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.

Davis Mills — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.090
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.099
Dropbacks
169
Turnover EPA
-5.5
WPA
-0.39
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
5BAL 4 +0.203 +0.182 +0.021 +0.8 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.00 -5.8
9DEN 32 -0.078 -0.177 +0.100 -2.5 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -1.9 -0.28 -13.1
10JAX 49 +0.034 +0.015 +0.019 +1.7 1 / 0 -5.5 2 -2.0 +0.00 -3.3
11TEN 45 -0.073 -0.004 -0.069 -3.3 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -11.3 +0.12 -0.0
12BUF 30 -0.188 -0.212 +0.024 -5.6 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.15 -7.5
18IND 9 -0.697 -0.668 -0.028 -6.3 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.09 -35.2
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.