Week 4 Bayesian Quarterback Rankings

Burrow falling, Herbert rising, and a rookie quarterback jumps into the top-20

CJ Stroud is the biggest riser in this week’s rankings.

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 2.

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. I am going to publish a slimmed down version of AQE either late Wednesday or Thursday, depending on when the charting data is available for the two MNF games.

I still don’t have the “Open” scores from ESPN for receiver adjustments, but I can calculate many of the adjustments that would be associated with “luck” that isn’t sticky in-season. Good receivers tend to stay good, but drop rates, interception-worthy throws that aren’t interceptions, fumble recovery rates, strength-of-schedule and weather adjustments have very little predictive value going forward. I’ll try and take out those elements, and give luck-adjusted efficiency numbers for all quarterback. Stay tuned.

I don’t think it’s as good as my quarterback adjustments, but PFF grades do a decent job at quantifying a lot of the high variance factors that shouldn’t be credited/debited from the quarterback’s performance. Tua Tagovailoa has the highest PFF grade this year, but it looks like he’s also run very hot in terms of variance. But we knew that he wasn’t going to keep up a record-breaking efficiency level all season, no matter how well he plays.

The two biggest beneficiaries of good luck this year appear to be Jordan Love and Brock Purdy by PFF grades. For a little preview of my luck-adjusted numbers, they agree that Purdy and Love has gained the most EPA based on high-variance plays, ranking first and second. My luck-based numbers disagree that Dak Prescott has played worse than his efficiency.

I’m in alignment with PFF grading with Trevor Lawrence having the worse luck with situational factors, though I have it to a lesser degree. PFF has Lawrence with the third-highest grade, versus his bottom-10 EPA per play. The truth lies between for me, as is usually the case.

WEEK 4 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, 30 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’ve made Jameis Winston the expected starter for the Saints and removed Derek Carr. I’m also assuming Anthony Richardson will return in Week 4, but not Bryce Young.