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.
Sam Ehlinger — 2022 Every split →
Adj EPA / dropback
-0.348
Raw EPA / dropback
-0.353
Dropbacks
115
Turnover EPA
-23.9
WPA
-1.28
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | WAS | 25 | +0.040 | +0.048 | -0.008 | +1.0 | 0 / 1 | -4.6 | 2 | -6.3 | -0.23 | +7.9 |
| 9 | NE | 38 | -0.723 | -0.774 | +0.051 | -27.5 | 1 / 0 | -5.3 | 9 | -14.5 | -0.39 | -16.2 |
| 17 | NYG | 15 | +0.030 | +0.043 | -0.013 | +0.4 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 1 | -1.4 | -0.01 | -5.7 |
| 18 | HOU | 37 | -0.377 | -0.352 | -0.025 | -13.9 | 2 / 0 | -14.0 | 2 | -2.4 | -0.65 | +0.2 |
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.