Arizona Cardinals vs New York Giants — Win Probability

Giants' 36-24 Upset Over Cardinals Defies Model's Projection

The New York Giants pulled off a 12-point upset victory over Arizona on Sunday, winning 36-24 despite entering the game as a significant underdog in both the model's projection and the betting market.

The pregame model assigned the Giants only a 43% win probability and projected Arizona to win by 2.5 points (expected score: NYG 21, ARI 23.5). The market agreed, favoring the Cardinals by 2.5 points as the published spread. This alignment between model and market suggested a close contest with Arizona holding a slight edge.

The actual result diverged sharply. New York's 36 points exceeded the projection by 15 points, while Arizona's 24 fell 0.5 points short of expectations. The 12-point margin reversed the 2.5-point projected deficit into a decisive win—a 14.5-point swing from what the model anticipated.

This represents a substantial miss for the projection. The model correctly identified Arizona as the favored team and did capture the possibility of a New York victory (43% probability is far from impossible), but the magnitude of the Giants' scoring surge and their defensive performance against the Cardinals' offense created a gap too large to attribute to normal variance. The model projected a low-scoring, closely contested affair; instead, New York generated offensive output well beyond simulation expectations.

For a projection system, this outcome reflects either an underestimation of New York's capability in this specific matchup or an overestimation of Arizona's defensive efficiency. The upset itself was within the model's probability range, but the decisive nature of the victory—36 points and a 12-point win—signals the projection framework missed meaningful factors driving the game's outcome. The 14.5-point differential between expected and actual margin is substantial enough to warrant evaluation of the inputs that shaped the original Arizona-favored projection.