The Most Expected Wins of the 2024 NFL Season

Win probability isn’t an exact science. It’s based on historical situations, and of course no two situations are the same. Grains of salt abound with any of them.

But they sure are fun to look at.

Sarah Langs has made a whole meme of the roller-coaster ride that is in-game win probability in baseball. Because sometimes it’s nice to just have fun. And today, I’m going back through the 2024 NFL season to find the safest wins of the season. A week ago, I looked at the true “Wheeee”s of the year, the games where things were all but decided until something wild happened. This week, it’s the inverse. According to ESPN’s win probability graphs, there were 10 games in the 2024 NFL season where a team never dipped below 70% win probability at any point in the game, and we’ll count them down.

Unlike last week’s, there are some takeaways here. The 10 games here feature largely good teams facing teams with top-10 picks in the 2025 NFL Draft in wholly uncompetitive performances. We know who the good and bad teams are, of course, but it’s still interesting to see when teams closed their opponents out decisively and quickly — for example, in the Wild Card Round, the Broncos never really threatened the Bills, never topped 50% win probability even after going ahead 7-0. But because they did put up that quick early touchdown, the Bills’ win probability dipped close to 50% a few times in the first quarter before the Bills hit the gas and closed things out. The games below had no such dips. Just domination.

(The percentage in each of these is the lowest it reached at any point in the game.)

The Most Expected Wins of the 2024 NFL Season.

10. Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. New York Giants, Week 12

70.5% win probability

The Giants were coming off their Week 11 bye in this game. On the other hand, they were 2-8 and had lost five in a row, so how much is a bye really going to help? The Buccaneers had lost four in a row entering their own Week 11 bye, but they were getting Mike Evans back from injury. The game opened with the Buccaneers at 70.5%, and … it never went below that. Tampa got the opening kickoff and drove 70 yards downfield in 14 plays before Sean Tucker ran it in. The Giants didn’t have a drive longer than 6 plays until the second half and didn’t score until they were down 30-0 in the fourth quarter.

9. Detroit Lions vs. Chicago Bears, Week 16

70.5% win probability

When the Bears played the Lions on Thanksgiving, their late drive to get within field goal range to tie (before, you know, it all went sideways) brought what had looked like a blowout to within shouting distance of a 50-50 game. In this one, there was … no such push. The Lions scored on each of their first five drives, while the Bears’ first four drives went punt-fumble-fumble-punt. Sure, the Bears scored two second-quarter touchdowns to get from 20-0 to 27-14 at halftime, but “Hey, we’re only down 13 to maybe the best team in the league” isn’t a path to much win probability.

8. Houston Texans vs. New England Patriots, Week 6

70.8% win probability

In Week 6, we still thought there was a decent chance the Texans were one of the league’s best teams instead of “winners of a bad division but ultimately a regular-season disappointment.” They entered 4-1, with their only loss at the hands of an at-the-time juggernaut Vikings. They looked the part early too, scoring touchdowns on each of their first two drives to go up 14-0. The Patriots notched a touchdown just before halftime to get to 14-7 and make it fringe-interesting, but then the Texans scored 13 points in the first 10 minutes of the third quarter. The Texans would lose three of four after this game and go 5-6 the rest of the regular season, but hey, that was a high note.

7. Houston Texans vs. Dallas Cowboys, Week 11

70.9% win probability

Well, hey, welcome back again, Texans. For a team that generally struggled, you had some real decisive wins over some bad teams. Week 11 was the Cowboys’ second game without Dak Prescott this season, and Cooper Rush had been all but a disaster in the first one, passing for 45 scoreless yards on 23 attempts. He had shown some light flashes in relief of Dak in previous years, so there was hope he could be competitive, but after that Week 10 performance, the hope was fairly extinguished. The Texans jumped to 70.9% early, though they struggled putting Dallas away — they were up 14-0, but the game got to 14-7 and 17-10 before the Texans outscored the Cowboys 17-0 in the second half.

