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.

Carson Wentz — 2022

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.136
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.129
Dropbacks
309
Turnover EPA
-36.4
WPA
-1.10
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1JAX 44 +0.140 +0.197 -0.056 +6.2 2 / 0 -10.4 1 -1.5 +0.27 -0.2
2DET 53 -0.050 +0.046 -0.096 -2.7 1 / 0 -4.2 5 -8.3 -0.04 +0.5
3PHI 53 -0.369 -0.408 +0.039 -19.6 0 / 1 -5.4 9 -20.3 -0.46 -7.6
4DAL 44 -0.315 -0.395 +0.080 -13.9 2 / 0 -4.3 2 -2.9 -0.20 -6.2
5TEN 41 +0.016 +0.016 -0.000 +0.7 1 / 0 -3.6 3 -3.1 -0.16 +1.5
6CHI 26 -0.410 -0.343 -0.067 -10.7 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.9 -0.29 -16.3
16SF 17 +0.299 +0.257 +0.041 +5.1 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.01 +7.0
17CLE 31 -0.230 -0.261 +0.031 -7.1 3 / 0 -8.5 3 -4.6 -0.23 -9.5
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.