Week 2 Bayesian Quarterback Rankings

Scaling advanced stats for sample size to most accurately project future quarterback efficiency

Tua continues his 2022 efficiency into this season, jumping him in the ranks

I like to think of my Bayesian quarterback rankings as a check on perceptions, which sometimes are more correct than the cold, hard evidence, but more often not. For more details on the methodology and how I’ve leveraged Bayesian updating in the past, check out my rankings post leading into Week 1.

For those of you looking for the Adjusted Quarterback Efficiency (AQE) numbers, it might be a week (or two) before I have the data to produce them. I’m figuring it all out now and appreciate the patience.

One thing to think about, especially early in the season, is how much luck (or unlucky) plays can affect EPA per play. A decent way to add some signal is to consider PFF grading - accounts for turnover-worthy plays, etc - in addition to EPA. You’ll see the in plot below that Jordan Love was, by far, the highest difference between his efficiency in EPA and what you would have expected by his pedestrian PFF grade.

On the other side, quarterbacks like Trevor Lawrence aren’t going to get as big of a boost in these rankings as observers who agree with his third-highest PFF grade would expect. In the case of Lawrence, this is primarily driven by a hugely costly interception that wasn’t perfectly placed, but bounced off of the hands of his targeted receiver Tank Bigsby.

WEEK 2 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 six seasons (minimum 250 dropbacks in previous years, 10 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.

With Rodgers removed from the ranks and replaced with Zach Wilson, every quarterback outside of the top-3 gets a one-spot rankings boost by default (spoiler alert: Zach Wilson doesn’t look like a future success).