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 — 2024

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.034
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.040
Dropbacks
178
Turnover EPA
-11.2
WPA
+0.17
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1ATL 25 -0.086 -0.054 -0.032 -2.2 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -4.2 +0.01 +4.9
2DEN 22 +0.117 +0.100 +0.017 +2.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.0 +0.11 +7.4
3LAC 34 +0.267 +0.241 +0.026 +9.1 1 / 0 -5.0 2 -2.8 +0.33 +10.2
4IND 37 +0.062 +0.094 -0.032 +2.3 0 / 1 -6.2 4 -8.6 -0.03 +1.2
5DAL 30 -0.143 -0.116 -0.027 -4.3 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.2 -0.03 -1.9
6LV 28 -0.001 -0.015 +0.014 -0.0 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.9 -0.12 -6.7
12CLE 1 -1.064 -1.120 +0.056 -1.1 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.08 -32.9
19BAL 1 -0.375 -0.470 +0.095 -0.4 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.01 -52.3
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.