How games are won
Passing efficiency decides seasons
How well a team throws the ball tells you more about who is going to keep winning than how well it runs the ball.
What the record says
Each bar is one season. Green bars point the same way as the overall result, pink bars point against it. Recent seasons count for more in the typical size, which is measured on the scale of the check behind this rule, so compare it across the seasons here rather than across different rules.
How we know
A pass play has a wider range of outcomes than a run play (incompletions, sacks, and explosive gains all coexist), so passing efficiency captures more of an offense's true quality per play. Passing also happens on more valuable downs and against defenses built to stop the run first, so a team that is genuinely good at passing has cleared a higher bar.
We check this the same way every time: run the claim against every season from 1999 to 2025 in the play-by-play record, one season at a time, and grade it on how often the seasons agree. This one came back the same way in 27 of 27 seasons.
The claim, stated precisely
Season-to-date EPA per dropback predicts a team's rest-of-season win percentage better than EPA per rush does.
Related laws
- Refines thisPassing is the first stat to trustHolds up
- Refines thisBig plays follow winning, not the reverseHolds up
- Refines thisEarly-down passing is the sharpest tellHolds up
- Refines thisMoving the chains beats yards per carryHolds up
- Refines thisWind above 15 knocks passes downHolds up
- Agrees with thisPoints per drive has no secret edgeHolds up
- Agrees with thisNo starting QB, no passing gameHolds up
- Agrees with thisEarly-down passing beats early-down runningHolds up
FanIQ carries this rule into the app, where it lands on the actual players, teams, and games you are looking at.
Get FanIQ freeOpen in FanIQSources
- Ben Baldwin (rbsdm.com)
- SumerSports
- nfeloapp.com
- Checked by FanIQ against 25 seasons of play-by-play, game, roster, and box-score records.