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.
Lamar Jackson — 2026 Every split →
Adj EPA / dropback
+0.312
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.356
Dropbacks
102
Turnover EPA
-8.1
WPA
+1.18
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IND | 26 | +0.378 | +0.376 | +0.002 | +9.8 | 0 / 1 | -6.3 | 2 | -7.4 | +0.18 | +4.8 |
| 2 | NO | 33 | +0.091 | +0.103 | -0.012 | +3.0 | 1 / 0 | -1.8 | 3 | -6.1 | +0.05 | +7.9 |
| 3 | DAL | 20 | +0.473 | +0.596 | -0.124 | +9.5 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 0 | +0.0 | +0.74 | +9.2 |
| 4 | TEN | 22 | +0.458 | +0.534 | -0.076 | +10.1 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 2 | -2.6 | +0.21 | +11.3 |
| 8 | BUF | 1 | -0.564 | -0.574 | +0.010 | -0.6 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 0 | +0.0 | -0.01 | -59.4 |
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.