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.

Justin Fields — 2022

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.178
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.179
Dropbacks
377
Turnover EPA
-50.2
WPA
-3.09
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1SF 19 -0.050 -0.089 +0.039 -1.0 1 / 0 -3.4 2 -4.4 -0.05 -16.0
2GB 14 -0.451 -0.459 +0.008 -6.3 1 / 0 -2.2 3 -4.7 +0.00 -1.7
3HOU 22 -0.375 -0.351 -0.023 -8.2 2 / 0 -6.5 5 -6.5 -0.42 -19.0
4NYG 28 -0.209 -0.203 -0.006 -5.9 0 / 1 -5.2 6 -9.4 -0.18 -7.8
5MIN 24 +0.313 +0.312 +0.000 +7.5 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.6 +0.07 +2.4
6WAS 32 -0.463 -0.449 -0.014 -14.8 1 / 0 -5.3 5 -6.9 -0.82 -6.1
7NE 25 +0.167 +0.096 +0.072 +4.2 1 / 0 -4.3 4 -5.6 +0.13 -1.3
8DAL 29 -0.079 -0.168 +0.089 -2.3 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -6.2 -0.16 +10.8
9MIA 31 +0.029 +0.014 +0.016 +0.9 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -1.3 -0.29 -3.7
10DET 23 -0.264 -0.163 -0.101 -6.1 1 / 0 -7.0 3 -5.7 -0.45 +3.1
11ATL 25 -0.018 +0.059 -0.077 -0.5 1 / 0 -3.3 4 -5.4 -0.14 +6.0
13GB 25 +0.199 +0.177 +0.022 +5.0 2 / 0 -7.3 0 +0.0 -0.15 +14.5
15PHI 27 -0.091 -0.139 +0.048 -2.4 0 / 0 +0.0 6 -11.6 -0.20 -1.3
16BUF 25 -0.280 -0.339 +0.059 -7.0 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -1.6 -0.12 +0.2
17DET 28 -1.079 -0.964 -0.115 -30.2 1 / 1 -5.8 7 -15.4 -0.32 -28.6
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.