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.

Tim Boyle — 2024

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.255
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.280
Dropbacks
51
Turnover EPA
-4.2
WPA
-0.15
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
3SEA 14 -0.569 -0.539 -0.030 -8.0 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.6 -0.07 -10.4
7IND 12 +0.017 +0.055 -0.038 +0.2 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.03 -4.2
15BAL 25 -0.210 -0.296 +0.086 -5.2 1 / 0 -4.2 1 -0.7 -0.05 -9.5
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.