ESPN Says The Ravens (Who Won) Had A Sub-Zero Chance Of Winning

The graph above, tweeted out by ESPN Stats & Info last night, shows the win probability for the Ravens and Vikings over the fourth quarter of their ridiculous Sunday game, which saw five lead changes in the final two minutes.

The game was a classic, but the chart—which has a disastrous line smoothing that puts the Vikings at above a 100 percent chance of winning with a minute to go, and the Ravens at somewhere around 103 after Flacco's strike to Brown—is pretty misleading. Advanced NFL Stats's equally fun chart for the game had the decency to obey the laws of statistics, giving the Vikings a 93 percent chance of winning after their final kickoff. This seems like a more reasonable figure, given that a team scored a come-from-behind touchdown on a drive starting with less than a minute remaining from their own 20 just a month and a half ago.

I'm not sure how ESPN built out this chart, but I don't trust it against Brian Burke's excellent model, which recently got even better. Use that one instead.

[ ESPN Stats & Info]