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.

Deshaun Watson — 2022

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.127
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.127
Dropbacks
188
Turnover EPA
-24.1
WPA
-0.91
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
13HOU 23 -0.222 -0.198 -0.024 -5.1 1 / 0 -6.7 1 -1.9 -0.36 -13.5
14CIN 43 -0.104 -0.119 +0.015 -4.5 1 / 0 -4.2 2 -2.6 -0.08 +1.1
15BAL 31 -0.130 -0.092 -0.038 -4.0 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -4.7 -0.04 -2.0
16NO 33 -0.407 -0.469 +0.062 -13.4 1 / 0 -6.6 2 -3.2 -0.53 -4.7
17WAS 23 +0.343 +0.344 -0.002 +7.9 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -5.1 +0.17 -7.8
18PIT 35 -0.137 -0.109 -0.028 -4.8 2 / 0 -6.6 7 -8.7 -0.07 +1.1
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.