After the “Music City Miracle” knocked the 1999 Buffalo Bills out of the postseason, Bills fans suffered through the longest playoff drought in American professional sports. But with only a few hours left in 2017, the streak came to a glorious end. After beating Miami on Sunday, Buffalo desperately needed Cincinnati to eliminate Baltimore, and Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton complied — finding Tyler Boyd for a game-winning touchdown on 4th-and-12 in the final minute. The play sent the Bills locker room into hysterics, while fans back home braved bitterly cold weather past midnight on New Year’s Eve to greet the team plane at the airport.

New head coach Sean McDermott has led the franchise out of the regular-season desert, but there’s an irony to his triumph: This Bills squad is actually worse than many of those that failed to make the playoffs since that 1999 season. There are Bills fans old enough to buy beer who can’t remember what a Bills playoff team looks like — but even they ought to be able to tell that this squad is something less than one of the 12 best teams in the NFL.

“You are what your record says you are,” Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells famously asserted. But ESPN’s Brian Burke estimates that randomness accounts for about 42 percent of NFL outcomes, and the NFL’s playoff structure builds in even more inequity. The 2008 New England Patriots won 11 games but missed the playoffs, while the 2014 Carolina Panthers got in with a 7-8-1 record.

This year’s Bills team finished 9-7, but based on Football Outsiders’ estimated wins and Pythagorean wins metrics,Per Football Outsiders, Pythagorean wins are based on pure point differential, while estimated wins use a “Forest Index” to emphasize consistency and performance in high-leverage situations.

‘>¹ it only earned 6.8 and 6.3 wins, respectively. Put another way, an NFL team that gets outscored by 57 points on the year (as the Bills did) mathematically ought to win about six or seven games.

But it’s not just about wins. Pick a metric of team strength, and the Bills are typically at or below the median: 21st in scoring differential, 15th in FiveThirtyEight’s Elo ratings, 23rd in Simple Rating System,Pro Football Reference’s Simple Rating System is derived from scoring differential and strength of schedule.

‘>² 21st in Defense-adjusted Value Over Average.Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric breaks down every NFL play and determines its value when compared to a league baseline based on situation (i.e., down and distance, field position, score).

‘>³

These Bills don’t stack up well against the 17 iterations that came before them, either:

The best Bills team since 1999 was the 9-7 2004 squad. At 31.3 percent better than average, it was the NFL’s No. 3 team by overall DVOA. Buffalo’s defense, led by Pro Bowlers Takeo Spikes and Nate Clements, ranked No. 1. The team’s 12.4 estimated wins and 11.1 Pythagorean wins show they were actually much stronger than what their record said.

The 2004 Bills lost their first four games, three by a combined margin of just 8 points and the other a 31-17 loss to the (eventual Super Bowl champion) New England Patriots. They then went 9-2 over their next 11 games, including a six-game win streak during which they outscored their opponents 228-89. Needing one last win to secure a playoff berth, they tripped up against a Pittsburgh Steelers team resting some of its starters. Football Outsiders deemed the 2004 Bills the best team to miss the playoffs since 1986 — as far back as its data goes.

Despite racking up the same number of real-world wins, 2017’s Bills are a whopping 41.1 percentage points worse in DVOA. They also produced 5.6 fewer estimated wins and 4.8 fewer Pythagorean wins. Remember that 42 percent randomness? That this year’s Bills got to the same 9-7 record as the 2004 team suggests these two squads approached the upper and lower bounds of “lucky” and “unlucky” NFL results.

The 2017 Bills aren’t the best Bills team since 1999, or anywhere close — they’re actually no better than seventh-worst in any of these metrics. Outside of running the ball with LeSean McCoy, these Bills don’t do anything well: They’re 29th in offensive yardage and 26th in yardage on defense. They keep their heads above water with a per-drive turnover rate that’s a little higher on defense (13.1 percent, 10th-best) than offense (8.9 percent, eighth-worst).

2012 is the most recent year the Bills weren’t better across the board than they are now — and that group went 6-10.

None of this can take away the joy Bills fans everywhere felt when the Ravens’ Week 17 collapse handed their team a wild-card berth, of course. But there’s a reason the Bills organization sent the Cincinnati Bengals thank-yous: This trip to the postseason was much more about being lucky than good.

Check out our latest NFL predictions.

