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.

Malik Willis — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.752
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.739
Dropbacks
38
Turnover EPA
+0.0
WPA
+0.90
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
11NYG 2 +0.996 +1.036 -0.040 +2.0 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.11 +40.0
12MIN 1 +0.477 +0.370 +0.107 +0.5 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.00 +18.3
16CHI 13 +0.588 +0.580 +0.007 +7.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -1.3 +0.32 +20.3
17BAL 22 +0.839 +0.823 +0.016 +18.5 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -2.0 +0.48 +21.3
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.