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.

Marcus Mariota — 2022

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.030
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.024
Dropbacks
326
Turnover EPA
-36.2
WPA
-0.11
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1NO 32 +0.229 +0.152 +0.077 +7.3 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.02 -6.9
2LA 30 -0.048 -0.056 +0.007 -1.5 2 / 1 -11.3 3 -3.4 -0.28 +1.3
3SEA 23 +0.623 +0.649 -0.026 +14.3 1 / 0 -0.0 3 -4.3 +0.49 +12.7
4CLE 20 -0.226 -0.257 +0.031 -4.5 1 / 0 -4.5 1 -1.5 -0.11 -20.0
5TB 31 -0.037 -0.046 +0.009 -1.1 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -9.0 -0.04 -6.4
6SF 16 +0.373 +0.326 +0.047 +6.0 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.6 +0.06 +19.4
7CIN 16 +0.087 +0.069 +0.018 +1.4 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.0 -0.05 +3.7
8CAR 30 +0.209 +0.208 +0.001 +6.3 2 / 0 -7.3 2 -3.4 +0.53 +6.4
9LAC 25 +0.001 -0.018 +0.018 +0.0 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -4.0 -0.35 -7.2
10CAR 34 -0.233 -0.227 -0.006 -7.9 1 / 0 -3.1 5 -11.8 -0.10 +6.7
11CHI 18 +0.024 +0.082 -0.058 +0.4 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.03 -0.9
12WAS 26 -0.194 -0.182 -0.013 -5.1 1 / 0 -4.9 1 -1.3 -0.29 -4.4
13PIT 25 -0.232 -0.200 -0.032 -5.8 1 / 0 -5.1 1 -1.4 -0.02 -5.3
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.