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.

Russell Wilson — 2021

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.043
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.038
Dropbacks
435
Turnover EPA
-31.8
WPA
-0.31
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1IND 26 +0.487 +0.466 +0.021 +12.7 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -3.8 +0.28 +19.5
2TEN 34 +0.231 +0.244 -0.013 +7.8 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -4.4 -0.23 +6.5
3MIN 34 +0.034 +0.021 +0.013 +1.1 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.1 +0.13 +13.8
4SF 26 -0.163 -0.176 +0.013 -4.2 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -6.0 -0.02 +4.3
5LA 18 -0.019 -0.121 +0.102 -0.3 1 / 0 -3.6 2 -4.5 -0.07 +8.0
10GB 43 -0.463 -0.476 +0.013 -19.9 2 / 0 -8.4 3 -5.6 -0.56 -9.2
11ARI 30 -0.145 -0.162 +0.018 -4.3 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -6.7 -0.07 -5.6
12WAS 34 +0.106 +0.111 -0.005 +3.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.9 -0.01 +0.9
13SF 41 +0.010 -0.003 +0.013 +0.4 1 / 0 -4.0 4 -6.9 -0.21 +14.2
14HOU 29 +0.464 +0.547 -0.083 +13.5 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.40 -0.7
15LA 34 -0.250 -0.342 +0.092 -8.5 1 / 0 -2.2 3 -4.6 -0.19 -3.3
16CHI 29 +0.077 +0.063 +0.014 +2.2 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.7 -0.09 -3.6
17DET 30 +0.374 +0.508 -0.134 +11.2 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.1 +0.14 +5.4
18ARI 27 +0.123 +0.097 +0.026 +3.3 1 / 1 -13.7 1 -7.3 +0.19 +0.4
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.