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.

Dillon Gabriel — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.228
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.220
Dropbacks
204
Turnover EPA
-7.7
WPA
-1.03
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
2BAL 3 +1.135 +1.141 -0.006 +3.4 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 +36.5
4DET 1 -1.203 -1.213 +0.010 -1.2 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 -57.1
5MIN 34 +0.033 -0.065 +0.098 +1.1 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -2.7 -0.23 -6.8
6PIT 58 -0.246 -0.239 -0.007 -14.3 0 / 0 +0.0 6 -9.6 -0.21 -10.2
7MIA 20 -0.004 +0.042 -0.046 -0.1 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -3.0 +0.09 +0.2
8NE 37 -0.516 -0.536 +0.020 -19.1 2 / 0 -7.7 1 -1.3 -0.17 -5.3
10NYJ 38 -0.308 -0.194 -0.114 -11.7 0 / 0 +0.0 6 -9.9 -0.29 -16.4
11BAL 11 -0.243 -0.235 -0.008 -2.7 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.4 -0.16 +0.2
13SF 1 -0.617 -0.571 -0.046 -0.6 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.01 +23.7
16BUF 1 -1.387 -1.408 +0.022 -1.4 0 / 0 +0.0 1 -1.4 -0.06
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.