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.

Lamar Jackson — 2026 Every split →

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.326
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.365
Dropbacks
101
Turnover EPA
-8.1
WPA
+1.19
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1IND 26 +0.387 +0.376 +0.011 +10.1 0 / 1 -6.3 2 -7.4 +0.18 +4.8
2NO 33 +0.094 +0.103 -0.009 +3.1 1 / 0 -1.8 3 -6.1 +0.05 +7.9
3DAL 20 +0.471 +0.596 -0.125 +9.4 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.74 +9.2
4TEN 22 +0.468 +0.534 -0.066 +10.3 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.6 +0.21 +11.3
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 2026-10-28 11:05 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.