The New England Patriots’ Super Bowl comeback was an instant classic, with the Atlanta Falcons’ late-third quarter lead, 28-3, already a well-worn meme for overcoming insurmountable odds. The stakes of that game, the magnitude of that rally and the unprecedented timing of its conclusion — the first Super Bowl overtime — make that an obvious choice, by any measure, for most exciting NFL game in 2017.
The sports data and video company Thuuz Sports, which is slang for “enthused,” uses proprietary algorithms to compute excitement ratings objectively — not to mention give fans’ personalized recommendations of games to watch and compile custom highlight reels, among other functionalities — and confirms that Super Bowl LI indeed had more excitement than other pro football game this year. Not stopping there, the company shared with SportTechie its full top-10 for the calendar year, which is presented below.
Thuuz ingests dozens of inputs such as objective data like game statistics, play-by-play summaries and even betting lines like over/under and point spreads to more subjective sources like event audio and video and social channels like Twitter to cull information for its SSMP (Subjective Sports Metadata Platform).
Action is evaluated based on six traits — pace, parity, novelty, momentum, social buzz and context — to generate real-time headlines and updates in television programming guides, notifications on users’ smartphones and even live highlight reels.
This, Thuuz executive vice president Wayne Sieve called, the “DNA of the match.”
“It’s the excitement boiled down to a molecular level, as understood from three different vantage points — from the home team’s fans, the away team’s fans and a neutral fan,” he said, adding: “It’s not to say it wasn’t exciting if you’re disappointed in the outcome. You may be disappointed, but that’s not to say it wasn’t exciting.”
In addition to working with television providers such as Dish, DirecTV and Sling, Thuuz is working with rights holders and other media company such as NBC and Fox. For the former, Thuuz powers the NBC Sports Scores app. When a fan first downloads the app, he or she is prompted to input favorite sports, teams, leagues and other such preferences to customize the experience. Each game is given a pregame excitement score, on a 1 to 100 scale, based on projections for drama, and that number moves up or down in real-time. Users can choose to be alerted if a game exceeds a certain threshold.
“You have to recognize the subjective nature of what excitement is,” Sieve said.
This follows the vision of Thuuz co-founder and CEO Warren Packard, a Stanford-educated engineer and MBA who had a finite amount of time to watch sports among professional and personal activities and didn’t want to waste time channel-flipping to find the most compelling content based on his interests.
“He had this nagging desire for having some type of ability — a computer — to tell him what he should watch,” Sieve said.
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Thuuz remains primarily a business-to-business company but has a consumer-facing product as well as building apps for partners. Another major segment of the business is its automation of video production, layering footage with meta-data from the excitement index to compile highlights. Among the more helpful tools is the ability for a fan who missed, say, the first quarter of a game to watch a summary of everything he or she missed to catch up to the live action — all told with the vantage point of a fan of a certain team. (Thuuz, it should be noted, provides the underlying technology but depends upon media companies holding the appropriate broadcast rights.)
“My highlight reel should look different than your highlight reel,” Sieve said.
Additional features include individual player excitement ratings — Atlanta Falcons running back Devonta Freeman scored a 98 for his 194 all-purpose-yard performance on Monday Night Football that included a 32-yard touchdown run — and the ability multiple-game highlight reels. (One could choose anything from a montage of every Tom Brady pass of at least 20 yards this season, for instance, or every missed field goal in Week 14 or almost anything in between.)
Without further ado, here are Thuuz’s top games list from 2017, as evaluated for a neutral fan.
Top 10 Most Exciting NFL Games
1. Patriots 34, Falcons 28 – February 5th
In Super Bowl LI, Patriots come back from a 25-point deficit to win in overtime. (Thuuz score = 100)
2. Packers 34, Cowboys 31 – January 15th
In the NFC Divisional game, Cowboys rally from down 18 to tie game in fourth quarter, but the Packers eventually prevail. (Thuuz score = 100)
3. Saints 34, Redskins 31 – November 19th
Saints score two TDs in the final three minutes of the game and then win with a FG in overtime. (Thuuz score = 100)
4. Packers 35, Cowboys 31 – October 8th
This game featured five lead changes in the 4th quarter including two in the last minute and a half. (Thuuz score = 100)
5. Seahawks 41, Texans 38 – October 29th
Down four with time running out, Russell Wilson drove the Seahawks 80 yards for a TD. Both quarterbacks threw for four TDs and over 400 yards in this game. (Thuuz score = 100)
6. Panthers 33, Patriots 30 – October 1st
Patriots lose on a last-second field goal after coming into the game a heavy favorite. (Thuuz score = 100)
7. Steelers 18, Chiefs 16 – January 15th
In the AFC Wildcard Round, a back-and-forth game concludes with Kansas City failing to convert a game-tying two-point conversion. (Thuuz score = 99)
8. Panthers 31, Vikings 24 – December 10th
In a meeting of two top NFC teams, the Vikings come back from down 11 points before the Panthers put together a last minute drive to setup a game-winning FG. (Thuuz score = 99)
9. Redskins 17, Seahawks 14 – November 5th
This game started out as a defensive struggle before back-to-back, go-ahead 70-yard touchdown drives in the last two minutes. (Thuuz score = 98)
10. Steelers 39, Ravens 38 – December 10th
Both teams took and subsequently gave up double-digit leads before the Steelers held on. (Thuuz score = 98)