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 — 2024

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.105
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.098
Dropbacks
371
Turnover EPA
-40.7
WPA
-0.62
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1MIN 47 -0.447 -0.481 +0.033 -21.0 2 / 0 -11.7 5 -5.4 -0.27 -10.7
2WAS 31 +0.177 +0.220 -0.043 +5.5 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.0 +0.36 -3.1
3CLE 36 +0.329 +0.274 +0.056 +11.9 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.2 +0.25 +7.8
4DAL 41 +0.086 +0.108 -0.023 +3.5 1 / 0 -0.3 1 -1.0 +0.06 +10.3
5SEA 37 +0.192 +0.205 -0.013 +7.1 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -4.6 +0.37 +4.8
6CIN 41 -0.360 -0.333 -0.026 -14.8 1 / 0 -6.1 2 -2.0 -0.34 -8.3
7PHI 27 -0.537 -0.564 +0.027 -14.5 0 / 0 +0.0 7 -12.9 -0.38 +4.1
8PIT 43 -0.014 -0.028 +0.014 -0.6 1 / 1 -6.5 4 -9.3 -0.02 +3.3
9WAS 30 -0.114 -0.066 -0.048 -3.4 0 / 1 -8.1 2 -9.8 -0.18 +9.0
10CAR 38 -0.336 -0.273 -0.063 -12.8 2 / 0 -8.0 2 -4.9 -0.47 +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: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.