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.
Sam Darnold — 2023
Adj EPA / dropback
+0.006
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.003
Dropbacks
51
Turnover EPA
-4.9
WPA
-0.26
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | DAL | 1 | -1.008 | -1.056 | +0.047 | -1.0 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 0 | +0.0 | -0.00 | +11.1 |
| 10 | JAX | 2 | -1.204 | -1.208 | +0.005 | -2.4 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 0 | +0.0 | +0.00 | -19.7 |
| 15 | ARI | 3 | -0.056 | +0.014 | -0.070 | -0.2 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 0 | +0.0 | -0.01 | -6.0 |
| 16 | BAL | 16 | +0.027 | -0.040 | +0.067 | +0.4 | 1 / 0 | -3.0 | 2 | -4.4 | -0.03 | -2.7 |
| 17 | WAS | 1 | -1.765 | -1.709 | -0.057 | -1.8 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 1 | -1.7 | -0.00 | — |
| 18 | LA | 28 | +0.186 | +0.202 | -0.016 | +5.2 | 0 / 1 | -1.9 | 3 | -4.4 | -0.21 | +0.7 |
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:
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.