Game quality
What each result was worth beyond the score. Every play is graded by EPA (expected points added), then adjusted for who it came against: a defence's rating is what it allowed to everyone else that season, so a big day against a bad defence counts for less. Season views include playoff games.
Andy Dalton — 2025
Adj EPA / dropback
-0.131
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.126
Dropbacks
45
Turnover EPA
-13.6
WPA
-0.26
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | NE | 6 | +1.685 | +1.652 | +0.033 | +10.1 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 0 | +0.0 | -0.00 | +23.4 |
| 7 | NYJ | 8 | -0.454 | -0.339 | -0.114 | -3.6 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 1 | -3.2 | -0.01 | +1.7 |
| 8 | BUF | 31 | -0.400 | -0.415 | +0.015 | -12.4 | 1 / 1 | -13.6 | 7 | -14.9 | -0.25 | +3.7 |
Opponent adjustment. A unit's rating for a game is its average over its other games that
season, blended with 16 games' worth of prior (league average plus half of last season's gap from it;
24 games for pass defence, which is noisier). Early in a season that leans on last year; by
midseason it is mostly this year. Chosen by how well it predicts a held-out game: it cut that error by about
a quarter against no shrinkage, and adjusted numbers agree between odd and even weeks more than raw ones do
(team EPA margin r 0.52 → 0.55, defence 0.32 → 0.36, QB EPA/dropback 0.47 → 0.49, 2016–2025).
Win expectancy is a logistic fit of wins on EPA margin over 6,036 completed games (it names the winner 86.5% of the time). These describe what happened; one game is not a forecast. Play-by-play credits the quarterback with every sack and dropback, so a bad line shows up in his numbers. Seasons 2016–2026, built 2026-09-14 01:25 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up:
Win expectancy is a logistic fit of wins on EPA margin over 6,036 completed games (it names the winner 86.5% of the time). These describe what happened; one game is not a forecast. Play-by-play credits the quarterback with every sack and dropback, so a bad line shows up in his numbers. Seasons 2016–2026, built 2026-09-14 01:25 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up:
backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.