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.

Shedeur Sanders — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.282
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.252
Dropbacks
235
Turnover EPA
-57.0
WPA
-1.72
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
11BAL 18 -0.809 -0.800 -0.008 -14.6 1 / 0 -4.2 2 -5.0 -0.64 -34.8
12LV 21 +0.062 +0.094 -0.033 +1.3 1 / 0 -6.2 1 -1.1 -0.04 -6.1
13SF 28 -0.186 -0.141 -0.046 -5.2 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.6 +0.05 +0.3
14TEN 44 +0.092 +0.157 -0.064 +4.1 1 / 0 -5.1 2 -3.5 -0.01 -4.7
15CHI 40 -0.588 -0.574 -0.014 -23.5 3 / 0 -15.2 5 -9.9 -0.18 -4.6
16BUF 31 -0.355 -0.376 +0.022 -11.0 2 / 0 -11.1 2 -4.6 -0.48 +1.4
17PIT 25 -0.226 -0.220 -0.006 -5.6 2 / 0 -10.3 2 -2.0 -0.15 +7.9
18CIN 28 -0.417 -0.346 -0.071 -11.7 0 / 1 -4.9 6 -9.9 -0.26 -11.8
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.