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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NE W | 10–7 | -0.5fav 3.5 | -0.14 → -0.06 | -0.31 → -0.33 | +0.27 | 95%raw 92% | 19% – 94% | 0 / 2 |
| @ DEN L | 7–10 | +0.5dog 3.5 | -0.31 → -0.28 | -0.14 → -0.18 | -0.10 | 24%raw 8% | 6% – 81% | 2 / 0 |
| LA L | 27–31 | -1.5dog 2.5 | +0.32 → +0.41 | +0.20 → +0.18 | +0.23 | 93%raw 84% | 4% – 57% | 0 / 0 |
| @ SEA W | 31–27 | +1.5fav 2.5 | +0.20 → +0.23 | +0.32 → +0.25 | -0.02 | 44%raw 16% | 43% – 96% | 0 / 0 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew Stafford | LA | SEA | 35 | +0.546 | +0.462 | +0.084 | +19.1 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 1 | -2.0 | +0.18 | +6.2 |
| Sam Darnold | SEA | LA | 39 | +0.481 | +0.462 | +0.019 | +18.8 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 3 | -4.4 | +0.58 | +8.7 |
| Drake Maye | NE | DEN | 26 | -0.324 | -0.420 | +0.096 | -8.4 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 5 | -8.1 | -0.45 | -13.0 |
| Jarrett Stidham | DEN | NE | 34 | -0.435 | -0.457 | +0.022 | -14.8 | 1 / 1 | -7.5 | 3 | -7.0 | -0.71 | -5.8 |
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.