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.

Will Levis — 2024

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.191
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.190
Dropbacks
344
Turnover EPA
-68.4
WPA
-2.99
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1CHI 35 -0.530 -0.519 -0.011 -18.5 2 / 1 -13.3 3 -7.6 -0.79 +4.9
2NYJ 32 -0.170 -0.201 +0.032 -5.4 1 / 1 -6.6 4 -8.2 -0.16 +7.0
3GB 42 -0.385 -0.404 +0.020 -16.2 2 / 1 -15.8 8 -18.2 -0.30 +5.7
4MIA 4 -0.775 -0.771 -0.004 -3.1 1 / 0 -4.5 0 +0.0 -0.11 -1.5
6IND 27 -0.252 -0.211 -0.041 -6.8 1 / 0 -2.3 0 +0.0 -0.37 -3.9
10LAC 30 +0.069 +0.045 +0.023 +2.1 0 / 0 +0.0 7 -7.1 +0.07 +10.9
11MIN 36 +0.097 +0.052 +0.045 +3.5 1 / 0 -1.5 5 -8.3 +0.04 -4.8
12HOU 32 -0.025 -0.062 +0.037 -0.8 1 / 0 -8.5 8 -9.2 -0.20 +4.9
13WAS 40 +0.002 +0.048 -0.046 +0.1 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -1.7 -0.09 -10.2
14JAX 34 -0.391 -0.316 -0.075 -13.3 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.6 -0.87 -9.2
15CIN 13 -0.966 -0.946 -0.020 -12.6 3 / 0 -15.9 1 -1.5 -0.27 -4.5
18HOU 19 +0.291 +0.249 +0.042 +5.5 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.3 +0.05 -2.6
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.