5 NFL Stats to Know Through Week 5

Alex Smith's 52.57% Passing Success Rate Leads the NFL

Here at numberFire, we have a metric called Net Expected Points (NEP) that compares every single play over a season to how a league-average team should perform on that play. Our Success Rate metric measures the percentage of plays in which the NEP was greater than zero. For more about our in-house metrics, check out our glossary.

Among all quarterbacks to start at least one game this season, Alex Smith has the best Passing Success Rate, as one of just four quarterbacks with positive NEP on on more than 50% of his passes. In that same group, he also ranks second with 0.33 Passing NEP per drop back. And the only quarterback above him, is Sam Bradford, who leads him by just 0.01 after putting up 0.74 Passing NEP per drop back against the New Orleans Saints and -0.40 Passing NEP per drop back in his second game of the season in Week 5.

That efficiency has led Alex Smith to rank 5th in the league with 278.2 passing yards per game and has him tied for 3rd with 11 passing touchdowns, despite averaging the 20th-most pass attempts per game. He's one of just four starting quarterbacks yet to throw an interception this season.

After scoring 20-plus fantasy points in just three games last season, Smith currently leads all players this year with an average of 23.3 fantasy points per game.

He will get a tough test in Week 6 as the Kansas City Chiefs look to remain undefeated against the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are giving up the 2nd-fewest fantasy points per game to opposing quarterbacks this season.