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.

Jayden Daniels — 2026 Every split →

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.018
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.036
Dropbacks
126
Turnover EPA
+0.0
WPA
-0.58
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1PHI 36 +0.136 +0.108 +0.027 +4.9 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.0 -0.10 -3.4
2DAL 17 -0.125 +0.011 -0.136 -2.1 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.08 +3.5
5NYG 31 -0.078 -0.077 -0.001 -2.4 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -7.9 -0.19 +8.1
6SF 42 +0.046 +0.069 -0.023 +1.9 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -5.6 -0.22 +17.6
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 2026-10-28 11:05 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.