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.

Skylar Thompson — 2022

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.248
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.263
Dropbacks
161
Turnover EPA
-23.3
WPA
-1.13
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
5NYJ 35 -0.498 -0.465 -0.033 -17.4 1 / 1 -10.4 2 -8.1 -0.41 -3.2
6MIN 14 -0.179 -0.171 -0.008 -2.5 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.6 -0.04 -13.6
10CLE 1 +0.967 +0.916 +0.051 +1.0 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.00 +22.3
12HOU 6 -0.560 -0.541 -0.018 -3.4 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.3 -0.01 -41.4
13SF 1 -2.996 -3.024 +0.028 -3.0 1 / 0 -3.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 -57.3
17NE 22 -0.006 -0.073 +0.067 -0.1 1 / 0 -2.9 1 -1.4 -0.18 -10.0
18NYJ 32 -0.248 -0.221 -0.026 -7.9 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.1 -0.17 +7.6
19BUF 50 -0.131 -0.193 +0.062 -6.5 2 / 0 -7.0 4 -6.1 -0.31 -17.0
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.