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.

Jake Haener — 2024

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.340
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.332
Dropbacks
45
Turnover EPA
-3.6
WPA
-0.26
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1CAR 1 -0.605 -0.554 -0.051 -0.6 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 -70.6
5KC 7 -0.361 -0.374 +0.014 -2.5 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.01 -23.3
7DEN 4 +0.935 +0.932 +0.003 +3.7 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.00 +3.3
8LAC 19 -0.234 -0.248 +0.015 -4.4 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.7 -0.08 -11.9
14NYG 1 -1.392 -1.339 -0.053 -1.4 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.3 -0.02
15WAS 13 -0.775 -0.726 -0.049 -10.1 1 / 0 -3.6 3 -5.7 -0.15 -26.8
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.