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.

Kenny Pickett — 2022

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.011
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.021
Dropbacks
417
Turnover EPA
-35.3
WPA
+0.47
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
4NYJ 13 +0.085 +0.110 -0.024 +1.1 3 / 0 -7.4 0 +0.0 -0.10 +20.7
5BUF 55 +0.024 -0.041 +0.065 +1.3 1 / 0 -0.9 3 -3.5 +0.02 +1.4
6TB 19 -0.128 -0.143 +0.015 -2.4 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.2 -0.11 +1.2
7MIA 45 -0.117 -0.124 +0.007 -5.3 3 / 0 -11.6 2 -2.2 -0.10 +8.5
8PHI 44 -0.315 -0.357 +0.042 -13.9 1 / 1 -9.6 6 -12.8 -0.15 -1.0
10NO 36 +0.000 -0.073 +0.073 +0.0 0 / 0 +0.0 6 -8.3 -0.09 +3.5
11CIN 44 -0.034 -0.050 +0.016 -1.5 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.3 -0.11 +2.7
12IND 32 -0.010 -0.000 -0.010 -0.3 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.8 +0.15 -0.3
13ATL 28 +0.253 +0.326 -0.073 +7.1 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.19 -4.9
14BAL 2 -1.981 -1.946 -0.035 -4.0 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.3 -0.07 -67.0
16LV 39 -0.043 +0.035 -0.078 -1.7 1 / 0 -5.9 0 +0.0 +0.30 +1.8
17BAL 29 +0.109 +0.143 -0.035 +3.2 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.0 +0.30 -1.5
18CLE 31 +0.373 +0.328 +0.045 +11.6 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.3 +0.21 -13.0
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.