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 — 2023

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.095
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.118
Dropbacks
347
Turnover EPA
-17.2
WPA
-0.69
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1SF 50 -0.335 -0.395 +0.061 -16.7 2 / 0 -8.7 5 -8.0 -0.25 +2.1
2CLE 32 -0.146 -0.243 +0.097 -4.7 1 / 0 -4.5 2 -3.3 -0.37 -15.3
3LV 29 +0.182 +0.204 -0.022 +5.3 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.4 +0.14 -10.1
4HOU 26 -0.520 -0.524 +0.005 -13.5 1 / 0 -4.0 3 -6.8 -0.25 +2.0
5BAL 36 +0.164 +0.086 +0.078 +5.9 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -6.6 +0.24 -6.0
7LA 27 +0.003 +0.024 -0.021 +0.1 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.7 -0.01 +4.6
8JAX 17 -0.390 -0.376 -0.014 -6.6 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.7 -0.15 +7.5
9TEN 30 +0.072 +0.112 -0.039 +2.2 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.25 -3.2
10GB 24 -0.251 -0.237 -0.014 -6.0 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.5 -0.17 -6.9
11CLE 31 -0.289 -0.384 +0.094 -9.0 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.6 -0.59 -8.5
12CIN 35 +0.330 +0.336 -0.006 +11.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.3 +0.43 +9.2
13ARI 10 -0.129 -0.048 -0.081 -1.3 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.04 +5.5
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.