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.

Tyler Huntley — 2021

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.116
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.148
Dropbacks
205
Turnover EPA
-30.4
WPA
-1.65
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
7CIN 11 -0.404 -0.384 -0.020 -4.4 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 -21.1
11CHI 42 -0.156 -0.165 +0.010 -6.5 1 / 0 -4.2 6 -10.0 +0.11 -0.8
14CLE 41 -0.100 -0.107 +0.007 -4.1 0 / 2 -13.6 3 -14.5 -0.43 +8.7
15GB 42 +0.119 +0.092 +0.028 +5.0 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.7 -0.10 +3.4
17LA 35 -0.014 -0.111 +0.097 -0.5 1 / 0 -4.3 5 -5.0 -0.54 +0.7
18PIT 34 -0.388 -0.432 +0.044 -13.2 2 / 0 -8.4 3 -3.1 -0.68 -12.6
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.