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

C.J. Stroud — 2026 Every split →

Adj EPA / dropback

+0.100

Raw EPA / dropback

+0.122

Dropbacks

259

Turnover EPA

-13.0

WPA

+0.84

Week	Opp	Dropbacks	Adj EPA/db	Raw EPA/db	Schedule	Total adj EPA	INT / FL	Turnover EPA	Sacks	Sack EPA	WPA	CPOE
1	BUF	41	+0.072	+0.036	+0.036	+3.0	0 / 2	-7.0	3	-8.7	-0.04	+3.2
2	CIN	57	-0.162	-0.102	-0.060	-9.2	0 / 0	+0.0	4	-7.1	-0.16	-8.4
3	IND	30	-0.117	-0.103	-0.014	-3.5	0 / 0	+0.0	3	-4.2	-0.24	+0.2
4	DAL	31	+0.356	+0.482	-0.127	+11.0	0 / 0	+0.0	2	-4.1	+0.43	+15.1
5	TEN	36	+0.213	+0.292	-0.079	+7.7	0 / 0	+0.0	2	-3.0	+0.29	+10.0
6	JAX	34	+0.525	+0.408	+0.117	+17.8	1 / 0	-6.0	0	+0.0	+0.51	+11.5
7	NYG	30	-0.026	-0.013	-0.012	-0.8	0 / 0	+0.0	1	-1.2	+0.04	-9.1

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.