Week 18 Bayesian Quarterback Rankings

Jordan Love jumps into the top-10 and Lamar Jackson finishes the year where he started (5th)

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.

This is probably a good snapshot of how the regular season numbers will finish for quarterbacks, with only a minor change from Week 18 to come. Brock Purdy is going to be, by far, the most efficient quarterback, though on lower volume and with a PFF grade outside the top-5.

Lamar Jackson is going to be the MVP with efficiency barely in the top-10, even after a couple strong performances to close out the season. Jackson’s EPA rankings will be the lowest for an MVP since tracking started in 2000, though similar to Cam Newton in 2015, the previous only outlier from every other MVP finishing first or second. The lack of “wow” performance in big wins from the other quarterbacks is propelling Jackson to MVP, which is a perfectly acceptable reason to vote for him, as long as you acknowledge that’s the criteria you’re using.

Jackson had a very Purdy-like performance in Week 17, benefiting mightily from great receiver play and YAC value to boost his results far above the expected amount based on his grading. For me, Jackson Week 17 doesn’t prove EPA was missing something all year, as it was an entirely different result. It’s more like Jackson was missing this type of game all year, the types we saw over and over that propelled him deservedly to the MVP in 2019.

WEEK 17 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) 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.

Who knows which quarterbacks will actually be starting or playing most of the game this week with so many teams locked into this postseason spots. I’m going to largely assume things remain unchanged from last week’s starters, with the return of Trevor Lawrence in a crucial matchup.