Week 7 Bayesian Quarterback Rankings

Using historical Adjusted Quarterback Efficiency (AQE) and Bayesian statistical analysis to most accurately predict quarterback performance

You can find all the previous weekly editions of the Bayesian Quarterback Rankings here, and the backlog for Adjusted Quarterback Efficiency is here.

For 2025, I decided to only post these each third of the way through the season, rather than focus on smaller movements throughout every week. I also reworked the analysis somewhat to take better account of team movements, which will hopefully align with efficiency movements with the change in surroundings. The adjusted quarterback efficiency metric captures some of the surrounding effect, though not enough when you see how quarterbacks can drastically shift their efficiency range of outcomes after moving from one team to another.

WEEK 7 PROJECTED ADJUSTED EFFICIENCY

These results are the ranking for the go-forward projections of adjusted quarterback efficiency starting in Week 7. I also included the adjusted EPA per play rankings for each quarterback over the last six seasons (minimum 250 dropbacks) so you can see the evidence going into the projections. The rankings for AQE this season have a 100 dropback cutoff.

Older data is decayed over time, so the 2025, 2024 and 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 quarterbacks returning to form, like Aaron Rodgers in 2020 and 2021.

“Percentile” is the mean (“best guess”) projection as a percentile of historical franchise quarterback results (min 2K career dropbacks). You’ll see that the NFL is in pretty good hands right now, with the projections almost all over the 50th percentile. The quarterback position has a high floor in the NFL, but getting into that elite tier still makes all the difference in results.

I’m going to switch to focus more on tiers than simply the top-10, with the Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson grouping still locked into the top tier of the NFL. There is a bit of gap down the fourth ranked quarterback, which makes sense as these three have been consistently in MVP conversions since 2020, and going back even further for Jackson (2019) and Mahomes (2018).

This season has been a bit disappointing for this tier, all ranking around 10th in adjusted quarterback efficiency. There might be more to worry about for Mahomes’ ability to jump back to competing for efficiency leader, as were now in the third year of a downshift in his metrics.