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 — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.119
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.093
Dropbacks
233
Turnover EPA
-9.3
WPA
-1.53
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1PIT 24 +0.427 +0.419 +0.009 +10.3 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.7 +0.03 +10.4
2BUF 13 -0.712 -0.733 +0.021 -9.3 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.9 -0.13 -37.6
4MIA 29 +0.156 +0.193 -0.038 +4.5 0 / 1 -3.9 2 -4.8 -0.06 +5.1
5DAL 52 -0.030 +0.084 -0.114 -1.6 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -8.0 -0.15 +5.1
6DEN 26 -0.714 -0.797 +0.083 -18.6 0 / 0 +0.0 9 -13.3 -1.06 -14.8
7CAR 15 -0.709 -0.616 -0.093 -10.6 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -3.4 -0.23 -15.4
8CIN 32 +0.425 +0.478 -0.054 +13.6 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.30 +3.8
10CLE 14 -0.676 -0.727 +0.050 -9.5 1 / 0 -5.4 3 -3.2 -0.12 -13.7
11NE 28 -0.235 -0.265 +0.030 -6.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.2 -0.12 -4.9
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.