Game quality
How well each team played, beyond the score: EPA (expected points added) per play, adjusted for the opponent. A big day against a bad defence counts for less. Season views include playoff games.
Games
Adj margin: offence minus defence EPA per play, opponent-adjusted. Win exp: how often a team with that margin wins (a 55% win was close to a coin flip). Win prob range: the lowest and highest in-game win chance.
| Team | Score | vs line | Off EPA/playraw → adj | Def EPA/playraw → adj | Adj margin | Win exp | Win prob range | Turnoverslost / forced |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SF L | 17–20 | +0.5dog 3.5 | -0.06 → +0.02 | +0.07 → +0.04 | -0.02 | 43%raw 15% | 2% – 83% | 1 / 1 |
| @ LA W | 20–17 | -0.5fav 3.5 | +0.07 → +0.11 | -0.06 → -0.09 | +0.20 | 91%raw 85% | 17% – 98% | 1 / 1 |
| CIN W | 27–24 | +10.0dog 7.0 | +0.06 → +0.04 | -0.03 → -0.15 | +0.19 | 90%raw 78% | 5% – 97% | 1 / 2 |
| @ KC L | 24–27 | -10.0fav 7.0 | -0.03 → -0.04 | +0.06 → +0.06 | -0.10 | 24%raw 22% | 3% – 95% | 2 / 1 |
Quarterbacks this week
Click a column to sort. Schedule = what the opponent adjustment added (+ = faced a tough pass defence). Turnover and sack EPA are what those plays cost; sacks are shared with the line.
| Quarterback | Team | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jimmy Garoppolo | SF | LA | 29 | +0.318 | +0.214 | +0.104 | +9.2 | 1 / 0 | -4.6 | 0 | +0.0 | +0.14 | -18.0 |
| Matthew Stafford | LA | SF | 47 | +0.300 | +0.279 | +0.021 | +14.1 | 1 / 0 | -5.8 | 2 | -2.6 | +0.61 | +6.4 |
| Joe Burrow | CIN | KC | 40 | +0.076 | +0.098 | -0.022 | +3.0 | 1 / 0 | -4.0 | 1 | -1.4 | +0.10 | -1.8 |
| Patrick Mahomes | KC | CIN | 43 | -0.166 | -0.148 | -0.018 | -7.2 | 2 / 0 | -7.9 | 4 | -7.1 | -0.49 | +0.7 |
How the ratings are built
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 2026-11-07 11:05 UTC, from nflverse. Write-up:
backtests/nfl_game_quality/FINDINGS.md.