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.

Jared Goff — 2026 Every split →

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.283
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.317
Dropbacks
235
Turnover EPA
+0.0
WPA
+1.47
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1NO 40 +0.139 +0.146 -0.007 +5.6 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -0.5 -0.03 -2.9
2BUF 42 +0.468 +0.442 +0.025 +19.6 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -7.7 +0.04 +6.0
3NYJ 34 +0.249 +0.357 -0.108 +8.5 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -4.4 +0.65 +6.9
4CAR 53 +0.195 +0.233 -0.038 +10.3 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -0.4 +0.18 -1.8
5ARI 33 +0.403 +0.496 -0.093 +13.3 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.4 +0.26 +0.3
7GB 33 +0.282 +0.279 +0.003 +9.3 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.4 +0.38 -1.0
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 2026-10-28 11:05 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.