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.
Trace McSorley — 2022 Every split →
Adj EPA / dropback
-0.423
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.434
Dropbacks
86
Turnover EPA
-23.5
WPA
-0.73
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | KC | 5 | -0.311 | -0.302 | -0.009 | -1.6 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 1 | -0.6 | -0.00 | -23.2 |
| 11 | SF | 10 | -0.198 | -0.232 | +0.034 | -2.0 | 1 / 0 | -4.0 | 0 | +0.0 | +0.00 | +3.6 |
| 15 | DEN | 17 | -0.539 | -0.556 | +0.017 | -9.2 | 2 / 0 | -7.7 | 1 | -1.0 | -0.24 | -20.2 |
| 16 | TB | 45 | -0.330 | -0.332 | +0.002 | -14.9 | 1 / 1 | -6.7 | 1 | -6.5 | -0.50 | -11.2 |
| 18 | SF | 9 | -0.980 | -1.006 | +0.027 | -8.8 | 1 / 0 | -5.0 | 0 | +0.0 | -0.00 | -1.9 |
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.