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 — 2023

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.117
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.104
Dropbacks
187
Turnover EPA
-30.8
WPA
-1.71
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1CIN 32 -0.360 -0.340 -0.021 -11.5 1 / 0 -5.5 3 -4.4 -0.30 -6.9
2PIT 46 -0.364 -0.347 -0.018 -16.8 1 / 1 -15.0 6 -13.9 -1.02 -7.5
3TEN 36 +0.314 +0.347 -0.034 +11.3 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -4.6 +0.01 +19.5
7IND 5 -1.193 -1.175 -0.018 -6.0 1 / 0 -2.5 0 +0.0 -0.18 -43.2
9ARI 30 -0.052 +0.033 -0.085 -1.5 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.6 -0.09 +0.5
10BAL 38 +0.071 -0.005 +0.076 +2.7 1 / 0 -7.8 4 -4.7 -0.14 +1.4
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.