Adam Steele is back, continuing to refine his methods in real time, and we get to benefit from it. Thank you Adam, for working it out publicly.

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After tabulating the numbers for week nine I realized I needed to make one more tweak to the formula. Since EPA per play and QBR are both agnostic to volume, QB games with a low number of plays were disproportionately clustered at the top and bottom of the rankings. Obviously it’s harder to maintain an extreme performance over a larger sample than a smaller one. My solution was to regress EPA/P by adding 20 plays of 0.1 EPA (roughly league average) to everyone’s stat line before calculating their z-scores. This fix strikes a nice balance between efficiency and volume.

Onto this week results:

#	QB Week 9	EPA/P	QBR	zEPA/P	zQBR	zAvg
1	Carson Wentz	0.50	91.8	1.97	1.65	1.81
2	Justin Herbert	0.42	93.1	1.63	1.70	1.66
3	Matt Ryan	0.33	93.8	1.20	1.72	1.46
4	Jalen Hurts	0.30	91.8	1.04	1.65	1.34
5	Baker Mayfield	0.32	82.7	1.15	1.31	1.23
6	Colt McCoy	0.42	63.8	1.59	0.61	1.10
7	Kirk Cousins	0.25	71.3	0.79	0.89	0.84
8	Jimmy Garoppolo	0.15	66.7	0.34	0.72	0.53
9	Teddy Bridgewater	0.17	64.8	0.41	0.65	0.53
10	Ben Roethlisberger	0.18	47.8	0.48	0.01	0.25
11	Lamar Jackson	0.13	48.5	0.21	0.04	0.12
12	Ryan Tannehill	0.01	62.6	-0.33	0.56	0.12
13	Justin Fields	0.06	54.4	-0.08	0.26	0.09
14	Daniel Jones	0.10	48.2	0.07	0.03	0.05
15	Jacoby Brissett	0.04	48.7	-0.22	0.05	-0.09
16	Josh Johnson	0.18	20.4	0.45	-1.00	-0.28
17	Trevor Lawrence	0.00	37.0	-0.39	-0.39	-0.39
18	Patrick Mahomes	-0.07	43.7	-0.72	-0.14	-0.43
19	Jordan Love	0.01	27.4	-0.34	-0.74	-0.54
20	Mac Jones	0.00	27.1	-0.38	-0.76	-0.57
21	Derek Carr	-0.03	23.8	-0.55	-0.88	-0.71
22	Joe Burrow	0.00	16.5	-0.38	-1.15	-0.76
23	Trevor Siemian	-0.03	18.5	-0.53	-1.08	-0.80
24	Josh Allen	-0.10	26.0	-0.87	-0.80	-0.83
25	Dak Prescott	-0.27	24.1	-1.67	-0.87	-1.27
26	Tyrod Taylor	-0.20	13.1	-1.32	-1.28	-1.30
27	Matthew Stafford	-0.26	17.6	-1.65	-1.11	-1.38
28	Sam Darnold	-0.32	3.0	-1.93	-1.65	-1.79

Numerous studies have proven that offense dictates game outcomes to a greater degree than defense, but there are always going to be exceptions. In my opinion, Thursday night’s Jets vs. Colts matchup was one of those outliers. Carson Wentz and the Indy passing offense faced no resistance at all from New York’s defense, to the point that it appeared the Jets were playing with ten guys on the field. Wentz made a few nice throws, but he was mostly throwing into gaping holes in the secondary and had all day to stand in the pocket. Any remotely competent QB probably would’ve carved up that defense, so I take his place atop this week’s ranking with a grain of salt.

The other quarterback to post a deceptively good stat line this week was Arizona backup Colt McCoy. His average completion traveled 2.5 yards in the air and 10 yards after the catch. McCoy deserves some credit for making the correct reads and taking what the defense gave him, but his outstanding EPA was largely a function of a massive schematic advantage. QBR recognizes that he was playing on easy mode and gives him a considerably lower score than his traditional stats would indicate.

