No, I’m not sure why the NFL is starting its season on a Wednesday.
asserted
NFL → ’m → Wednesday
But I won’t complain because it should be a hell of a lot more fun than watching the Republican midterm convention.
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it → complain → convention
The NFL is back tonight with a Super Bowl rematch between the Patriots and Seahawks, and then the Rams will play the 49ers tomorrow night U.S. time in Melbourne, Australia.
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Rams → play → Melbourne
Over the weekend, we relaunched our NFL model, ELWAY, and our quarterback rating system, QBERT.
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we → relaunche → model
ELWAY made some smart calls last year — it was bullish on the Seahawks and the Pats, for instance — but also had its share of misses, clinging to hope for the Chiefs, Lions and Ravens until it was far too late.
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it → make → Chiefs
Never satisfied, we’ve made quite a few improvements to ELWAY and QBERT this year and also upgraded our charts and visual presentation.
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we → make → charts
Since ELWAY is still a relatively new system, I thought it would be better to show you the season through the model’s eyes, rather than giving you some sort of traditional, 32-team X’s-and-O’s preview.
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it → think → preview
Therefore, we’re officially dubbing this a rare sports Model Talk.
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we → dub → this
So see the ELWAY landing page for our final, extremely detailed preseason forecast.1 This newsletter is intended as a complement, a hybrid between a season preview and an explainer.
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newsletter → see → preview
But a lot of this should interest even medium-nerdy football fans.
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lot → interest → fans
For example, we have a fun way to account for strength of schedule by scrambling the positions of all 32 teams in each simulation.
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we → have → simulation
Here’s what we’ll cover:
How ELWAY compares to Vegas;
Which teams are helped and hurt the most by the schedule;
The impact of injuries;
Roster ratings versus performance ratings and how ELWAY combines them;
Finally, the impact of quarterbacks, who are especially important in ELWAY because of QBERT.
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who → ’ → QBERT
How ELWAY compares to Vegas
A projection model will never solve the problem that a 17-game NFL season with imbalanced schedules is inherently going to introduce a degree of randomness.
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season → compare → randomness
The best teams in 2025 had little correlation with the elite sides of 2024: the Patriots were 4-13 two years ago.
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Patriots → have → 2024
Few teams are on a sustainable, multi-year dynastic streak like we used to see with Brady’s Patriots or the Peak Mahomes Chiefs.
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we → use → Patriots
Josh Allen is probably the best QB in the sport, but he’s coming off his lowest passing yardage total since 2019.
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he → come → 2019
Lamar Jackson’s year was a lost cause.
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year → lose → ?
Drake Maye has an argument for being the most valuable long-term asset in the league, but the adjustments we made to QBERT this summer — and his middling performance in the playoffs — hurt him.
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we → have → him
Mahomes has a chance for a remarkable recovery, but he’s coming off an ACL/MCL tear.
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he → have → tear
Still, one thing that helps when working on a sports model is that you can use Vegas odds2 as a sanity check.
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you → help → check
That doesn’t mean Vegas is necessarily right, and we think ELWAY has a few insights that typical sports bettors might lack, like about the importance of injuries.
uncertain
bettors → mean → injuries
Moreover, it would be boring if models perfectly aligned with Vegas on every game.
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models → align → game
But if your model shows profound, systematic differences from Vegas, it’s probably doing something wrong.
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it → show → something
So here’s a comparison table between ELWAY’s season win totals and Vegas’s.
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table → ’ → totals
We think ELWAY is a really cool model.
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ELWAY → think → ?
But before we go behind the paywall, keep in mind that NFL betting lines are notoriously tough to beat.
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lines → go → mind
We wouldn’t necessarily expect ELWAY alone to be enough.
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ELWAY → expect → ?
Late-breaking injuries and weather can also materially affect betting lines after ELWAY posts its weekly update.
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ELWAY → break → update
ELWAY + football knowledge + some betting street smarts might bring you closer.
uncertain
ELWAY → bring → you
But we’re mostly using this as a diagnostic exercise.
asserted
we → use → exercise
The differences between ELWAY and Vegas can reveal how the model “thinks” about football.
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model → reveal → football
The Aporia
