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 — 2024

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.135
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.137
Dropbacks
149
Turnover EPA
-16.1
WPA
-0.83
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
4TEN 25 -0.505 -0.471 -0.035 -12.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.7 -0.33 -3.0
5NE 35 -0.136 -0.100 -0.036 -4.8 1 / 0 -4.4 3 -4.2 -0.21 -6.8
7IND 15 -0.232 -0.194 -0.038 -3.5 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.3 -0.05 -5.0
17CLE 29 +0.217 +0.160 +0.058 +6.3 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -5.0 +0.19 +22.4
18NYJ 45 -0.122 -0.154 +0.032 -5.5 2 / 1 -11.7 4 -9.2 -0.43 +4.8
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.