6 scores · bar length is the lead after each one
Down-to-down truth
Situational splits
Chargerscategory by categoryBroncos
Chargers3–4Broncos
357Total yards303
5.5Yards per play5.3
51%Success rate40%
50%Third-down rate64%
2Red-zone touchdowns3
4Explosive plays6
19First downs19
3Sacks taken1
2Turnovers2
The read
Broncos ahead 4–3 on categories, including the biggest gap of the duel — sacks taken.
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, ±0.35 points.
Every snapexpected points added per play, all downs
−0.01Chargers: −0.01 expected points added per play
+0.12Broncos: +0.12 expected points added per play
Dropping backexpected points added per dropback
+0.03Chargers: +0.03 expected points added per play
+0.20Broncos: +0.20 expected points added per play
Running itexpected points added per rush
−0.16Chargers: −0.16 expected points added per play
+0.06Broncos: +0.06 expected points added per play
Neither side “wins” volume or play-calling mix, so neither is drawn as a duel: Chargers ran 65 snaps at a 80% dropback rate against Broncos’s 57 at 46%. Red-zone trips: Chargers 3, Broncos 3.
NoteBroncos won the down-to-down efficiency fight: 0.12 expected points added per play vs -0.01.
Derived from the play-by-play, no model
The Read
7 of 8 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.
highest in the league that weekAgainst the weekTendencies
LAC's early-down pass rate, 75.0%, was the highest of the 30 team-games charted in week 12 — 2.3 points clear of the next team along.
48 early downs this game, floor 15 — 17 of their games behind the ruler, and their own week-to-week swing is 10.2 points.
The season-grain rooms, pointed at this one game
Was this normal for them?
7 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 -20 pts to 20 pts
right on their number · −2.4 vs their 13.9%, and they swing ±6.5 week to week (−0.37× that swing) · 26 dropbacks
Broncos17.3%
inside their normal wobble · +4.4 vs their 12.9%, and they swing ±4.6 week to week (+0.95× that swing) · 52 dropbacks
Play-action rate
Charted from 2022. The columns exist for 2021 and are entirely empty, which is not a season of data.
Blitz rate sent
Charted from 2022. The columns exist for 2021 and are entirely empty, which is not a season of data.
NoteDEN's early-down pass rate was the night's one real departure: 37.0%, 15.2 points below their season mean of 52.2% and 1.4 times their own 11.1-point weekly swing.
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.
6 players played under 8 snaps, so their shares read as a dash rather than a number. 3 lines have no expected-points read and sit off the plane.
Expected points are modelled in full PPR, so the “vs expected” column stays in that unit whichever format the pills are set to. Switching the pills changes the points column, not the plane.
The field map
Every snap, where it happened
The whole game as one hundred yards. The Broncos attack right, the Chargers 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.
Chargers←Broncos→
Q1Q2Q3Q4
J.Herbert pass+11% win probabilitymoment 4 of 4
(1:29) (Shotgun) 10-J.Herbert pass short right to 15-J.Guyton to DEN 19 for 15 yards (31-J.Simmons).
Q3 1:29 · Chargers · 4th & 4 at DEN 34 · gained 15 · +3.63 EP · +11.5% win probability
155 snaps placed · 13 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: 168 plays across 18 drives, personnel groupings on 168 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
5 of 18 drives ended in points. The longest march was DEN moving 80 yards from the DEN 20 for a touchdown. Each bar is the ground a drive actually covered; DEN attacks right, LAC attacks left. Hatching marks a trip inside the twenty.
Every snap
Play stream
168 of 168 plays
Team
Quarter
Down
Play type
Expected points added
Event
Charted
Plays shown
168
EPA per play
-0.04
Success rate
39%
Yards
659
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.
Chargers1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR47+0.0383%
Broncos1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR27+0.2252%
Chargers1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR17-0.0653%
Broncos1 RB, 3 TE, 1 WR16+0.0313%
Broncos1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR13-0.0662%
Chargers1 RB, 2 TE, 1 WR1——
Broncos1 RB, 4 TE, 0 WR1——
snapsepapass rate
168 plays · ranked by the win probability each one moved
Every play
Ball
When
Play
Only
Who
168 plays
Bar length is win probability the play moved
1st quarter38 plays
Punt12 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Chargers 33
Punt4 plays, from the Chargers 1 to the Chargers 10
Chargers0Broncos6
Chargers0Broncos7
Touchdown9 plays, from midfield to the Chargers 9
Punt5 plays, from the Chargers 25 to the Chargers 32
The period ended7 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Chargers 44
2nd quarter51 plays
Chargers0Broncos13
Chargers0Broncos14
Touchdown6 plays, from the Chargers 32 to the Chargers 8
Turnover on downs14 plays, from the Chargers 25 to the Broncos 35
Punt4 plays, from the Broncos 35 to the Broncos 43
Punt6 plays, from the Chargers 14 to the Chargers 30
Intercepted5 plays, from the Broncos 38 to the Chargers 48
Chargers6Broncos14
Chargers7Broncos14
Touchdown9 plays, from the Broncos 47 to the Broncos 12
The period ended7 plays, from the Broncos 25 to the Broncos 37
3rd quarter35 plays
No good16 plays, from the Chargers 25 to the Broncos 26
Punt5 plays, from the Broncos 43 to the Broncos 45
FormationShotgunOffense on the fieldOne back, one tight end and three receiversDefense on the fieldTwo linemen, three linebackers and six backsRoute runCrosserCoverageCover 3, three deepMan or zoneZoneIn the boxFive defendersRushing the passerFourPressure (charted)The passer was pressuredTime to throw5.9 seconds
The period ended14 plays, from the Chargers 25 to the Broncos 18
4th quarter44 plays
Intercepted2 plays
Chargers7Broncos20
Chargers7Broncos21
Touchdown11 plays, from the Broncos 20 to the Chargers 1
Chargers7Broncos27
Touchdown6 plays, from the Chargers 25 to the Broncos 37
Chargers7Broncos28
Chargers13Broncos28
Touchdown12 plays, from the Chargers 25 to the Broncos 16
The period ended12 plays, from the Broncos 23 to the Chargers 44
Win probability is the league play-by-play model, 98.5% of plays · a dash means none was published
