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.

Caleb Williams — 2026 Every split →

Adj EPA / dropback
+0.353
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.307
Dropbacks
136
Turnover EPA
-2.0
WPA
+1.29
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
1CAR 31 +0.576 +0.599 -0.023 +17.9 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.5 +0.35 +16.6
2MIN 29 +0.104 -0.036 +0.140 +3.0 1 / 0 -2.0 3 -2.1 +0.09 -5.6
6ATL 40 +0.294 +0.266 +0.029 +11.8 0 / 0 +0.0 4 -5.6 +0.42 +15.3
7NE 36 +0.428 +0.377 +0.051 +15.4 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -3.6 +0.42 +6.7
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.