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.

Max Brosmer — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.647
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.665
Dropbacks
85
Turnover EPA
-26.2
WPA
-1.13
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
3CIN 4 -1.017 -0.956 -0.061 -4.1 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 +0.00 -29.9
8LAC 4 +0.062 -0.003 +0.065 +0.2 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 -8.1
13SEA 34 -0.804 -0.857 +0.053 -27.3 4 / 0 -18.8 4 -6.9 -0.58 -4.2
16NYG 10 -0.109 -0.054 -0.054 -1.1 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.6 +0.10 +10.7
17DET 23 -0.755 -0.764 +0.008 -17.4 0 / 0 +0.0 7 -10.9 -0.64 -9.4
18GB 10 -0.539 -0.544 +0.006 -5.4 0 / 1 -7.4 2 -9.3 -0.01 +8.5
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.