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.

Taylor Heinicke — 2022

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.049
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.045
Dropbacks
276
Turnover EPA
-55.7
WPA
-0.41
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
7GB 34 -0.013 -0.032 +0.019 -0.4 1 / 0 -9.2 1 -1.0 +0.01 -2.4
8IND 33 +0.041 +0.051 -0.010 +1.3 1 / 0 -5.8 2 -3.9 +0.15 +4.3
9MIN 31 -0.373 -0.355 -0.018 -11.6 1 / 0 -5.5 3 -5.0 -0.37 -9.5
10PHI 30 +0.144 +0.094 +0.050 +4.3 1 / 1 -8.2 3 -7.0 +0.14 +6.9
11HOU 27 +0.023 +0.042 -0.019 +0.6 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.03 +1.2
12ATL 23 +0.025 +0.103 -0.078 +0.6 1 / 0 -2.2 0 +0.0 +0.09 -2.8
13NYG 46 -0.013 -0.007 -0.006 -0.6 0 / 1 -4.4 5 -9.7 -0.18 +2.7
15NYG 32 -0.342 -0.329 -0.013 -10.9 0 / 2 -11.0 3 -13.0 -0.56 +2.9
16SF 20 +0.162 +0.121 +0.041 +3.2 1 / 1 -9.5 2 -6.6 +0.27 +15.6
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.