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.

Tyler Shough — 2025

Adj EPA / dropback
-0.041
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.007
Dropbacks
356
Turnover EPA
-33.2
WPA
+0.63
WeekOpp DropbacksAdj EPA/dbRaw EPA/dbScheduleTotal adj EPA INT / FLTurnover EPASacksSack EPAWPACPOE
3SEA 2 -0.814 -0.887 +0.073 -1.6 0 / 0 +0.0 0 +0.0 -0.00 -52.1
8TB 32 -0.524 -0.471 -0.053 -16.8 1 / 0 -4.8 2 -4.2 -0.08 -13.9
9LA 24 +0.011 +0.004 +0.007 +0.3 1 / 0 -3.2 1 -2.0 -0.05 -2.9
10CAR 29 +0.330 +0.406 -0.076 +9.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -5.5 +0.43 +10.4
12ATL 48 -0.223 -0.214 -0.008 -10.7 1 / 0 -2.2 5 -7.4 -0.12 +0.0
13MIA 43 -0.312 -0.260 -0.052 -13.4 1 / 1 -11.2 4 -10.7 -0.32 +9.8
14TB 23 +0.039 +0.078 -0.038 +0.9 1 / 0 -4.3 3 -5.2 +0.29 -2.3
15CAR 36 +0.163 +0.242 -0.079 +5.9 0 / 0 +0.0 5 -8.6 +0.29 +4.1
16NYJ 51 -0.054 +0.054 -0.108 -2.8 0 / 0 +0.0 3 -5.3 +0.11 -1.5
17TEN 29 +0.572 +0.626 -0.054 +16.6 0 / 0 +0.0 2 -4.9 +0.47 +19.8
18ATL 39 -0.067 -0.067 -0.000 -2.6 1 / 0 -7.5 4 -6.5 -0.41 -1.7
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 2026-09-14 01:25 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up: backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.