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

Michael Penix Jr. — 2026 Every split →

Adj EPA / dropback

+0.010

Raw EPA / dropback

+0.017

Dropbacks

179

Turnover EPA

-24.6

WPA

-0.06

Week	Opp	Dropbacks	Adj EPA/db	Raw EPA/db	Schedule	Total adj EPA	INT / FL	Turnover EPA	Sacks	Sack EPA	WPA	CPOE
3	GB	26	+0.375	+0.366	+0.010	+9.8	1 / 0	-4.9	0	+0.0	-0.02	+8.8
4	NO	21	+0.509	+0.507	+0.001	+10.7	0 / 0	+0.0	1	-2.3	+0.15	+1.8
5	BAL	35	+0.178	+0.219	-0.041	+6.2	0 / 0	+0.0	3	-3.2	+0.03	-5.0
6	CHI	40	-0.245	-0.246	+0.001	-9.8	0 / 1	-3.1	5	-10.3	-0.19	-7.3
7	SF	33	+0.260	+0.279	-0.019	+8.6	0 / 0	+0.0	0	+0.0	+0.34	+5.5
8	TB	24	-0.989	-1.002	+0.013	-23.7	4 / 0	-16.7	0	+0.0	-0.36	-31.3

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.