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.

Joshua Dobbs — 2023

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.188
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.181
Dropbacks
450
Turnover EPA
-72.4
WPA
-2.51
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1WAS 33 -0.354 -0.280 -0.074 -11.7 0 / 1 -3.9 3 -6.4 -0.45 +2.0
2NYG 31 +0.245 +0.240 +0.005 +7.6 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.01 +4.7
3DAL 24 +0.185 +0.151 +0.035 +4.4 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.8 +0.08 +10.5
4SF 42 +0.167 +0.093 +0.074 +7.0 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.5 +0.07 +5.3
5CIN 35 -0.472 -0.447 -0.025 -16.5 2 / 1 -14.8 3 -9.2 -0.36 -14.6
6LA 43 -0.433 -0.406 -0.027 -18.6 1 / 1 -11.3 2 -8.8 -0.31 -10.1
7SEA 37 -0.394 -0.334 -0.060 -14.6 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -6.6 -0.20 -10.9
8BAL 40 -0.171 -0.242 +0.071 -6.9 2 / 0 -9.1 2 -4.4 -0.27 +2.7
9ATL 34 -0.151 -0.115 -0.036 -5.1 0 / 2 -12.9 3 -13.0 +0.09 -0.5
10NO 35 +0.299 +0.238 +0.062 +10.5 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.8 +0.30 +1.9
11DEN 34 +0.011 +0.031 -0.020 +0.4 1 / 0 -5.1 2 -2.3 -0.46 +2.8
12CHI 34 -0.772 -0.700 -0.073 -26.3 4 / 0 -15.3 2 -3.5 -0.57 +2.6
14LV 28 -0.529 -0.493 -0.036 -14.8 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -9.5 -0.45 -22.4
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.