A 3.2% Chance Isn’t Zero: The Rams Flipped the NFL’s Model Before the Fourth Quarter Was Out, and the Lesson Is Not to Sell at the Trough
Andrew Beaton’s Journal chart of Sunday’s win probability sinks to 3.2% in the fourth quarter, then climbs a cliff to 100%. A model’s number is a snapshot, not a verdict — in both directions.
By Sean Anees Saifi · Capital Wealth · Published Wednesday, October 7, 2026 · Source: The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, October 6, 2026, whose market figures are the Monday, October 5 close (Sports)
Key Points
Midway through the fourth quarter Sunday, Philadelphia led Los Angeles 20-10 with the ball two yards from the end zone; the NFL’s win-probability model gave the Rams a 3.2% chance.
A goal-line stand and a turnover on downs, then two Rams touchdown drives spanning 177 yards — including a 98-yard march over the next 10 plays — and a strip-sack of Jalen Hurts by Byron Young produced a 24-20 Rams road win.
The Eagles managed just 172 yards, their fewest in over a decade, and went 0-for-12 on third down — the most attempts without a conversion in recorded franchise history. They now have 15 three-and-outs this season, the most in the NFL.
Matthew Stafford had thrown two interceptions on the day — six on the season — before the comeback; the Rams were missing Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald, owners of five combined Defensive Player of the Year awards.
Both teams are 2-2. A year ago, the Eagles beat the Rams by blocking a field goal and returning it for a touchdown in the final seconds.
3.2%
Rams’ win probability, Eagles at the 2-yard line, 4th quarter
177 yd
two Rams touchdown drives after the goal-line stand
0-for-12
Eagles on third down, a franchise record for futility
24-20
final, Rams at Lincoln Financial Field; both teams 2-2
The NFL’s chart has the Rams down at 3.2% midway through the fourth quarter and at 100% at the final whistle; the hinge was a goal-line stand at the 2.
In one line: The Rams’ 3.2% became a 24-20 win inside one quarter, which is the whole case against treating a bad-looking model as a reason to walk out early — and against spending a 97% before the clock reads zero.
The Eagles could practically hear the fight song. Up 20-10 midway through the fourth quarter Sunday, ball on the Rams’ 2-yard line, Philadelphia was a snap from putting away a game the NFL’s own win-probability model had all but called: Los Angeles was given a 3.2% chance. Andrew Beaton walks through what happened next in Tuesday’s Journal, and the chart alongside it — sagging to 3.2% in the fourth quarter, then straight up — belongs on the wall of anyone who’s ever sold at the bottom.
The turn came at the 2. A botched third-down play left Hurts stopped for nothing; Philadelphia stayed on the field for fourth down, and the pass fell to the turf. A Rams defense playing without Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald — five Defensive Player of the Year awards between them — had handed its offense one more chance, and Matthew Stafford, already sitting on two interceptions for the day and six for the season, took it: 98 yards over the next 10 plays to pull within three. Philadelphia went three-and-out, its 15th of the year, the most in the league. Kyren Williams scored with 1:10 left; Byron Young strip-sacked Hurts on the Eagles’ last chance; 24-20, Rams.
0-for-12
The ugly side of the ledger belongs to Philadelphia: 172 yards of offense, the franchise’s lowest total in more than a decade, and a 0-for-12 on third down that no Eagles team on record had ever managed. “Poor execution,” Hurts said afterward. “I don’t think there’s any other way to put it.” Both teams sit at 2-2, and Beaton notes the Rams did this without their roster at full strength.
Stafford’s line is the one we kept: “We just kept the belief, and our defense kept us in it.” That’s a quarterback talking, but it’s also a decent description of a portfolio that gets to stay in the game — the defense is the cash reserve, and the belief is a written plan.
Our read
This is Investments/Risk (IN04), with a Behavioral core. A win-probability model and a market that has ‘priced in’ the bad news are the same creature: both report what has already happened, dressed up as what happens next. Sunday, 3.2% was a true statement about the position at that moment and a terrible instruction about what to do. Anyone who left the stadium at 3.2% missed the only part worth seeing. The investing equivalent is selling into the trough because the odds of recovery feel like zero — the small number gets rounded down to nothing, and a temporary loss becomes a permanent one. We don’t add on a daily; our books have their written dates for that. But we don’t leave at the trough either.
The mirror image matters just as much. The Eagles had the other 97% and spent it before the clock said zero. If your plan assumes the lead holds — the job, the bull market, the bonus — ask what the goal-line stand looks like. A goal-line stand and two drives were all it took for the model to flip, and it can flip either way, which is a decent reason to look at the plan while the number still looks comfortable.
What It Means For Your Portfolio
Hold — a small probability isn’t zero; stay in the game
No portfolio action — no public company is in this story; the position is a rule: a model’s number is a snapshot, and selling at the trough is the one way to turn 3.2% into zero.
General planning principles, not advice for anyone in particular. Decide your drawdown behavior in advance and write it down: what you’d sell, what you’d hold, and at what levels you’d add. A cash reserve is what lets you stay on the field when the model looks hopeless — it keeps a bad quarter from forcing a sale.
On the other side, don’t let a comfortable number — a big lead in the account, a job that feels safe — stand in for a plan. Leads evaporate inside a quarter.
