Win Probability!
September 15th, 2026
Ball security wasn’t an issue for Baker Mayfield on this play. It was too many times, otherwise.
One sports fad of the third decade of the 21st century is a complete and total mystery to Joe.
What is the deal with win probabilities? And why do people care? It has to be some gambling thing, right? America cannot be this obsessed with stat geekery, can we?
So-and-so just farted into the catcher’s face mask. That gives his team a win probability of 42 percent.
Who. Gives. A. Eff?!
But to play along with the numbers crowd, how badly was the Bucs’ win probability after Baker Mayfield played Santa Claus in Cincinnati? The Bucs still had a better than expected win probability, per Nick Shook of NFL.com.
NEXT GEN STATS INSIGHT: Baker Mayfield’s three lost fumbles decreased the Buccaneers’ win probability by a combined 32.9 percentage points in Sunday’s loss to the Bengals.
The way some folks talk about turnovers, Joe figured Mayfield doomed Tampa Bay, maybe down to a 2 percent shot. Not only did the Bucs nearly make a comeback, they had a third of a chance to win.
Joe is more of a win certainty guy. As long as you have more points than the other team when the clock hits 0:00, you win.
That’s what concerns Joe. And the Bucs failed at that Sunday, no matter how much you want to play with a calculator.
September 15th, 2026 at 12:16 am
I’m optimistic, I just watched players like trotter and Benjamin Morrison step up we seen Bucky make cuts and jukes similar to his rookie year. Ebuka looks like a true #1 receiver. Chris Godwin looks very good considering his age and his past injuries. Ted hurst showed with a lil more time he can perform well in the big leagues. If baker don’t fumble the game away we would be talking about how zyon McCollum and Morrison held Jamar chase and tee Higgins to under 80 yards combined. Even with the turnovers the Bucs still had a dam good chance and all this with no pass rush. It’s a long season and Bucs just went to Cincinnati(a Super Bowl contender) and really made it a game. I’m not too beat down about this loss baker needs to wake tf up though!
September 15th, 2026 at 12:17 am
“As long as you have more points than the other team when the clock hits 0:00, you win.”
Ask Western Michigan about that!!
September 15th, 2026 at 12:17 am
It says decreased the win probability by 39 pp, not that the win probability was 39%
September 15th, 2026 at 12:25 am
Buccaneers lost all four fumbles. That’s incredibly BAD LUCK. On average NFL Teams normally recover 5o-55 per cent of their own fumbles. If they had recovered even one, the outcome could have been different. Two, they likely would have won the game given they were averaging 5.2 yards per play and never counted the entire game
September 15th, 2026 at 12:26 am
Love the shock and angst about 0-1, as if they were expected to finish 17-0.
September 15th, 2026 at 12:26 am
High 5 Joe. For now I did see some satisfaction not encouragement, as of the first game but satisfaction, ( still have last year collapse in mind ) Special teams looked a little better so did the CBs. The offensive was decent. If you take away Cincinnati’s defensive score the Bucs win this game. So I guess I’ll just take a wait and see til we get deeper into the season
September 15th, 2026 at 12:46 am
To be honest the game took on a comic edge with each successive mistake the Bucs made. A couple of Baker’s fumbles had me imagining Chris Berman doing highlight “Whoops!” on SportsCenter back in the day.
No offense to either side of the coin for the ‘they suck’!’ or ‘playoff bound!’ Bucs fans – but this is an average team that had a bad day. They’re just good enough to piss everyone off for neither tanking or winning enough. The Bengals game encapsulated the bad, the Browns game will likely show the good. They’re just good enough to keep you watching – and that’s really what the business is about. To keep you hooked, whether you’re hopeful or seething.
As far as win probability went on Sunday, it dropped to near zero the moment Otten let a perfect ball hit the ground that would’ve gained 25 and Bucky coughed it up on the next play. That was game playing against Burrow with our coverage scheme.
September 15th, 2026 at 12:49 am
Baker not only cost the team 7 points on the fumble returned for a TD, he also fumbled into the opponent endzone, costing another 7 points. Then he cost the team another score when he fumbled at the Bucs 42, which in the modern NFL means at least a FG is given up.
That’s a 17 point swing in a 6-point loss.
In fact the defense on the day only gave up 16 points when the Bengals got the ball on their side of the field … and the Bucs defense scored 7 points. So that was a net 9 points the defense gave up to one of the NFL’s best offenses.
And thanks to the defense at least holding the Bengals to FGs on some drives, the Bucs were kept in the game as the Bengals defense did a very Bowles thing and went into a super soft shell and let the Bucs nearly come back.
Next week should be different.
Hopefully.
September 15th, 2026 at 2:27 am
This is like cavaliers coach saying analytically they won but in reality got swept by the knicks lol
September 15th, 2026 at 2:55 am
Joe was going to write something like that but figured it would fly over too many people’s heads. 🙂
September 15th, 2026 at 5:06 am
I had to take a second look, Morrison must have put on some muscle too, he certainly showed up many times. Overall I’m glad we had some great def moves. Trotter has become my new favorite, and Anzalone may need to sit if he continues to play the way he had. Dennis played better than him.
September 15th, 2026 at 5:41 am
Not many opportunities to punt during a game when you keep fumbling the ball away before you hit 4th down…
Jus’ sayin…