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 | 7–31 | -21.5dog 2.5 | -0.46 → -0.44 | +0.08 → +0.00 | -0.44 | 1%raw 0% | 0% – 50% | 3 / 0 |
| @ PHI W | 31–7 | +21.5fav 2.5 | +0.08 → +0.15 | -0.46 → -0.53 | +0.68 | 100%raw 100% | 50% – 100% | 0 / 3 |
| CIN L | 20–23 | -1.0dog 2.0 | +0.02 → +0.01 | +0.05 → -0.10 | +0.11 | 78%raw 42% | 9% – 58% | 2 / 1 |
| @ KC W | 23–20 | +1.0fav 2.0 | +0.05 → +0.07 | +0.02 → -0.04 | +0.11 | 76%raw 58% | 42% – 91% | 1 / 2 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Mahomes | KC | CIN | 46 | +0.182 | +0.161 | +0.021 | +8.4 | 0 / 1 | -6.0 | 3 | -7.9 | +0.24 | +2.3 |
| Jalen Hurts | PHI | SF | 26 | +0.011 | -0.025 | +0.037 | +0.3 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 1 | -1.0 | -0.03 | -2.6 |
| Joe Burrow | CIN | KC | 46 | -0.050 | -0.040 | -0.010 | -2.3 | 2 / 0 | -4.5 | 5 | -7.2 | -0.04 | +8.1 |
| Josh Johnson | SF | PHI | 15 | -0.095 | -0.135 | +0.040 | -1.4 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 2 | -2.8 | -0.05 | -5.5 |
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.