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.

Drew Lock — 2024

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.218
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.215
Dropbacks
193
Turnover EPA
-39.8
WPA
-1.46
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
7PHI 9 -0.755 -0.782 +0.027 -6.8 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.2 -0.00 -31.2
12TB 1 -0.311 -0.271 -0.041 -0.3 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 +25.9
13DAL 38 -0.580 -0.547 -0.033 -22.0 1 / 1 -13.9 6 -14.1 -0.73 -1.0
14NO 51 -0.183 -0.213 +0.030 -9.3 1 / 0 -1.5 2 -2.9 -0.74 -18.1
16ATL 42 -0.556 -0.511 -0.045 -23.4 2 / 1 -22.7 3 -8.8 -0.36 -8.8
17IND 23 +1.197 +1.201 -0.005 +27.5 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.59 +10.7
18PHI 29 -0.267 -0.299 +0.032 -7.7 1 / 0 -1.7 0 +0.0 -0.23 +4.5
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.