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.

Joe Milton III — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.019
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.027
Dropbacks
24
Turnover EPA
-8.1
WPA
-0.07
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
3CHI 5 -0.148 -0.145 -0.003 -0.7 1 / 0 -3.3 0 +0.0 -0.00 +4.9
8DEN 4 +1.536 +1.433 +0.103 +6.1 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.00 +11.6
16LAC 2 +0.496 +0.417 +0.079 +1.0 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 +20.7
18NYG 13 -0.456 -0.400 -0.056 -5.9 1 / 0 -4.8 0 +0.0 -0.07 -6.3
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.