Jared Goff, welcome to the club. It’s not one you wanted to join.
The Detroit Lions’ starting quarterback had been efficient and occasionally prolific in his team’s 5-1 rise to the top of the NFC. Detroit’s offense was clicking under coordinator Ben Johnson and the retread passer, once scuttled by the Los Angeles Rams in favor of Matthew Stafford, had emerged as a potential MVP candidate.
Then the Baltimore Ravens invaded his village like a pack of Nordic barbarians, razed the progress he’d made over six weeks and reduced the Lions to ashes in Week 7. Goff had his worst game of 2023 and arguably his worst with Detroit as the Ravens cruised to a 38-6 win that was somehow not as close as that final score suggests.
But did that make him this week’s most disappointing quarterback? Fortunately, we’ve got tools to better understand just how damaging these underwhelming performances were. Using the advanced stat expected points added (EPA) can gauge how much a quarterback brings to the table compared to a typical player.
By comparing each passer’s Week 7 EPA against their 2022 and 2023 combined average, we get a better picture of just how frustrating their days were. And we can find both of those thanks to The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin and his incredibly useful stats sites RBSDM.com and HabitatRing.com. So let’s take a look at who disappointed the most in the seventh game (for most players) of the 2023 season.
5
Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns
2022-23 expected points added (EPA) per game: -0.6
Week 6 EPA: -5.9: -1.2 points per play!!!
Difference: 5.3 points worse
A disclaimer for Watson — and it’s not our typical one that the Browns traded for him despite more than 20 accusations of sexual misconduct and what the NFL itself would later describe as “predatory behavior,” though that still applies. The disgraced quarterback and recipient of the largest fully guaranteed contract extension in league history is playing through a shoulder injury that kept him from the field the previous week.
He probably shouldn’t have played in Week 7, either.
Browns Deshaun Watson throws his SECOND int of the the first quarter. What a terrible throw pic.twitter.com/KMsjYSOARC
— CFBBlueprint (@CFBBluePrint) October 22, 2023
That pick was overruled upon review, but the fact remains: this guy stunk. He lasted only five pass attempts before leaving due to injury after the play above. 40 percent of those throws ended up in the hands of Colts defenders, even if only one was officially intercepted. He finished the game with a rare 0.0 passer rating; there are no negative scores.
4
Joshua Dobbs, Arizona Cardinals
2022-23 expected points added (EPA) per game: 1.2
Week 6 EPA: -9.5
Difference: 10.7 points worse
Dobbs was a feel-good story early in the season, punching above his weight class to push the undermanned Cardinals to 1-2 via a pair of close defeats. This has not lasted. Over the last three weeks, Dobbs has been the league’s dirt-worst starting quarterback.
In that stretch, Dobbs has been responsible for -45.1 points. He’s cost his team an average of more than two touchdowns each week in a stretch of double-digit defeats. This is what Arizona signed up for when it cut Colt McCoy and traded for Dobbs; the Cardinals are tanking, and this version os Dobbs is making it happen.
3
Sam Howell, Washington Commanders
2022-23 expected points added (EPA) per game: 1.7
Week 6 EPA: -12.7
Difference: 14.4 points worse
Howell’s biggest feature over the first six games of 2023 season was that he wasn’t an active drain on the Commanders’ resources. He’d posted a positive EPA in four of those games, leading Washington to a 3-3 record and a place in the NFC playoff hunt.
But in Week 7 he ceded his team’s claim as the third-best team in the NFC East by playing awful football and losing to the New York Giants.
First NFL INT for Deonte Banks!
📺: @NFLonCBS & @paramountplus pic.twitter.com/ZthiHey75W
— New York Giants (@Giants) October 22, 2023
Jahan Dotson *was* open on the play above, but Howell’s floated pass under pressure allowed Deonte Banks the recovery time needed to not only break up what should have been a big gain but turn it into a New York possession. This would be a recurring theme on an afternoon where the second-year quarterback was roundly outplayed by Tyrod Taylor.
Per RBSDM.com, Howell attempted 15 passes that traveled at least 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. He completed just four of them for 89 yards and a 24.0 passer rating.
Gross! The main positive in Howell’s development was that he hadn’t produced a ton of negative plays outside of a Week 3 collapse against the Buffalo Bills. That wasn’t the case Sunday. Not only was he ineffective downfield but he lingered too long in the pocket against a defense whose 19.6 percent pressure rate was a bottom 10 unit in the NFL this season. Howell was sacked six times and hit 12 more on 48 dropbacks.
2
Derek Carr, New Orleans Saints
2022-23 expected points added (EPA) per game: 3.3
Week 6 EPA: -17.2
Difference: 20.5 points worse
Carr needed a second half rally just to make it to negative-17 points. And he still wound up a Foster Moreau drop away from sending this game into overtime.
.@foyelicious earned that one!#JAXvsNO on @nflonprime pic.twitter.com/lAFmLlZEp1
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) October 20, 2023
While Carr threw for more than 300 yards, he needed 55 passes to get there. Asking him to throw more than eight yards downfield typically ended in disaster. He completed just five of 22 passes that flew at least nine yards beyond the line of scrimmage, balancing off a late interception with a late touchdown:
Carr’s 30 percent completion rate on deep throws this season is the second-lowest mark of his career. On Thursday night, it was the difference between a home win and a loss that could derail New Orleans’ quest to top a winnable NFC South with a flawed team. And if this is a sign of things to come, well, the Saints are stuck with him through at least 2024.
1
Jared Goff, Detroit Lions
2022-23 expected points added (EPA) per game: 7.3
Week 6 EPA: -14.4
Difference: 21.7 points worse
The other shoe dropped. After forcing his way into the too-early MVP discussion, Goff imploded along with the rest of his Detroit squad against a Baltimore Ravens team expertly disguised as a full-on buzzsaw.
The veteran couldn’t get anything going downfield as the Ravens battered him en route to a season-high five sacks (he’d had 10 in the previous six games this fall). Baltimore brought constant and consistent pressure that dropped his average completion distance down from 6.7 yards — fifth-best in the NFL and the second-highest number of Goff’s career — to just 3.9.
Goff threw the ball 53 times Sunday and had only two completions that traveled at least 10 yards downfield. His offense managed just 65 yards in the first two quarters of a game that was over by halftime. If any team in the league deserved a mulligan it’s a Lions squad that’s exceeded expectations in the first third of the season. Still, this was grim.
