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.
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.