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.
Matthew Stafford — 2026 Every split →
Adj EPA / dropback
+0.102
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.093
Dropbacks
314
Turnover EPA
-34.8
WPA
+0.87
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SF | 25 | -0.257 | -0.224 | -0.033 | -6.4 | 1 / 0 | -3.0 | 0 | +0.0 | -0.12 | -4.7 |
| 2 | NYG | 31 | +0.602 | +0.596 | +0.007 | +18.7 | 1 / 0 | -2.4 | 1 | -1.5 | +0.18 | +7.3 |
| 3 | DEN | 57 | +0.062 | -0.020 | +0.082 | +3.5 | 2 / 0 | -11.4 | 4 | -6.4 | -0.36 | +0.2 |
| 4 | PHI | 52 | +0.039 | +0.021 | +0.018 | +2.0 | 2 / 0 | -8.4 | 1 | -1.6 | +0.10 | -2.5 |
| 5 | BUF | 56 | +0.374 | +0.330 | +0.043 | +20.9 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 1 | -1.0 | +0.92 | +1.3 |
| 6 | ARI | 37 | -0.183 | -0.069 | -0.114 | -6.8 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 3 | -5.0 | +0.04 | +4.2 |
| 7 | LV | 30 | +0.115 | +0.174 | -0.059 | +3.5 | 1 / 0 | -5.4 | 1 | -2.5 | +0.18 | +7.4 |
| 8 | LAC | 26 | -0.128 | -0.186 | +0.058 | -3.3 | 1 / 0 | -4.1 | 1 | -1.4 | -0.06 | -9.0 |
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.