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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Christian D'Andrea

NFL QB Rankings, Week 16: Brock Purdy, MVP (Zach Wilson, LVP)

Yes, Brock Purdy landed in the perfect spot for a flawed-but-accurate quarterback. The San Francisco 49ers have long cried out for a passer who can make the right reads and escape the baffling decisions and occasionally awful throws of the Jimmy Garoppolo era — an era that resulted in three trips to the NFC title game or beyond in the last four years, by the way.

That need resulted in an offense that creates swaths of wide open space and trusts its playmakers to capitalize on it. The 49ers have led the league in yards after the catch in five of the last six seasons, including in 2023. This year, they’re profiting from a full campaign from Christian McCaffrey, who is on pace to be just the sixth player in NFL history to score 25 total touchdowns.

The man in the middle is Purdy, who is recording one of the most efficient seasons of quarterbacking in NFL history. His 119.0 passer rating would rank fifth-best all time. His 0.405 adjusted expected points added (EPA) per play is higher than Patrick Mahomes’ in either his 2022 MVP season (0.305) or 2018 MVP season (0.380). He leads the league in touchdown passes, touchdown rate, yards per attempt, adjusted yards per attempt and, well, just about any efficiency statistic you can measure.

That’s why he’s at the top of this week’s quarterback rankings once more — and why the gulf between him and the next closest competitor has widened. Purdy threw four touchdown passes in a sterling performance against the overmatched Arizona Cardinals. Dak Prescott, his closest competition when it came to both advanced stats and MVP odds coming into Week 15, sputtered in a blowout loss to the Buffalo Bills.

So where’s that leave Prescott, aside from “behind Brock Purdy?” Let’s crunch some numbers.

Expected points added (EPA) is a concept that’s been around since 1970. It’s effectively a comparison between what an average quarterback could be expected to do on a certain down and what he actually did — and how it increased his team’s chances of scoring. The model we use comes from The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin and his RBSDM.com website, which is both wildly useful AND includes adjusted EPA, which accounts for defensive strength. It considers the impact of penalties and does not negatively impact passers for fumbles after a completion.

The other piece of the puzzle is completion percentage over expected (CPOE), which is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s a comparison of all the completions a quarterback would be expected to make versus the ones he actually did. Like EPA, it can veer into the negatives and higher is better. So if you chart all 31 primary quarterbacks — the ones who played at least 240 snaps in 15 weeks — you get a chart that looks like this:

via rbsdm.com

Top right hand corner is good. Bottom left corner is bad. Try splitting those passers visually into tiers and you get an imperfect eight-layer system that looks like this:

via RBSDM.com and the author.

These rankings are sorted by a composite of adjusted EPA and CPOE to better understand who has brought the most — and the least — value to their teams across the small sample size. It’s not a full exploration of a player’s value, but it’s a viable starting point. Let’s take a closer look.

1
Yes, he is the most obvious MVP candidate

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

1. Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers: 0.221 EPA+CPOE composite

Barring a complete disaster, he’s going to finish 2023 as the league’s most efficient passer for a division champion who’ll probably be the NFC’s top seed. Those are all MVP bonafides. I don’t know what else to tell you.

2
They've also got compelling(ish) MVP cases

Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

2. Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins: 0.156 EPA+CPOE composite

3. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys: 0.152 

4. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills: 0.148

Prescott’s push to unseat Purdy landed with a resounding thud in Sunday evening’s zero touchdown performance in a 31-10 loss to the Bills. Allen’s two scores, on the other hand, helped keep him in the MVP race and Buffalo in the hunt for a playoff bid despite a 3-5 stretch from Week 5 to Week 12.

3
Guys you trust in the postseason (mostly)

Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

5. Kirk Cousins, Minnesota Vikings: 0.134 EPA+CPOE composite

6. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles: 0.125 

7. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs: 0.125

8. Jared Goff, Detroit Lions: 0.104

9. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens: 0.100

Goff pushed himself back into the third tier with an explosive five-touchdown day against the Denver Broncos — a game that simultaneously pushed Russell Wilson off it. Jackson is a viable MVP candidate despite his merely “good” counting and advanced stats. What he does on the field isn’t quantifiable by numbers, but does emerge on the faces of defenders who’ve tried to stop him.

4
Very good, very inconsistent (or otherwise not quite trustable)

Scott Galvin-USA TODAY Sports

10. Russell Wilson, Denver Broncos: 0.97 EPA+CPOE composite

11. Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 0.092 

12. Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars: 0.088

13. Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers: 0.088

14. CJ Stroud, Houston Texans: 0.86

15. Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks: 0.075

Wilson is falling back to the pack after a hot start. Lawrence has been butt since spraining his ankle two weeks ago. Love is capable of top 10 play and bottom five play, occasionally in the same game (this happened in Week 15). Mayfield had a nearly perfect day to beat the Packers and keep Tampa Bay atop the NFC South and has added a zero to his future paychecks in the process.

5
Guys who are capable of more and got derailed by injury (or being Sam Howell)

AP Photo/Nick Wass

16. Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers: 0.073 EPA+CPOE composite

17. Derek Carr, New Orleans Saints: 0.058

18. Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams: 0.061

19. Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals: 0.069

20. Sam Howell, Washington Commanders: 0.067

Herbert’s going to end 2023 as roughly average, per advanced stats. The Chargers’ top priority going forward must be finding the head coach who can push him to his top 10 potential. Stafford has been charging up the ranks and put his Rams into the playoff hunt as a result. Los Angeles — the one that still has a full-time head coach — looks like a team no one wants to face with their season on the line.

6
I guess things could be worse

Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports

21. Will Levis, Tennessee Titans: 0.048 EPA+CPOE composite

22. Justin Fields, Chicago Bears: 0.041 

23. Gardner Minshew II, Indianapolis Colts: 0.041

24. Desmond Ridder, Atlanta Falcons: 0.027

25. Daniel Jones, New York Giants: 0.026 

Ridder’s red zone woes have led him to be benched … again. The Falcons will turn to Taylor Heinicke with their playoff hopes in the balance. Minshew remains the idea low-cost, high-value backup who can exceed expecations in a pinch. Jones’ 0.026 composite score is much better than Tommy DeVito’s 0.009, in case you were curious.

7
How things get worse

Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports

26. Joshua Dobbs, Arizona Cardinals/Minnesota Vikings: 0.020 EPA+CPOE composite

27. Kenny Pickett, Pittsburgh Steelers: 0.019

28. Bryce Young, Carolina Panthers: 0.014

29. Mac Jones, New England Patriots: 0.011 

Congrats to Young, who not only doubled his NFL win total in Week 15 but also moved up from the bottom three starting quarterbacks in 2023. The other three guys on this tier didn’t play last week, though the Steelers would really, really like to have Pickett and his two to three good fourth quarter throws per game back.

8
Very bad.

Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

30. Zach Wilson, New York Jets: 0.008 EPA+CPOE composite

31. Aidan O’Connell, Las Vegas Raiders: 0.000 

Wilson has been so bad that a -13 EPA in fewer than two quarters of work didn’t knock his composite score down at at all. O’Connell has been so bad an 11.4 EPA night against the Chargers raised his score one hundreth of a point. Ah well, at least he’s no longer in the negatives.

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