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.

Trevor Lawrence — 2021

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.110
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.093
Dropbacks
636
Turnover EPA
-92.9
WPA
-1.77
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1HOU 52 -0.173 -0.074 -0.099 -9.0 3 / 0 -14.6 1 -2.1 -0.11 -12.0
2DEN 35 -0.405 -0.405 -0.000 -14.2 2 / 0 -6.9 1 -2.0 -0.40 -18.2
3ARI 36 -0.348 -0.361 +0.013 -12.5 2 / 2 -18.2 3 -7.7 -0.32 +2.8
4CIN 25 +0.247 +0.256 -0.009 +6.2 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.0 +0.19 +11.0
5TEN 36 -0.063 -0.044 -0.019 -2.3 1 / 0 -2.7 2 -3.6 -0.13 +5.0
6MIA 43 +0.282 +0.218 +0.064 +12.1 0 / 1 -4.8 2 -5.7 +0.33 -5.4
8SEA 55 -0.168 -0.140 -0.028 -9.3 1 / 0 -3.8 1 -2.4 -0.15 -6.4
9BUF 28 -0.069 -0.140 +0.071 -1.9 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.9 -0.16 -7.2
10IND 39 -0.163 -0.168 +0.006 -6.3 0 / 1 -2.7 3 -5.3 -0.36 -18.3
11SF 28 +0.081 +0.065 +0.016 +2.3 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -3.5 -0.10 -0.8
12ATL 44 -0.122 -0.046 -0.076 -5.4 1 / 0 -2.5 1 -1.8 -0.11 -5.5
13LA 30 +0.001 -0.097 +0.098 +0.0 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.7 -0.10 -19.7
14TEN 43 -0.406 -0.378 -0.028 -17.5 4 / 0 -14.2 3 -6.2 -0.19 -1.8
15HOU 40 -0.227 -0.127 -0.100 -9.1 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -4.9 -0.25 -7.8
16NYJ 40 -0.009 +0.103 -0.111 -0.4 0 / 1 -7.6 1 -7.6 -0.10 +11.1
17NE 29 -0.385 -0.416 +0.031 -11.2 3 / 0 -15.0 2 -3.0 -0.15 -4.3
18IND 33 +0.261 +0.246 +0.015 +8.6 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.9 +0.33 +4.5
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 2026-09-14 01:25 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.