Week nine was most notable for the struggles of otherwise productive signal callers; Patrick Mahomes, Derek Carr, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Dak Prescott, and Matthew Stafford all stubbed their toes this week. More than anything, this goes to show that the NFL is a week to week league and nothing is certain. Allen, Prescott, and Stafford each lost despite being favored by more than a touchdown.

For the season rankings, I add 20 plays of 0.1 EPA for each week of the season. So right now there are 180 plays of average EPA/P baked into the numbers.

#	QB Season	EPA/P	QBR	zEPA/P	zQBR	zAvg
1	Matthew Stafford	0.214	69.7	1.43	1.56	1.49
2	Tom Brady	0.214	68.9	1.43	1.49	1.46
3	Aaron Rodgers	0.207	65.6	1.32	1.21	1.27
4	Kyler Murray	0.191	63.6	1.10	1.04	1.07
5	Jameis Winston	0.175	65.0	0.86	1.16	1.01
6	Justin Herbert	0.175	64.1	0.86	1.09	0.97
7	Ryan Tannehill	0.189	61.6	1.07	0.88	0.97
8	Russell Wilson	0.142	63.3	0.38	1.02	0.70
9	Matt Ryan	0.169	58.4	0.77	0.61	0.69
10	Patrick Mahomes	0.170	54.3	0.79	0.26	0.53
11	Lamar Jackson	0.139	58.0	0.34	0.57	0.46
12	Carson Wentz	0.128	59.1	0.18	0.67	0.43
13	Josh Allen	0.134	57.4	0.27	0.52	0.40
14	Derek Carr	0.151	53.7	0.52	0.21	0.37
15	Kirk Cousins	0.141	55.3	0.37	0.35	0.36
16	Jimmy Garoppolo	0.159	48.9	0.63	-0.19	0.22
17	Dak Prescott	0.131	53.6	0.22	0.20	0.21
18	Joe Burrow	0.154	48.7	0.56	-0.21	0.18
19	Teddy Bridgewater	0.139	50.5	0.34	-0.06	0.14
20	Tua Tagovailoa	0.088	55.2	-0.40	0.34	-0.03
21	Mac Jones	0.117	48.9	0.02	-0.19	-0.09
22	Jalen Hurts	0.096	49.4	-0.29	-0.15	-0.22
23	Baker Mayfield	0.118	44.3	0.03	-0.58	-0.27
24	Jacoby Brissett	0.033	54.9	-1.20	0.31	-0.44
25	Daniel Jones	0.080	45.4	-0.52	-0.49	-0.50
26	Taylor Heinicke	0.091	42.5	-0.35	-0.73	-0.54
27	Ben Roethlisberger	0.079	42.4	-0.53	-0.74	-0.63
28	Sam Darnold	0.026	35.8	-1.31	-1.29	-1.30
29	Trevor Lawrence	0.013	35.8	-1.50	-1.29	-1.40
30	Justin Fields	0.032	27.4	-1.22	-2.00	-1.61
31	Davis Mills	-0.011	30.2	-1.84	-1.76	-1.80
32	Zach Wilson	-0.028	28.0	-2.09	-1.95	-2.02
33	Jared Goff	-0.036	28.9	-2.21	-1.87	-2.04

The distribution of quarterback performance in 2021 bears a striking resemblance to the 2002 season. Both years are/were bereft of QB greatness, instead featuring a glut of above average but unspectacular seasons. Like 2002, the present NFL sees a handful of teams with terrible quarterbacking but competent play from 3/4 of the league. Amazingly not a single QB this year has a QBR in the 70’s; this has never happened over a full season going back to 2006 when the metric began being tracked.

Again like 2002, we have a wide open MVP race halfway through the season. As of today, Tom Brady and Josh Allen (why?) are the co-favorites according to Vegas, but the odds have been shifting dramatically almost every week. The most fascinating participant in the MVP race is Aaron Rodgers; Green Bay’s offense looked horrible without him (proving his value) but he made a fool of himself off the field this week. Based purely on merit Rodgers likely is the most valuable player to his team, but will voters be willingly to set aside his antics and focus purely on his play? It’s a unique situation and I genuinely have no idea how it’s all going to turn out.