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.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson — 2024

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.578
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.565
Dropbacks
126
Turnover EPA
-29.4
WPA
-1.17
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
7CIN 25 -0.797 -0.773 -0.024 -19.9 2 / 0 -9.4 1 -1.0 -0.39 -16.4
11NO 1 -0.440 -0.476 +0.037 -0.4 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 -81.0
15KC 9 -0.830 -0.830 -0.000 -7.5 1 / 0 -4.8 0 +0.0 -0.03 -11.1
16CIN 39 -0.486 -0.458 -0.028 -18.9 2 / 0 -7.2 5 -6.6 -0.30 -3.5
17MIA 48 -0.532 -0.524 -0.007 -25.5 1 / 1 -8.0 1 -5.0 -0.43 -14.9
18BAL 4 -0.137 -0.217 +0.080 -0.5 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.4 -0.02 +2.2
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.