Week 7 Bayesian Quarterback Rankings

Drake Maye is moving up the rankings, along with fellow rookies Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels (also Bo Nix, off of the bottom)

The big, fundamental change to the rankings this season is the integration of Adjusted Quarterback Efficiency (AQE) numbers. This produces rankings that align more closely to what the typical football observer or data-based analysts would assign based on a combination of observation and statistics.

For the Week 1 projection, I weaved the AQE figures for 2023 and 2022 into the mix. In Week 2, I discovered the addition of prior years’ charting from FTNData, enabling us to go back to 2019 and calculate AQE. Because we’re shifting the historical data for several years in the new projections, the projection movement from Week 1 wouldn’t be primarily based on last week’s quarterback performances, but mostly on revisions to 2019-2021 efficiencies.

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

The plot below is a bit different than previous iterations of this post, substituting AQE for unadjusted EPA per play, and you might notice that the data has less dispersion (i.e. something like a higher r²) than using straight EPA. Even so, AQE doesn’t perfectly align with PFF grading, and you can decide which measure is more representative of fundamental quarterback play. (hint: it’s AQE!)

The top-tier by a combination of PFF grading and AQE are Jayden Daniels, Brock Purdy and Joe Burrow, with the latter two performing better after EPA adjustments. AQE doesn’t see Derek Carr playing on the level that his PFF grading suggests, though it looked favorably on Spencer Rattler’s first start, at least versus the headline efficiency numbers.

The rest of the numbers are harder to sift through for details, with note that a few quarterbacks (Jordan Love and Sam Darnold, in particular) are grading much worse than their AQE, and I think I trust the latter more when it comes to Love, but still undecided on Darnold. As you’ll see below, incorporating a wider view of Darnold career performances lowers his projected efficiency significantly. Whereas for Love this year is building off of a good, if somewhat overrated, 2023 campaign.

I can’t explain the PFF grading for Deshaun Watson or, to a lesser degree, that of Jacoby Brissett without simply pointing to sacks not being weighted enough. I get that Watson and Brissett were let down by surroundings (pass blocking and receiver drops) more than the average quarterback, but it appears that grading might not incorporate enough how quarterback performances can change how everything else around them looks. In his first start, Drake Maye held the ball a longer time on average than Brissett, but the Patriots line gave up less pressure than before, as Maye was able to negotiate the pocket and step up to scramble better than the veteran. Those are get-out-of-jail-free cards for the offensive line.

PROJECTED ADJUSTED EFFICIENCY

These results are the ranking for the go-forward projections of adjusted quarterback efficiency starting this week. I also included the AQE rankings for each quarterback over the last five seasons (minimum 250 dropbacks) so you can see the evidence going into the projections. All of these ranks are now based on AQB, including the 2024 numbers.

Older data is decayed over time, so the 2023 and 2024 AQE 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.

Included are 31 assumed starters (including those on byes), with rookie Spencer Rattler excluded. He’s the only quarterback without an NFL dropback, and he’d be positioned in the bottom-5 solely based on his draft-position prior.

“Percentile” is the mean (“best guess”) projection as a percentile of historical franchise quarterback results (min 2K career dropbacks).