Omaha 2.6.0
Released 13 October 2026
Long field goals now go in about as often as they do in real games. Teams score more points as a result, and our team scoring forecast improves by almost two points in both seasons we checked. The eleven figures below are unchanged, with the average at +10.8% before and after.
How to read these numbers
Every figure below compares the simulation against a player’s own season average so far, scaled to how much of the game is left, roughly what a reader could work out without us. Zero means we add nothing over that. Positive means we beat it; negative means we are worse than it.
Measured across the 2024 season, weeks 1–18, rebuilding the model each week using only what was known at the time. 400 simulations per situation.
The change column is simply this version’s accuracy minus 2.5.0’s, each measured across everything that version covers, so the two columns you can see always account for it. We also measure the change on shared situations alone, which is a more sensitive test; where the two disagree we publish this one.
Accuracy by stat
| Stat | vs. season average | Change from 2.5.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Receiving touchdownsrare event | +20.4% | +0.26 |
| Rushing touchdownsrare event | +18.2% | +0.12−0.12 to +0.33 |
| Receiving yards | +14.7% | −0.02−0.03 to +0.03 |
| Pass attempts | +12.9% | −0.03−0.12 to +0.06 |
| Rushing yards | +12.7% | −0.04−0.09 to +0.04 |
| Passing yards | +11.0% | −0.08−0.17 to +0.02 |
| Completions | +9.6% | −0.09−0.19 to +0.03 |
| Passing touchdownsrare event | +6.9% | −0.18 |
| Rush attempts | +4.1% | +0.02−0.08 to +0.08 |
| Targets | +3.9% | +0.02−0.05 to +0.10 |
| Receptions | +3.8% | +0.04−0.02 to +0.15 |
| Average across all figures | +10.8% |
The average is an unweighted mean across the figures above. It is a summary of how we are doing, not a single score for the model: yards and counts are not measured in the same units, so combining them any more cleverly than this would just let passing yards decide the answer.
Each change carries the range the measurement can actually support. A change whose range crosses zero is shown in neutral rather than as a gain: we cannot tell it apart from no change, and we are not claiming it as one.
What changed
The simulation decided whether a kick was good using a curve we had set by hand, and it was far too pessimistic about long kicks. Teams in the simulation tried long field goals as often as real teams do, then missed most of them, scored nothing and gave the ball away. The curve is now fitted to real kicks from the seasons the simulation learns from.
From 50 to 54 yards, real kickers make 73% of their attempts. The old curve made 31% and the fitted one makes 74%. From 55 to 59 yards it is 63% real, 17% before and 63% now.
More made kicks means more points, and the simulation had been projecting too few. Team points are scored but not among the eleven figures on this page. We report them here because they are the reason this release exists.
Simulated points per team rise from 19.9 to 20.8 a game, against a real 22.9. The team points forecast improves by 1.9 points across 2024 and 1.8 across 2025, with both ranges clear of zero.
A made field goal changes the score, which changes how the rest of a game is played, but not by enough to move any player's figures. Every one of the eleven moves by less than a fifth of a point.
What this version still gets wrong
- The simulation still projects about two points a game too few for each team. Most of what is left is near the goal line, where it reaches the one-yard line less often than real teams do.
- Every kicker is treated as league average. A reliable kicker and an unreliable one make long kicks at the same rate in the simulation.
- Passing touchdowns move down 0.2 points across all of 2024. They are level in 2025 and level on a game-by-game comparison, so we read it as noise.