The 20 Best Offensive Players From Week 10

Week 10 games aren't over yet, so maybe the title of this article is a little misleading. It should read something like The 20 Best Offensive Players From the Thursday and Sunday Games in Week 10.

That just doesn't flow all that well.

As you know, we like math here at numberFire. Our algorithms help tell a better story about sports -- they're able to dig through the nonsense, helping us look at things that matter on the court, field or rink.

With football, we love our Net Expected Points (NEP) metric, which measures the number of points a player adds (or loses) to his team versus what he's expected to add. Rather than counting statistics like yards, touchdowns and receptions, NEP looks at down-and-distance situations and field position and relates these instances to history. When a player outperforms what's happened in the past, he sees a positive expected points value on the play. When he doesn't, his expected points gained on the play is negative. All of these little instances add up, then, to be a player's Net Expected Points total.

You can read more about NEP in our glossary.

Using a formula that compares individual single-game performance to history, the numberFire Live platform takes this Net Expected Points formula and assigns a rating to a player's performance. Each week, that's what we'll show here -- the 20 best ratings from the Thursday and Sunday games.

Here are Week 10's results:

- Ezekiel Elliott and the Dallas Cowboys' offensive line dominated in Week 10 during their crazy victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Elliott was the only player in Week 10 to add more than five points to his team's expected scoring via the rush, per NEP. His Rushing NEP was 7.38 on 21 attempts (for 114 yards and 2 touchdowns). He also added a whopping 9.1 points on his 2 catches (95 yards and 1 touchdown), which was also the top mark among running backs.

- Fellow rookie running back C.J. Prosise was close behind with a Reception NEP of 8.58 on 7 catches (87 yards), as the Seattle Seahawks fended off the New England Patriots on Sunday Night Football.

- Between the two in terms of performance rating were receivers from the NFC North. Stefon Diggs turned in his second straight 13-catch performance and finished with 164 yards, yielding a 13.77 Reception NEP despite not adding a receiving touchdown. Davante Adams also didn't score but led all players in Week 10 with a Reception NEP of 14.56 against a team that had a trio of offensive players perform well.

- The Tennessee Titans saw their quarterback, running back, and tight end enter the top 20, as Marcus Mariota posted a week-best 0.69 Passing NEP per drop back (if you overlook his running back, DeMarco Murray, who posted a 2.61 on a touchdown pass to tight end Delanie Walker). Murray added 123 yards and a touchdown on the ground and 2 catches for 33 yards. Walker hauled in 9 of his 11 targets for 124 yards and a touchdown.

- The combination of Dak Prescott and Dez Bryant also gave the Cowboys three players inside the top 20. Prescott posted a Passing NEP of 13.47 on 32 pass attempts (319 yards and 2 touchdowns), and Bryant finished with a fifth-ranked Reception NEP of 11.71 on 6 catches for 116 yards and a score.