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.

View Games by week Quarterbacks Teams Season 2026 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021

Patrick Mahomes — 2026 Every split →

Adj EPA / dropback

+0.163

Raw EPA / dropback

+0.138

Dropbacks

242

Turnover EPA

-19.0

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	DEN	29	+0.003	-0.079	+0.082	+0.1	1 / 0	-5.8	2	-3.8	-0.13	-11.9
2	IND	49	+0.270	+0.274	-0.004	+13.2	0 / 0	+0.0	2	-2.0	+0.28	+3.7
3	MIA	24	+0.424	+0.538	-0.115	+10.2	1 / 0	-3.6	0	+0.0	+0.30	+18.7
4	LV	33	-0.010	+0.053	-0.063	-0.3	0 / 0	+0.0	2	-3.7	+0.25	-7.3
6	LAC	30	+0.159	+0.092	+0.067	+4.8	1 / 0	-5.9	0	+0.0	-0.02	+9.4
7	SEA	34	-0.088	-0.178	+0.089	-3.0	1 / 0	-3.8	1	-1.7	-0.23	-9.8
8	DEN	43	+0.340	+0.250	+0.089	+14.6	0 / 0	+0.0	2	-4.6	+0.25	+7.8

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.