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

Joe Burrow — 2026 Every split →

Adj EPA / dropback

+0.251

Raw EPA / dropback

+0.242

Dropbacks

281

Turnover EPA

-33.2

WPA

+1.94

Week	Opp	Dropbacks	Adj EPA/db	Raw EPA/db	Schedule	Total adj EPA	INT / FL	Turnover EPA	Sacks	Sack EPA	WPA	CPOE
1	TB	36	-0.035	-0.073	+0.038	-1.2	1 / 0	-7.5	1	-2.8	+0.01	+6.4
2	HOU	36	+0.060	-0.015	+0.075	+2.2	0 / 0	+0.0	5	-6.0	+0.03	-6.5
3	PIT	38	+0.411	+0.386	+0.025	+15.6	0 / 1	-4.1	1	-4.1	+0.28	+8.9
4	JAX	56	+0.241	+0.132	+0.109	+13.5	2 / 0	-11.2	2	-2.9	+0.05	+9.8
5	MIA	32	+0.319	+0.436	-0.117	+10.2	0 / 0	+0.0	0	+0.0	+0.15	+8.2
7	BAL	31	+0.561	+0.587	-0.026	+17.4	0 / 0	+0.0	1	-0.6	+0.40	+15.5
8	TEN	52	+0.249	+0.327	-0.078	+13.0	3 / 0	-10.4	3	-5.9	+1.00	+16.9

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.