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.

Tyrod Taylor — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.116
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.090
Dropbacks
147
Turnover EPA
-22.1
WPA
-0.67
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
2BUF 13 +0.436 +0.415 +0.021 +5.7 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -1.9 +0.00 +1.6
3TB 39 -0.244 -0.199 -0.045 -9.5 1 / 1 -11.7 4 -7.3 -0.35 +7.5
7CAR 25 -0.264 -0.171 -0.093 -6.6 2 / 0 -5.7 3 -4.0 -0.28 -8.8
12BAL 31 +0.032 +0.025 +0.007 +1.0 1 / 0 -0.2 3 -3.7 +0.16 -1.5
13ATL 35 -0.027 -0.028 +0.001 -0.9 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -1.5 -0.13 -1.6
14MIA 4 -1.652 -1.590 -0.062 -6.6 1 / 0 -4.6 0 +0.0 -0.07 -41.3
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: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.