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 — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.489
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.550
Dropbacks
52
Turnover EPA
-9.6
WPA
-0.58
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
7KC 2 -0.380 -0.377 -0.003 -0.8 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 +19.1
10DEN 1 -0.896 -0.985 +0.089 -0.9 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.04 -73.8
14DEN 11 +0.287 +0.187 +0.100 +3.2 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.1 -0.08 +13.2
15PHI 29 -0.503 -0.577 +0.073 -14.6 1 / 0 -4.3 4 -3.7 -0.21 -10.1
17NYG 3 -0.501 -0.447 -0.055 -1.5 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.6 -0.00 +31.5
18KC 6 -1.806 -1.806 +0.000 -10.8 1 / 0 -5.3 2 -3.5 -0.26 -48.2
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.