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.

Patrick Mahomes — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.145
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.127
Dropbacks
537
Turnover EPA
-47.7
WPA
+1.00
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1LAC 41 +0.167 +0.087 +0.079 +6.8 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.0 -0.03 -6.0
2PHI 31 -0.145 -0.231 +0.086 -4.5 1 / 0 -7.1 2 -3.6 -0.13 -5.8
3NYG 39 +0.166 +0.211 -0.045 +6.5 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.8 -0.00 -1.5
4BAL 38 +0.441 +0.426 +0.015 +16.7 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -0.8 +0.27 +5.9
5JAX 41 +0.085 +0.065 +0.020 +3.5 1 / 0 -12.7 0 +0.0 +0.02 +6.2
6DET 33 +0.505 +0.472 +0.034 +16.7 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -2.9 +0.41 +7.7
7LV 36 +0.516 +0.537 -0.022 +18.6 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -0.9 +0.22 +6.1
8WAS 37 +0.295 +0.371 -0.076 +10.9 2 / 0 -7.0 3 -1.1 +0.22 +10.9
9BUF 38 -0.017 -0.044 +0.027 -0.6 1 / 0 -1.0 3 -5.0 -0.19 -4.4
11DEN 48 +0.125 +0.024 +0.101 +6.0 1 / 0 -3.4 3 -3.0 -0.04 -2.8
12IND 51 +0.144 +0.167 -0.022 +7.4 1 / 0 -5.8 4 -2.9 +0.49 +1.2
13DAL 37 +0.278 +0.383 -0.105 +10.3 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -3.6 +0.41 +4.7
14HOU 34 -0.555 -0.656 +0.101 -18.9 3 / 0 -8.2 2 -3.2 -0.62 -14.9
15LAC 33 -0.036 -0.108 +0.072 -1.2 1 / 0 -2.7 5 -7.2 -0.05 -5.3
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.