6. San Francisco 49ers vs. New England Patriots, Week 4

74.4% win probability

The 49ers had three of the 13 least likely losses of the season, just another data point in support of the argument that they were this close to actually having a good season. This game, back in Week 4, was when everything (even the data) insisted the 49ers would actually be a stud team this year, and their 1-2 record was the aberration. They didn’t score until 2:26 left in the first quarter, didn’t score a touchdown until the second quarter, didn’t score an offensive touchdown until near halftime, so they didn’t come out strong, but they still got to a 20-0 lead. Meanwhile, the Patriots’ first five drives went punt-fumble-pick 6-turnover on downs-punt. It was Jacoby Brissett’s second-to-last start before the Patriots moved over to Drake Maye.

5. Baltimore Ravens vs. Cleveland Browns, Week 18

76.6% win probability

I’d have imagined more of these games would have come in Week 18 in matchups of teams with something to play for versus teams packing it in for the year. Instead, it’s just this one, the game that started Week 18. The Ravens needed a win to lock up the AFC North title and a home playoff game. The Browns … were starting Bailey Zappe, and then they alternated him with Dorian Thompson-Robinson for a bit. They even had extra incentive to lose, because if the Patriots and Titans had both won on Sunday, the Browns could have gotten the first overall pick. They only managed to get to Pick 2, but still, this was maybe the most “we know what’s going to happen” game all year, and Zappe’s pick 6 in the first quarter should have had everyone switch to a running clock.

4. Baltimore Ravens vs. New York Giants, Week 15

78.4% win probability

Hey, the Ravens again. Baltimore had lost two of three before its bye to fall to a disappointing 8-5, but then those losses were to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, so they were at least understandable losses (their Week 9-13 stretch of Denver-Cincinnati-Pittsburgh-LA Chargers-Philadelphia was brutal). Getting this eight-straight-losses Giants team after the bye was the ultimate palate-cleanser, and the Ravens knew it. The win probability was 86.6% at kickoff (which might be the highest I’ve ever seen). When Lamar Jackson fumbled on the opening drive and the Ravens punted on their second, some doubt came in, but the Ravens scored three touchdowns on three drives the rest of the half, and when Tommy DeVito was injured and Tim Boyle had to take over after the half, that was that.

3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Carolina Panthers, Week 17

78.9% win probability

The Panthers were frisky when Bryce Young returned from his benching. They went 5-6 from Week 8 on, including respectable wins over Arizona and Atlanta. But this game, against a Tampa team that desperately needed a win to get back to first place in the NFC South, was just never very competitive. The Panthers stayed in the game in the first quarter, tying it at 7 on their first drive. But the Bucs (and especially Baker Mayfield) hit the gas in the second quarter. They outscored Carolina 17-7 in the second quarter and 21-0 in the second half. Their win probability reached 97.0% before it even got to halftime (which is wild) and was a rounding error from 100% before it even got to the fourth quarter.

2. Detroit Lions vs. Jacksonville Jaguars, Week 11

81.0% win probability

The rare game when the team that never even got to a 20% win probability actually scored first. The Jaguars opened with a drive that soaked up a fair amount of clock (5:24) but gained basically no yards (29 yards after Devin Duvernay’s 29-yard return to open the game) before a 59-yard field goal. Going ahead was great, but the fact that you could take that much time to barely get across midfield and only score 3 points on a juggernaut Lions team was pretty awful. And then the Lions scored on basically every drive, with four touchdowns in four drives in the first half and three touchdowns and a field goal on their first four second-half drives before kneeling it out (in the red zone!) on their final drive to end the game. Going ahead was nice, but it was basically a speed bump for a monster truck, and the monster truck barely noticed.

1. Green Bay Packers vs. New Orleans Saints, Week 16

83.3% win probability.

The Saints were starting 5-9 and starting Spencer Rattler. The Packers were 10-4 and had won four of five. We hadn’t had a shutout all season before this game (people were murmuring!) before this Monday game to cap off the week. And … I mean, apologies to the Saints for having to be in a spotlight game for this, but it was about as noncompetitive as it could be. The Packers scored touchdowns on each of their first three drives, while the Saints’ first half featured 23 plays for a combined 82 yards, with two punts, a fumble and running out of time at the half. In the end, the Packers more than doubled the Saints’ yardage (404 to 196) with more yards on the ground (216) than the Saints had in total. New Orleans never reached the red zone and went 4-of-11 on third downs and 0-of-2 on fourth. The Saints’ leaders in scrimmage yardage were Foster Moreau (33), Jordan Mims (32), Kendre Miller (31) and Dante Pettis (31). Stop me when I get to a pro-Saints point.