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.
Tyler Huntley — 2024 Every split →
Adj EPA / dropback
-0.135
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.137
Dropbacks
149
Turnover EPA
-16.1
WPA
-0.83
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | TEN | 25 | -0.505 | -0.471 | -0.035 | -12.6 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 2 | -3.7 | -0.33 | -3.0 |
| 5 | NE | 35 | -0.136 | -0.100 | -0.036 | -4.8 | 1 / 0 | -4.4 | 3 | -4.2 | -0.21 | -6.8 |
| 7 | IND | 15 | -0.232 | -0.194 | -0.038 | -3.5 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 2 | -3.3 | -0.05 | -5.0 |
| 17 | CLE | 29 | +0.217 | +0.160 | +0.058 | +6.3 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 4 | -5.0 | +0.19 | +22.4 |
| 18 | NYJ | 45 | -0.122 | -0.154 | +0.032 | -5.5 | 2 / 1 | -11.7 | 4 | -9.2 | -0.43 | +4.8 |
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.