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Saints DeskThe Verdict

Saints earned the overtime win over Cleveland, 23-22, on a 71 percent game

The snaps gave New Orleans a 71% chance against the Browns, and a failed two-point try in overtime sealed it.

Crunch timeThe VerdictEarnedDeserved 71% · Week 9
By Saints Desk, Pigskin NightlyNov 10, 11:40 AM ET2 min read

The verdict

Played like that, the Saints win 71% of the time. The snaps pointed to a margin of 3.0 points for New Orleans, and the 23-22 overtime result against the Browns lands almost on top of that. Call it earned.

It did not feel clean, and it was not. Neither offense was good. But the Saints were less bad in the places that count, and the result followed the play.

What the score hid

EPA, or expected points added, grades every snap by how much it changes a team's scoring outlook. New Orleans finished at minus 0.07 per snap. Cleveland finished at minus 0.11. Both offenses lost value on the average play, and the Saints lost slightly less.

Success rate shows the gap more plainly: 44% for the Saints, 33% for the Browns. That is 11 points of difference in how often a snap kept an offense on schedule.

Luck was nearly absent. The game gave the Saints 0.4 luck points and took 0.4 from Cleveland, which is noise.

The swing play came in overtime. With 1:00 left in the extra period, the Browns went for two and the win. S.Sanders threw incomplete to D.Boston, the attempt failed, and Cleveland's win probability dropped by 47 points. A holding penalty on T.Howard was declined, so it changed nothing.

The calls

The fourth-down log is mostly quiet. Five of the six graded calls matched the model, including a field goal on fourth-and-10 from 12 yards out in the first quarter and another on fourth-and-8 from 30 yards out in the fourth. The one miss from the model's view came in the third quarter. On fourth-and-4 from 58 yards out, Kellen Moore punted, and the model leaned toward going for it. The cost was 0.3 expected points. It is a small error and a defensible one, and Moore gets a pass on it.

The flags mattered more than the fourth downs. The heaviest was a late illegal contact call on Cleveland in the fourth quarter at 7:57, worth 9 points of win probability to New Orleans. The Saints gave some back: offensive holding in overtime at 6:08 cost 10 yards and 6 points of win probability. Illegal contact in the second quarter and a defensive offside in the fourth cost them 5 and 2.

The trend

The record is 3-5, and the deserved-win count is 2.7. That leaves a luck margin of 0.3 wins, 13th among the 32 teams ranked luckiest first. The Saints are 3-3 in one-score games. By these numbers the record is about right, not cursed.

The breakdown is rougher. Total luck sits at minus 13.6 points, with minus 2.2 from fumble recoveries and minus 4 from opponent kicking. Net EPA is minus 0.097 per snap, 24th in the league.

The Chicken Index is 56%, 12th most timid. Moore has gone on 4 of the 9 fourth downs where the model said go, and the 38 graded decisions have cost 4 expected points, with 3 clear misses. The offense is also paying for 49 penalties and 330 yards.

The next test is Carolina at home on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 1:00 PM ET on Fox. The Panthers will show whether a win on a 71% game can become a pattern, and the third-down numbers will say first.

How this was reported. Every number in this piece comes from the play-by-play, drive, injury and snap data Pigskin Nightly collects for every game. EPA (expected points added) is from the open nflverse model. We do not use anonymous sources or invent quotes. Read how we write; spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it in the open.