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.
Cooper Rush — 2026 Every split →
Adj EPA / dropback
-0.671
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.635
Dropbacks
44
Turnover EPA
-25.0
WPA
-0.70
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | PIT | 26 | -0.613 | -0.606 | -0.006 | -15.9 | 2 / 0 | -13.0 | 4 | -7.0 | -0.59 | -10.4 |
| 2 | CAR | 18 | -0.754 | -0.677 | -0.077 | -13.6 | 2 / 0 | -12.0 | 1 | -1.7 | -0.11 | -16.8 |
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.