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.

Mason Rudolph — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.054
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.068
Dropbacks
55
Turnover EPA
-13.5
WPA
-0.37
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
2SEA 2 +0.012 -0.056 +0.068 +0.0 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 +22.5
11CIN 16 +0.616 +0.670 -0.054 +9.9 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.17 +12.2
12CHI 33 -0.182 -0.176 -0.006 -6.0 1 / 1 -9.4 2 -6.5 -0.49 +8.9
13BUF 3 -0.746 -0.763 +0.017 -2.2 1 / 0 -4.0 0 +0.0 -0.04 -67.3
19HOU 1 +1.353 +1.257 +0.096 +1.4 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.00 +30.6
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.