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 — 2022

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.045
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.057
Dropbacks
168
Turnover EPA
-10.3
WPA
+0.38
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1TB 15 -0.506 -0.504 -0.002 -7.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.6 -0.02 -3.8
2CIN 31 +0.284 +0.262 +0.023 +8.8 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.9 +0.12 -6.4
3NYG 31 +0.105 +0.109 -0.004 +3.3 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.34 +4.3
4WAS 28 +0.052 +0.059 -0.007 +1.4 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.1 +0.11 -7.9
5LA 19 -0.353 -0.351 -0.002 -6.7 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.2 -0.05 -5.1
6PHI 38 -0.178 -0.221 +0.043 -6.8 3 / 0 -10.3 0 +0.0 -0.12 -17.3
11MIN 5 +0.256 +0.252 +0.005 +1.3 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.00 -1.6
18WAS 1 -1.354 -1.335 -0.018 -1.4 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.00 -35.5
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.