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.
Cooper Rush — 2021
Adj EPA / dropback
+0.171
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.161
Dropbacks
50
Turnover EPA
-10.3
WPA
+0.44
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | MIN | 43 | +0.067 | +0.052 | +0.015 | +2.9 | 1 / 1 | -10.3 | 3 | -9.0 | +0.44 | -5.4 |
| 10 | ATL | 3 | -0.415 | -0.357 | -0.058 | -1.2 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 0 | +0.0 | -0.00 | +21.1 |
| 16 | WAS | 3 | +2.053 | +2.046 | +0.007 | +6.2 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 0 | +0.0 | +0.00 | -10.6 |
| 18 | PHI | 1 | +0.734 | +0.735 | -0.000 | +0.7 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 0 | +0.0 | +0.00 | +22.2 |
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:
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.