The 2018 midterms got a bit more exciting on Tuesday. The longest serving Republican senator in American history, Orrin Hatch of Utah, announced that he would not run for re-election. His retirement is unlikely to provide Democrats with much of an opportunity to win another Senate seat, but the door is now wide open for Trump nemesis and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who has reportedly told people he would enter the race if Hatch retired.

So, let’s break down Utah’s newly open Senate race …

1. Utah is really, really red.

Pretty much by any measure you look at, Utah comes out as one of the most Republican-leaning states in the country. The GOP holds a massive 4-to-1 advantage over Democrats in voter registrations. According to Gallup, only Wyoming gives Republicans a larger lead in party affiliation. Republicans have won 15 consecutive Senate elections in the state dating back to 1974. Democrats haven’t even won a governor’s race in Utah since 1980. And even though Trump won the state by a smaller margin than every Republican presidential nominee except oneGeorge H.W. Bush won the state by 16 percentage points in 1992.

“>¹ dating back to 1964, he still was able to win by 18 percentage points.

Though Hatch has been unpopular in the state, he would have been a favorite for re-election. A November survey gave him a 15-point lead over potential Democratic nominee Jenny Wilson. Democrats are desperate for another Senate seat to contest in 2018 — in addition to Nevada and Arizona — but Utah probably isn’t the best place for them to look.

2. But Trump is unusually unpopular for a Republican.

Trump managed to carry Utah handily in 2016, but that likely had more to do with his party affiliation than Trump himself. Trump won only 45 percent of the vote in a race that featured independent conservative Evan McMullin as well as Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump won just 14 percent of the vote in Utah’s Republican caucus, which was far less than the 45 percent he won nationally during the nomination process. To boot, his net approval rating has been teetering around break even in the state. For a Republican president in Utah, that’s bad.

Will Utah’s dislike of Trump affect the 2018 Senate election? Well, maybe not. Utah is red enough that almost any Republican candidate will be a clear favorite there despite Trump’s poor numbers. That’s especially true if Romney — who is well-known and has a clear anti-Trump resume — wins the nomination. That said, if the GOP nominates a more Trumpian candidate, it’s possible to imagine him or her having some problems. After all, Trump won only a plurality (as opposed to a majority) of the Utah vote in 2016.

3. Anti-Trumpism has won in Utah already.

Last year, there was a trial run of sorts for anti-Trump Republicanism in Utah. Former Provo Mayor John Curtis ran in a special election to replace Rep. Jason Chaffetz in Utah’s 3rd Congressional District. During the primary, he admitted that he didn’t vote for Trump, and he won the primary against two candidates who did. That race was fairly close, however, with Curtis winning only 43 percent of the vote. Curtis then went on to win the general election by 32 percentage points, which was significantly greater than Trump’s 24-point margin in the district. Curtis’s win is particularly interesting given the large swing against Republicans in most 2017 special elections.

These numbers suggest that even if Romney decides not to run, a GOP candidate in his mold could win a primary and would be a favorite in the general.

4. Romney would be a heavy favorite

If Romney does enter the race, it’s hard to see him losing — the primary or the general. In a survey taken in November, Romney was rated among the most popular politician in the state. His net favorability among all voters was +47 percentage points — far higher than Trump’s. He also scored a +73 net favorability among Utah Republicans. (By contrast, Romney’s popularity among GOP voters nationally plummeted when he spoke out against Trump during the 2016 primaries.) The same poll found Romney with an astounding 51 percentage point lead against potential Democratic nominee Wilson.

In short: If Romney runs, he’d be as big a favorite as favorites get.

5. A candidate can take the argument directly to the voters.

One last logistical point: Republican candidates used to have to win or place second in a statewide convention to get on the primary ballot. That might have been a problem for a Romney-esque candidate. Longtime Sen. Bob Bennett was defeated in such a convention in 2010. But the state law was changed in 2014; now, candidates can get on the ballot via the convention or by gathering signatures.There is a lawsuit pending against the current system.

‘>² Curtis, for example, was beaten by the more conservative Chris Herrod in his district’s convention in 2017, but he got on the ballot for the primary and won anyway.

While it is unclear who will be strongest in a convention setting in 2018, widespread appeal is now more important for a candidate to win the nomination. If the polls are correct, Romney has the popularity necessary to win a nomination through a primary.