Gang Green Nation
It’s always easy to break a game down to a handful of plays that decided the outcome in the aftermath of a game. Often, it’s a big defensive swing like a sack or an interception or a big offensive play that sets up or scores a touchdown.
But in a close game like the New York Jets’ win (wow that’s nice to type) over the Cincinnati Bengals just about every play matters. To illustrate that, here is the down, distance, play description, and win probability at the end of the play for the Bengals last drive.
As shown here, The Bengals were favored to win even after the kickoff. For those Jets fans who assumed they’d blow it, the data didn’t seem to think you were being dramatic here.
Then the Bengals ripped off a nice run for 12 yards. At this point, the Bengals chances of victory were maximized for the drive at 54%. If you felt like the Jets were one more bad play from finding yet another way to lose then that sure seemed to be where the data was trending.
Then something magical happened: a stop… and another stop… and another stop and suddenly it was 4th down. Of those stops, the most important one seemed to be the run stop on second down that dropped the Bengals odds of victory from 50% to 41%. Was that a play that you remember vividly? Probably not, but it was really important all the same.
In the end, the Jets made the 4th down stop and the game was basically over. Heading into that play, the Bengals had life at a 35% chance of victory but the pass breakup ended any hope of that. Maybe the last drive wasn’t a roller coaster, but it sure had a bit of a rise and fall effect in the win probability all the same.
