Week 13 Bayesian Quarterback Rankings

Dak Prescott rises up to his highest-ever career ranking, and Jordan Love is showing he might be the answer for the Packers

You can find all the previous weeks’ versions of the Bayesian Quarterback Rankings here.

COMPARING GRADES AND EFFICIENCY

PFF grades aren’t part of the analysis, but I find it helpful to make not of how they align with EPA per play, as many contextual elements of quarterback play (drops, interception-worthy throws, easier throws that become big gains, etc) are part of the grading methodology, but aren’t accounted for in EPA. At the same time, I think EPA does a vastly superior job of weighing what is and isn’t important in points-based results.

It’s a subtle change to due scaling (thanks, Brock Purdy and the bottom-barrel), but there’s been a little separation in the top-right cohort of quarterbacks who have elite grading and efficiency. Dak Prescott is incrementally higher than Josh Allen in both metric, and the two of them are now in their own mini-tier above Patrick Mahomes and Tua Tagovailoa. We’ll have more to say about Prescott below, but appears to be having the best season of his career.

The MVP odds leader is the 10-1 Eagles starting quarterback Jalen Hurts, who has great numbers this year, but resides in a thicker tier of quarterbacks below the top-4 (plus only slightly better in grading than Purdy and much worse in EPA). There isn’t a lot separating Hurts and Justin Herbert in grading (Herbert slighty better) and EPA efficiency (Hurts and his tush pushes are slightly better), but their seasons have taken on completely different perspectives. Of course the main difference in how they are viewed is a full six-game difference in team record. I don’t think you can make a strong case that either is playing better than the other.

As someone with a strong EPA-over-grading lean when they’re in dispute, I’m very intrigued by Jordan Love. I was skeptical of his early season efficiency, based on a small-sample of big plays with bad accuracy, as measured by completion percentage over expectation (CPOE). His mid-season efficiency got worse, but a lot of the underlying fundamentals were steady. Now he’s been good by the numbers and fundamentals the last few weeks, posting significantly positive EPA in four straight games, and positive CPOE in three of four. He’s kept negative low, while generating most of his EPA through air yards, not relying on receiver YAC-based scheming.

I’m not declaring Love the answer for the Packers, but I would be okay with them passing on quarterback in the first round of the draft if Young keeps up this level and style of play going into the offseason. And this is all from someone who was a Love skeptic coming into the season, mostly due to the simple low base rate associated with quarterbacks working out.

WEEK 13 PROJECTED EFFICIENCY

These results are the ranking for the go-forward projections of quarterback efficiency this season. I also included the EPA per play rankings for each quarterback over the last five seasons (minimum 250 dropbacks in previous years, 120 in 2023) so you can see the evidence going into the projections.

Older data is decayed over time, so the 2023 EPA per play data matters more than those from pre-2020. That said, older data can’t be fully discounted, or else you miss bounce-back performers of great quarterback returning to form, like Aaron Rodgers in 2020 and 2021.

I’m going to project that the Browns turn to Joe Flacco and don’t go back to P.J. Walker in the absence of Dorian Thompson-Robinson. As you’ll see below, he at least gives the Browns a mediocre projection for efficiency, whereas Walker would be near the bottom. I’m keeping Mac Jones in the rankings, though a change could be likely. It seems like no one but Bill Belichick gets to know who’s starting until before kickoffs.