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Carolina Panthers 6 at New Orleans Saints 28. Final.
Saints -5.5 ✓U 39 ✓
The verdict · 2023 Week 14
New Orleans Saints 28, Panthers 6 — and it was over early.
It turned at Q1 6:30, 1st and 10, on Bryce Young — 11.4 win-probability points to the Saints on one snap, the largest move of the game.
The snaps that bent it
The biggest swing of the game · Q1 6:30 · 1st and 10
Bryce Young
Saints
(6:30) 9-B.Young sacked at CAR 37 for -12 yards (31-J.Howden). FUMBLES (31-J.Howden) [56-D.Davis], RECOVERED by NO-20-P.Werner at CAR 37. 20-P.Werner to CAR 36 for 1 yard.
Dome
Saints closed -5.5 and covered, winning by 22.
New Orleans Saints 28–6 — never really in doubt late. Biggest swing: Q1 6:30, Saints +11.4% win probability on one snap.
11.4
win-probability points on one snap
The largest move of the game. The two below are drawn against it.
Blake GrupePanthersQ1 9:07(9:07) 19-B.Grupe 29 yard field goal is No Good, Wide Left, Center-49-Z.Wood, Holder-39-L.Hedley.
9.9pts
Unnamed on the sheetSaintsQ2 4:43(4:43) (Punt formation) 10-J.Hekker to CAR 16 for -10 yards (45-N.Sewell). FUMBLES (45-N.Sewell), touched at CAR 15, RECOVERED by NO-52-D.Jackson at CAR 8. 52-D.Jackson for 8 yards, TOUCHDOWN. CAR-10-J.Hekker was injured during the play.
10.8pts
What separated them
Red zone
Saints won this one — 3 touchdowns on 4 trips, against Panthers at 0 touchdowns on 2 trips.
Saintsthe gap went the way the scoreboard did
Explosive plays
Panthers owned this one and still lost it — 8 chunk plays, against Saints at 3 chunk plays.
Panthersthe gap went the other way from the scoreboard
Staying on schedule
Saints won this one — 44% of snaps stayed on schedule, against Panthers at 35% of snaps stayed on schedule.
Saintsthe gap went the way the scoreboard did
Giveaways
Saints won this one — 1 giveaway, against Panthers at 2 giveaways.
1 other measure was inside a third of the league's own spread — two clubs doing the same thing, so it is not shown.
1 of the 3 swings name a man the week's roster cannot confirm, so that portrait is withheld.
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 5.9 win-probability points apart on the average play, and 16 apart at the widest — with the model the more convinced about Panthers.
MarketModelmodel higher on Saintshigher on Panthers160 of 168 plays carry both curves
(6:30) 9-B.Young sacked at CAR 37 for -12 yards (31-J.Howden). FUMBLES (31-J.Howden) [56-D.Davis], RECOVERED by NO-20-P.Werner at CAR 37. 20-P.Werner to CAR 36 for 1 yard.
Swing +11.4 for SaintsExpected points +6.55 for SaintsThe model had Panthers 16 points higher than the market did.play 22
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 · 6:30CAR +11% win prob(6:30) 9-B.Young sacked at CAR 37 for -12 yards (31-J.Howden). FUMBLES (31-J.Howden) [56-D.Davis], RECOVERED by NO-20-P.Werner at CAR 37. 20-P.Werner to CAR 36 for 1 yard.
2nd · 4:43CAR +11% win prob(4:43) (Punt formation) 10-J.Hekker to CAR 16 for -10 yards (45-N.Sewell). FUMBLES (45-N.Sewell), touched at CAR 15, RECOVERED by NO-52-D.Jackson at CAR 8. 52-D.Jackson for 8 yards, TOUCHDOWN. CAR-10-J.Hekker was injured during the play.
1st · 9:07CAR +10% win prob(9:07) 19-B.Grupe 29 yard field goal is No Good, Wide Left, Center-49-Z.Wood, Holder-39-L.Hedley.
3rd · 7:18NO +7% win prob(7:18) 6-M.Sanders right guard pushed ob at NO 1 for 48 yards (29-P.Adebo).
3rd · 0:52NO +6% win prob(:52) 9-B.Young pass deep left to 19-A.Thielen pushed ob at NO 19 for 32 yards (29-P.Adebo).
1st · 5:00CAR +6% win prob(5:00) (Shotgun) 4-D.Carr pass incomplete short right [95-Der.Brown]. PENALTY on NO-4-D.Carr, Intentional Grounding, 10 yards, enforced at CAR 29.
SettledThe modelled figures are the league play-by-play model's, not ours.
How the points landed
The margin ledger
Alvin Kamara's 9-yard rushing touchdown with 15:00 left in the 2nd put New Orleans Saints ahead for good. The lead never changed over the 5 scores that followed.
Lead
2nd15:00Alvin Kamara·9-yd TD run9-yard rushing touchdownLead never changed again+70–7
2nd9:21Eddy Pineiro·47-yd field goal47-yard field goalholder J.Hekker · snap J.Jansen+33–7
Saints ahead 5–4 on categories, including the biggest gap of the duel — red-zone touchdowns.
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, ±0.61 points.
Every snapexpected points added per play, all downs
−0.33Panthers: −0.33 expected points added per play
−0.19Saints: −0.19 expected points added per play
Dropping backexpected points added per dropback
−0.61Panthers: −0.61 expected points added per play
−0.35Saints: −0.35 expected points added per play
Running itexpected points added per rush
+0.01Panthers: +0.01 expected points added per play
+0.00Saints: +0.00 expected points added per play
Neither side “wins” volume or play-calling mix, so neither is drawn as a duel: Panthers ran 79 snaps at a 54% dropback rate against Saints’s 50 at 54%. Red-zone trips: Panthers 2, Saints 4.
