Week 1 Sunday Early Window, Part One: Advanced Reviews

All the advanced stats, visualizations and commentary for Falcons-Steelers, Bills-Cardinals, Bears-Titans and Bengals-Patriots

The Bills might need Josh Allen to do his Superman impression all season long

The adjusted scores quantify team play quality, with emphasis on stable metrics (success rate) and downplaying higher variance events (turnovers, special team, penalties, fumble luck, etc). Adjusted expected points added (EPA), in conjunction with opportunity-based metrics like total plays and drives, projects adjusted points. Adjusted scores have been tested against actual scores and offer slightly better predictive ability, though their primary benefit is explanatory.

All 2024-2022 and historical Adjusted Scores and other site metrics are available in a downloadable format to paid subscribers via Google Sheet.

Find previous advanced reviews here

** Adjusted Scores table:

• “Pass” - Pass rate over expectation (based on context of each play and historical averages

• “Success” - Success rate on offense, a key metric in adjusted score vs actual

• “H & A” - Home or away team

ATL-PIT

The Steelers come away with the victory in an ugly game to watch, unless your fantasy kicker is Chris Boswell (6-6 field goals, 3-3 from 50+ yards). The question coming out of this is whether the victory and Justin Fields’ performance was enough to earn him another week as starter, whether Russell Wilson can go or not. I’d argue “no” with the Steelers offense posting poor efficiency (25th percentile EPA/play) and success rate (36.6%). The best part of Fields’ day may have been the fact that he didn’t turn the ball over, although that makes the offensive look even worse.

Both teams were content to run the ball well over expectation (10-11% pass rate under expectation). This would be expected for the Steelers with Fields, not so much for the Falcons after making Kirk Cousins the marquee free-agent signing of the offseason.

The Falcons weren’t as fortunate (or good at) avoiding mistakes, with the top-3 most impactful plays of the game all turnovers. Cousins threw two interceptions and a fluky fumble was attributed to center Drew Dalman snapping the ball into a player in motion in the backfield.

The next two most impactful plays were negatives for the Steelers, a failed fourth down run by Fields and a sack taken. While those plays were bad, they cost the Steelers a combined 6.9 EPA, in contrast to the combined -18.4 EPA from the Falcons turnovers.

The difference in quarterback performances all comes down to the negatives: -14.3 EPA from turnovers and sacks for Cousins, only -4.2 EPA for Fields.

BUF-ARI

The adjusted scores had this as a dominant effort for the Bills over the Cardinals (+11), but the actual score differential was much closer (+6). The Bills continually moved the ball offensively (55% success rate), hurt by special teams errors, including the first kickoff return touchdown of the “dynamic” kickoff era.

I’m not sure the Bills can ask Josh Allen to do as much going forward as he had to do today, but they needed his best to pull out the victory. The Bills posted a 69% success rate dropping back to pass, and hit the 96th percentile in EPA efficiency, netting out a -6 EPA strip sack fumble lost.

The Cardinals were also efficient passing the ball, but they had chunkier production, hitting a muted 45% success rate.

Despite the costly turnover, I’d put Allen in the early lead for MVP after this week, passing for more than 10 yards per attempt and two touchdowns, then adding another two of the spectacular variety on ground. I’m not sure Allen will survive the entire season with this usage and risk-taking, but it will be fun to watch while it lasts.

It was a game where both quarterbacks did a ton of damage running, probably more Kyler Murray than through the air. Murray ran for 57 yards, generating +7.9 EPA. When you net out sacks and fumbles, Murray had slightly negative EPA dropping back to pass.

CHI-TEN

No. 1 pick Caleb Williams comes away with an opening week victory, though it’s tough to argue he contributed much to the result. Neither the Bears nor the Titans could consistently move the ball on offense, each in the mid-30% for success rate and 10th percentile for EPA efficiency.

Williams’ counterpart Will Levis was a turnover machine, two through the air and another fumble lost. The Bears only had one turnover, losing one of three fumbles.

What doesn’t come through in the overall numbers is the sequencing of scores, with the Titans leading 17-0 with four minutes left in the first half. One of those three scores was facilitated by a Bears muffed punt, but the other two were legitimate touchdown drives. The Titans offense then went punt (blocked), punt, punt, fumble lost, pick-6, punt, interception in the second half. The Titans gained a total of 55 yards on seven second-half drives.

It was a day to forget for Levis, and not much positive to take away for Williams, other than no turnovers, though he did fumble the ball once without losing it. The Bears had a top-2 EPA efficiency defense the second-half of 2023, and that’s continuing so far this season.

Williams -19.7% completion percentage under expectation (based on target location) will safely be the worst number of the week. Williams threw for 93 yards, averaging just 3.2 yards per attempt.

CIN-NE

Unquestionably the upset of the day was the Patriots traveling to Cincinnati and coming away with a 6-point victory. The Bengals were the biggest Week 1 favorite at 7.5 points going into the game, but their offense couldn’t get anything going, specifically dropping back to pass. The Patriots relied on mistake-free, smart football from veteran Jacoby Brissett, and 170 team rushing yards on 39 attempts.

The Patriots had some of the flukier plays go their way, including a post-catch fumble a yard outside of the end zone, plus a fumbled punt return.

The most worrying thing about Joe Burrow’s return was the lack of upside in the passing game. Burrow’s aDOT was only 5.6 yards, and even netting out sacks, he only produced +2.1 total EPA on 29 pass attempts.

Brissett didn’t do anything special, but his +3.3 EPA running the ball was enough to get him to positive total EPA. Brissett didn’t turn the ball over, and only took a single sack with one yard lost.