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.

Daniel Jones — 2023

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.344
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.321
Dropbacks
191
Turnover EPA
-43.5
WPA
-0.59
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1DAL 35 -0.629 -0.649 +0.020 -22.0 2 / 0 -10.2 7 -9.0 -0.29 -13.4
2ARI 40 +0.124 +0.205 -0.081 +4.9 1 / 0 -6.6 3 -1.9 +0.44 +6.1
3SF 35 -0.198 -0.261 +0.063 -6.9 1 / 0 -2.9 2 -3.8 -0.11 +0.5
4SEA 44 -0.724 -0.659 -0.065 -31.9 2 / 1 -23.7 10 -19.4 -0.45 +8.2
5MIA 26 -0.203 -0.177 -0.026 -5.3 0 / 0 +0.0 6 -7.3 -0.07 +6.6
9LV 11 -0.417 -0.377 -0.041 -4.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.0 -0.11 -23.4
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.