NotePanthers outgained Saints 303-209 but lost the turnover battle 2-1. That was the game.
Derived from the play-by-play, no model
The Read
11 of 12 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
CAR's blitz rate sent, 48.1%, was the highest of the 30 team-games charted in week 14 — 1.6 points clear of the next team along.
27 dropbacks this game, floor 12 — 17 of their games behind the ruler, and their own week-to-week swing is 12.0 points.
CAR's fourth-and-short go rate turned over: 33.3% in week 13 against 80.0% here — they took the kick then and went for it now, a turn of 2.1 of their own weekly swings across the two.
5 fourth-and-short calls this game, floor 3 — 15 of their games behind the ruler, and their own week-to-week swing is 22.1 points.
NO's pass rate over expected turned over: −16.7 pts in week 13 against −2.0 pts here — they ran more than the situation asked then and threw more than the situation asked now, a turn of 2.8 of their own weekly swings across the two.
50 snaps this game, floor 20 — 17 of their games behind the ruler, and their own week-to-week swing is 5.3 points.
The season-grain rooms, pointed at this one game
Was this normal for them?
11 of 12 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 -27 pts to 16 pts
leaned — got home · +8.0 vs their 14.2%, and they swing ±6.5 week to week (+1.25× that swing) · 27 dropbacks
Saints16.3%
inside their normal wobble · +5.1 vs their 11.2%, and they swing ±5.6 week to week (+0.92× that swing) · 43 dropbacks
NoteNO's blitz rate sent was the night's one real departure: 46.5%, 25.8 points above their season mean of 20.7% and 2.3 times their own 11.4-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.
2 players played under 8 snaps, so their shares read as a dash rather than a number.
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 Saints attack right, the Panthers 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.
Panthers←Saints→
Q1Q2Q3Q4
B.Young sacked−19% win probabilitymoment 2 of 4
(6:30) 9-B.Young sacked at CAR 37 for -12 yards (31-J.Howden). FUMBLES (31-J.Howden) [56-D.Davis], RECOVERED by NO-20-P.Werner at CAR 37. 20-P.Werner to CAR 36 for 1 yard.
Q1 6:30 · Panthers · 1st & 10 at CAR 49 · lost 12 · -6.55 EP · −18.8% win probability
158 snaps placed · 10 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 23 drives, personnel groupings on 158 snaps, the eleven on the field by name, manual charting on 163. 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 23 drives ended in points. The longest march was CAR moving 75 yards from the CAR 14 for a field goal. Each bar is the ground a drive actually covered; NO attacks right, CAR 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
-0.26
Success rate
37%
Yards
510
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. Open any play above to see the eleven men who were actually on the field for it.
Panthers1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR73-0.1651%
Saints1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR32-0.4159%
Saints1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR7+0.4843%
Saints2 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR6-0.4417%
Panthers2 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR3——
Panthers1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR2——
Saints1 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR2——
Saints2 RB, 1 TE, 1 WR1——
Saints1 RB, 0 TE, 3 WR1——
Panthers0 RB, 3 TE, 0 WR1——
Saints1 RB, 3 TE, 1 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 quarter36 plays
Punt5 plays, from the Panthers 15 to the Panthers 18
No good11 plays, from the Saints 44 to the Panthers 11
How the play was built
Play action, nobody in motion.
Thrown out of the scramble drill, from outside the pocket, it should have been intercepted.
FormationUnder centerOffense on the fieldOne quarterback, one back, two tight ends and two receiversDefense on the fieldFour linemen, three linebackers and four backsRoute runGoCoverageCover 1, man with a free safetyMan or zoneManIn the boxEight defendersRushing the passerSixPressure (charted)The passer was pressured
Fumble lost5 plays, from the Panthers 20 to the Panthers 49
Punt4 plays, from the Panthers 36 to the Panthers 29
Punt4 plays, from the Panthers 12 to the Panthers 19
The period ended6 plays, from the Panthers 44 to the Panthers 11
2nd quarter51 plays
Panthers0Saints6
Panthers0Saints7
Touchdown2 plays
Panthers3Saints7
Field goal13 plays, from the Panthers 25 to the Saints 29
Punt8 plays, from the Saints 25 to the Saints 43
How the play was built
Empty backfield, nobody in motion.
Offense on the fieldOne free safety, two inside linebackers, one long snapper, one outside linebacker, one punter, two strong safeties and three tight endsDefense on the fieldTwo linemen, four linebackers and four backs
Panthers3Saints13
Touchdown4 plays, from the Panthers 18 to the Panthers 26
Panthers3Saints14
The period ended13 plays, from the Panthers 13 to the Saints 45
Intercepted4 plays, from the Saints 46 to the Panthers 41
The period ended5 plays
3rd quarter32 plays
Drive ended3 plays, from the Saints 34 to the Saints 38
Punt5 plays, from the Saints 43 to midfield
Panthers6Saints14
Field goal12 plays, from the Panthers 14 to the Saints 1
Punt5 plays, from the Saints 25 to the Saints 33
The period ended6 plays, from the Panthers 30 to the Saints 19
4th quarter49 plays
No good3 plays, from the Saints 18 to the Saints 17
Punt4 plays, from the Saints 31 to the Saints 33
Turnover on downs8 plays, from the Panthers 24 to the Saints 36
Panthers6Saints20
Panthers6Saints21
Touchdown6 plays, from the Saints 36 to the Panthers 7
Turnover on downs5 plays
Panthers6Saints27
Panthers6Saints28
Touchdown7 plays, from the Panthers 24 to the Panthers 4
Turnover on downs13 plays, from the Panthers 25 to the Saints 24
The period ended3 plays
Win probability is the league play-by-play model, 98.5% of plays · a dash means none was published
