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 — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.009
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.008
Dropbacks
244
Turnover EPA
-42.6
WPA
-0.68
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
3LV 21 +0.495 +0.516 -0.021 +10.4 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.5 +0.06 +14.6
4ATL 29 +0.070 +0.066 +0.004 +2.0 1 / 0 -4.5 2 -1.7 -0.05 +3.1
7DAL 12 -1.300 -1.173 -0.127 -15.6 1 / 0 -9.1 2 -2.5 -0.05 -16.8
8KC 32 -0.225 -0.231 +0.006 -7.2 2 / 0 -7.5 2 -4.3 -0.03 +1.1
10DET 25 +0.472 +0.437 +0.035 +11.8 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.3 +0.00 +14.3
11MIA 31 +0.090 +0.131 -0.040 +2.8 1 / 0 -5.0 1 -1.9 +0.05 +2.3
13DEN 53 +0.095 -0.006 +0.101 +5.0 1 / 0 -5.8 2 -2.9 -0.74 +3.2
14MIN 5 -1.090 -1.172 +0.082 -5.4 1 / 0 -5.1 1 -2.1 -0.02 -16.7
15NYG 21 +0.024 +0.072 -0.048 +0.5 0 / 1 -5.6 2 -8.5 +0.13 +4.2
16PHI 15 -0.151 -0.229 +0.079 -2.3 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.6 -0.03 -4.7
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.