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.

Kyler Murray — 2021

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.084
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.077
Dropbacks
550
Turnover EPA
-65.0
WPA
+1.37
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1TEN 34 +0.338 +0.347 -0.009 +11.5 1 / 0 -3.8 2 -3.0 +0.23 +5.1
2MIN 39 +0.136 +0.117 +0.018 +5.3 2 / 0 -13.7 3 -5.5 +0.27 +14.6
3JAX 34 +0.219 +0.349 -0.130 +7.4 1 / 0 -4.0 0 +0.0 +0.37 +14.0
4LA 35 +0.508 +0.398 +0.110 +17.8 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -4.6 +0.37 +10.5
5SF 33 +0.149 +0.132 +0.017 +4.9 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -4.0 -0.04 +10.8
6CLE 32 +0.475 +0.456 +0.020 +15.2 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -4.1 +0.18 +9.5
7HOU 32 +0.181 +0.270 -0.088 +5.8 1 / 0 -4.5 4 -6.3 +0.26 +2.5
8GB 35 +0.042 +0.018 +0.024 +1.5 2 / 0 -7.7 2 -3.4 +0.04 +1.3
13CHI 16 +0.502 +0.478 +0.024 +8.0 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.0 +0.18 +1.6
14LA 53 +0.075 -0.025 +0.099 +4.0 2 / 0 -13.2 4 -3.3 -0.13 +0.2
15DET 44 -0.482 -0.327 -0.155 -21.2 1 / 0 -7.7 2 -5.3 -0.23 -11.0
16IND 43 -0.081 -0.088 +0.007 -3.5 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.02 -1.4
17DAL 40 +0.325 +0.236 +0.090 +13.0 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.3 +0.28 +7.0
18SEA 44 -0.107 -0.081 -0.026 -4.7 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -7.4 -0.13 +0.7
19LA 36 -0.522 -0.610 +0.088 -18.8 2 / 0 -10.5 2 -3.3 -0.27 -15.3
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 2026-09-14 01:25 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.