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 — 2023

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.026
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.030
Dropbacks
491
Turnover EPA
-59.6
WPA
-0.75
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1LV 35 +0.063 +0.090 -0.027 +2.2 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.7 +0.22 +15.0
2WAS 39 -0.002 +0.062 -0.064 -0.1 1 / 1 -7.9 7 -12.7 -0.22 +2.5
3MIA 39 +0.032 +0.057 -0.025 +1.2 1 / 0 -5.8 1 -2.0 -0.01 +3.9
4CHI 29 +0.446 +0.490 -0.044 +12.9 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.4 +0.33 +13.6
5NYJ 34 -0.225 -0.307 +0.081 -7.7 0 / 1 -7.9 4 -12.8 -0.46 +3.8
6KC 26 -0.657 -0.704 +0.047 -17.1 2 / 0 -10.8 4 -5.6 -0.42 -11.7
7GB 30 +0.131 +0.137 -0.006 +3.9 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.6 +0.24 +15.0
8KC 25 -0.138 -0.194 +0.056 -3.4 0 / 1 -1.5 6 -10.4 -0.09 +2.7
10BUF 33 +0.214 +0.174 +0.039 +7.1 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -5.2 +0.33 +13.3
11MIN 37 +0.026 +0.040 -0.014 +1.0 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.1 +0.29 +14.7
12CLE 23 +0.298 +0.194 +0.104 +6.8 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.6 +0.18 -3.9
13HOU 29 -0.511 -0.516 +0.005 -14.8 3 / 0 -11.9 3 -6.1 -0.66 +2.5
14LAC 35 -0.077 -0.063 -0.014 -2.7 1 / 0 -5.5 2 -3.7 -0.10 -1.2
15DET 34 -0.133 -0.070 -0.063 -4.5 0 / 1 -8.3 2 -9.9 -0.23 -9.1
16NE 43 +0.053 +0.017 +0.036 +2.3 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -9.0 -0.15 +6.0
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.