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.

Jordan Love — 2026 Every split →

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.114
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.121
Dropbacks
286
Turnover EPA
-25.6
WPA
+0.59
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1MIN 46 +0.080 -0.059 +0.139 +3.7 1 / 1 -12.5 4 -9.4 +0.11 -9.7
2NYJ 32 -0.221 -0.099 -0.122 -7.1 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -1.6 -0.04 -13.6
3ATL 54 +0.089 +0.066 +0.023 +4.8 1 / 0 -4.3 1 -1.4 -0.09 -8.5
4TB 30 +0.252 +0.230 +0.022 +7.6 1 / 0 -3.9 0 +0.0 +0.18 +5.3
5CHI 34 +0.519 +0.497 +0.022 +17.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -1.5 +0.16 +16.2
6DAL 44 -0.002 +0.138 -0.140 -0.1 1 / 0 -4.5 3 -4.7 +0.14 -5.2
7DET 46 +0.129 +0.151 -0.021 +5.9 1 / 0 -0.4 1 -1.4 +0.11 -0.5
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 2026-10-28 11:05 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.