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.

Zach Wilson — 2023

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.243
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.246
Dropbacks
413
Turnover EPA
-57.5
WPA
-2.60
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1BUF 23 -0.108 -0.139 +0.031 -2.5 1 / 0 -3.9 2 -3.8 -0.05 +6.4
2DAL 29 -0.616 -0.634 +0.018 -17.9 3 / 0 -14.0 3 -5.0 -0.03 -18.8
3NE 38 -0.377 -0.401 +0.024 -14.3 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -4.7 -0.82 -5.8
4KC 41 +0.149 +0.088 +0.061 +6.1 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.0 +0.18 +8.0
5DEN 30 -0.266 -0.239 -0.027 -8.0 1 / 0 -2.9 4 -5.5 -0.25 +7.2
6PHI 39 -0.230 -0.226 -0.004 -9.0 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -7.4 -0.38 -9.0
8NYG 39 -0.387 -0.376 -0.011 -15.1 0 / 1 -5.8 4 -12.8 -0.30 -16.8
9LAC 57 -0.357 -0.336 -0.022 -20.4 0 / 2 -13.5 8 -23.3 -0.34 +0.4
10LV 41 -0.130 -0.101 -0.030 -5.3 1 / 0 -5.7 2 -1.7 -0.42 -6.9
11BUF 21 -0.381 -0.408 +0.026 -8.0 1 / 0 -4.6 5 -7.6 -0.19 -17.7
14HOU 40 +0.212 +0.196 +0.016 +8.5 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -7.6 +0.28 +10.2
15MIA 15 -0.963 -0.924 -0.040 -14.5 0 / 1 -7.1 4 -11.5 -0.29 -10.0
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.