We’ve talked a lot about the very good quarterbacks in these rankings. Today, let’s talk about the bad ones.
Specifically the ones in New York.
Week 14 was an opportunity to throw away past results and future expectations and just enjoy the ride. Zach Wilson played the best game of his career and the Jets dusted the Houston Texans. Tommy DeVito took another step toward become a bonafide sensation in the Giants’ comeback win over the Green Bay Packers. Each were top five quarterbacks for one week despite being left for dead earlier in the season.
Alas, we know it won’t last. Wilson is Wilson, the quarterback with exceptional traits but a glaring inability to put them all together. He’s the same guy Jets players were publicly clamoring to replace with a 40-year-old.
And if you’d like to anoint DeVito, that’s fine.There’s no denying he’s outplayed whatever meager expectations he’d earned as an undrafted free agent this year. He’s a fun player with a gloriously New Jersey upbringing who addresses football with a “play hard, die pretty” ethos on the field.
But don’t get too invested. We’ve seen this before. It rarely ends well.
DeVito is the latest overlooked quarterback to excel thanks, in part, to the overarching lack of game tape for opposing coordinators to parse.
Nick Mullens did it six years ago with the San Francisco 49ers. On Sunday he came off the bench to relieve Joshua Dobbs, who took advantage with opponents’ lack of familiarity for two different teams in 2023. Dobbs outplayed expectations, soared to great heights then came crashing back to about where we expected for both the Arizona Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings this fall.
Odds are, DeVito’s going to start regressing. Same with Wilson. But they crushed it in Week 14 and stated their respective cases as “NOT THE WORST STARTING QUARTERBACK IN THE NFL,” which is nice. Now let’s see who is, per advanced stats.
Expected points added (EPA) is a concept that’s been around since 1970. It’s effectively a comparison between what an average quarterback could be expected to do on a certain down and what he actually did — and how it increased his team’s chances of scoring. The model we use comes from The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin and his RBSDM.com website, which is both wildly useful AND includes adjusted EPA, which accounts for defensive strength. It considers the impact of penalties and does not negatively impact passers for fumbles after a completion.
The other piece of the puzzle is completion percentage over expected (CPOE), which is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s a comparison of all the completions a quarterback would be expected to make versus the ones he actually did. Like EPA, it can veer into the negatives and higher is better. So if you chart all 31 primary quarterbacks — the ones who played at least 224 snaps in 14 weeks — you get a chart that looks like this:
Top right hand corner is good. Bottom left corner is bad. Try splitting those passers visually into tiers and you get an imperfect eight-layer system that looks like this:
These rankings are sorted by a composite of adjusted EPA and CPOE to better understand who has brought the most — and the least — value to their teams across the small sample size. It’s not a full exploration of a player’s value, but it’s a viable starting point. Let’s take a closer look.
Look, we've got to start taking him seriously as an MVP frontrunner whether we like it or not
1. Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers: 0.215 EPA+CPOE composite
Week 14 was a rough one for the “Brock Purdy doesn’t throw deep” crowd. One Sunday after feasting on yards after catch for a big performance against the Eagles, he roasted the Seattle Seahawks for a comfortable win.
The actual MVP betting favorite (and two guys who won't win it)
2. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys: 0.165 EPA+CPOE composite
3. Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins: 0.152
4. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills: 0.150
Prescott has been absolutely dealing lately. Torching the Eagles (kind of a common theme for the NFC’s top QBs) was a statement it’s time to take his MVP candidacy for real.
Allen’s been great but his team has not, which is going to make it much tougher for him to bully his way into consideration. Tagovailoa’s been slowly backsliding as the season wears on, which isn’t doing wonders for the whole “is he truly a franchise quarterback?” debate.
The last legitimate MVP frontrunner and the tier of pretty-goodness
5. Kirk Cousins, Minnesota Vikings: 0.134 EPA+CPOE composite
6. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles: 0.130
7. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs: 0.125
8. Russell Wilson, Denver Broncos: 0.102
9. Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars: 0.101
10. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens: 0.101
Here’s where the guys we expected to lead the 2023 MVP race — Mahomes and Hurts — landed. Mahomes has been done few favors by an understaffed receiving corps and Hurts has had some difficulties adjusting to a new offensive coordinator. They’ll both probably be fine come playoff time … right?
The real MVP contender here is Jackson, quarterback of the AFC’s top team. His completion rate is up, his interception rate is down and his 7.8 yards per attempt match a career high. He’s currently third in the MVP voting despite playing with a less talented supporting cast than either Prescott or Purdy.
The tier where pretty much everyone took a step backward in Week 14
11. Jared Goff, Detroit Lions: 0.093 EPA+CPOE composite
12. CJ Stroud, Houston Texans: 0.86
13. Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers: 0.083
14. Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks: 0.075
15. Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers: 0.073
16. Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 0.071
17. Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals: 0.069
18. Sam Howell, Washington Commanders: 0.067
19. Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams: 0.061
The good news here is that Stafford’s level of play has risen as the season wears on and he’s got the Rams in position to make an unlikely postseason run. The bad news is just about everyone else either disappointed in Week 14 or didn’t play, headlined by Jared Goff’s continued regression and Jordan Love’s sudden inability to remember all the improvements he’d made the previous three games.
Burrow replacement Jake Browning, by the way, has a 0.212 composite score. That’s second-best among all quarterbacks since Week 12. I’d assumed Joe Burrow was the only thing keeping Zac Taylor’s offense looking competent, but this is an outright impressive turnaround for Cincinnati’s coaching staff.
Showcasing signs of life
20. Justin Fields, Chicago Bears: 0.058 EPA+CPOE composite
21. Derek Carr, New Orleans Saints: 0.058
22. Will Levis, Tennessee Titans: 0.048
23. Gardner Minshew II, Indianapolis Colts: 0.040
Composite ranks for these players over the last three weeks:
- Carr: 12th
- Levis: 15th
- Fields: 16th
- Minshew: 19th
Honestly, it’s a little weird to see Carr up that high but all in all the players on this tier are primed for a late-season surge.
It's not good.
24. Daniel Jones, New York Giants: 0.026 EPA+CPOE composite
25. Desmond Ridder, Atlanta Falcons: 0.025
26. Joshua Dobbs, Arizona Cardinals/Minnesota Vikings: 0.020
27. Kenny Pickett, Pittsburgh Steelers: 0.019
Here’s where I tell you DeVito has a composite score of 0.018, even after rating out as Week 14’s most efficient quarterback. He’s got work to do, even if the last decade of unexpected young QB play suggests regression is coming.
Not the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL!
28. Mac Jones, New England Patriots: 0.011 EPA+CPOE composite
29. Bryce Young, Carolina Panthers: 0.009
30. Zach Wilson, New York Jets: 0.008
We knew Jones and Wilson were garbage at this point. Young’s inclusion on this tier is much more troubling. He was responsible for a stunning -26 EPA in last week’s loss to the New Orleans Saints, thanks in part to a fumble-six and just three first half completions in 15 attempts. Whomever winds up as Carolina’s head coach in 2024 is going to have to present a 12-point plan to fix the former first overall pick in his job interview this winter.
Not the Raiders' quarterback of the future
31. Aidan O’Connell, Las Vegas Raiders: -0.001 EPA+CPOE composite
A scoreless game against the Vikings was enough to drop O’Connell into the negatives and drop him into last place. That’s a rough sled — particularly for a rookie fourth round pick against Brian Flores’ chaos-heavy Minnesota defense. He’ll have four more opportunities to prove he can be the Raiders’ franchise cornerstone.
