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 — 2024

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.279
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.246
Dropbacks
250
Turnover EPA
-24.3
WPA
-0.97
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1DAL 51 -0.487 -0.453 -0.034 -24.9 2 / 0 -9.2 6 -10.1 -0.25 -8.0
2JAX 36 -0.032 +0.035 -0.066 -1.1 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.3 +0.17 -0.5
3NYG 46 -0.488 -0.424 -0.063 -22.4 0 / 1 -4.0 8 -17.7 -0.42 -7.5
4LV 35 -0.191 -0.198 +0.007 -6.7 1 / 0 -5.0 3 -5.5 -0.49 +4.1
5WAS 35 -0.487 -0.431 -0.057 -17.1 0 / 1 -6.1 7 -13.7 -0.25 -8.6
6PHI 28 +0.094 +0.054 +0.040 +2.6 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -5.5 +0.14 -0.5
7CIN 19 -0.007 +0.017 -0.024 -0.1 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.5 +0.13 +15.9
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.