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.
Caleb Williams — 2026 Every split →
Adj EPA / dropback
+0.353
Raw EPA / dropback
+0.289
Dropbacks
171
Turnover EPA
-2.0
WPA
+1.58
| Week | Opp | Dropbacks | Adj EPA/db | Raw EPA/db | Schedule | Total adj EPA | INT / FL | Turnover EPA | Sacks | Sack EPA | WPA | CPOE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CAR | 31 | +0.567 | +0.599 | -0.032 | +17.6 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 2 | -2.5 | +0.35 | +16.6 |
| 2 | MIN | 29 | +0.104 | -0.036 | +0.140 | +3.0 | 1 / 0 | -2.0 | 3 | -2.1 | +0.09 | -5.6 |
| 6 | ATL | 40 | +0.334 | +0.266 | +0.069 | +13.4 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 4 | -5.6 | +0.42 | +15.3 |
| 7 | NE | 36 | +0.422 | +0.377 | +0.046 | +15.2 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 3 | -3.6 | +0.42 | +6.7 |
| 8 | SEA | 35 | +0.319 | +0.219 | +0.100 | +11.2 | 0 / 0 | +0.0 | 1 | -1.7 | +0.30 | +3.0 |
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.