Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Win Probability Chart That Gave Us Less Than a Percent Chance to Win Was 100 Percent Correct


Down 27-3 to the Los Angeles Rams, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers summoned almost every ounce of Tom Brady's proprietary magic and rallied to knot things up at 27 before Matthew Stafford turned in the moment of his career with a game-sealing parabola to Cooper Kupp. The defeat leaves the Super Bowl honors will go to a new team and the world left to wonder if that 44-year-old quarterback may actually turn in his uniform and pads. Fans of the franchise are searching for silver lines and were helpfully pointed in such a direction this afternoon by the team's Twitter account, which reminded everyone that Tampa Bay almost did the impossible.
According to the win probability chart produced by @NextGenStats, we had less than 1 percent chance of victory with 4:30 left in the fourth quarter before coming back to tie the game.
— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) January 28, 2022
Almost.
Outside of serving as artistic inspiration for a poorly-selling "We Tied the Game" commemorative shirt, it's tough to see how this will go over well. On the other hand, every day must yield its content and meaningful games are several months off in the distance.
Honestly, my takeaway here is that Next Gen Stats really knows what it's talking about. They have the Bucs almost no chance of winning the game and Tampa Bay didn't. By my math that's getting it 100 percent correct.