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 value 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.
Here are Week 11's results:
Player | Position | Passing NEP | Rushing NEP | Reception NEP | Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jonathan Williams | RB | — | 5.97 | 3.67 | 99 |
Dak Prescott | QB | 24.04 | 2.10 | — | 97 |
Lamar Jackson | QB | 18.61 | 5.02 | — | 97 |
Courtland Sutton | WR | 2.43 | 2.41 | 8.06 | 96 |
Christian McCaffrey | RB | — | -1.07 | 8.38 | 95 |
Marlon Mack | RB | — | 6.89 | — | 93 |
Gus Edwards | RB | — | 6.82 | — | 93 |
Deebo Samuel | WR | — | — | 11.97 | 93 |
Stefon Diggs | WR | — | — | 11.93 | 93 |
Calvin Ridley | WR | — | — | 11.86 | 93 |
Devante Parker | WR | — | — | 11.44 | 91 |
Jimmy Garoppolo | QB | 16.64 | 0.41 | — | 91 |
John Brown | WR | — | — | 11.17 | 90 |
Michael Gallup | WR | — | — | 11.10 | 89 |
Josh Allen | QB | 10.19 | 6.22 | — | 88 |
Matt Ryan | QB | 13.80 | 1.99 | — | 87 |
Tarik Cohen | RB | — | 1.06 | 4.27 | 87 |
Kirk Cousins | QB | 13.00 | 0.47 | — | 84 |
Mark Ingram | RB | — | -0.41 | 5.07 | 83 |
Drew Brees | QB | 12.40 | 2.17 | — | 83 |
- Jonathan Williams and Marlon Mack each popped in the top six here, but it was Williams with 9.64 Total NEP who actually rated out more impactful than Mack (6.89). Each rusher topped 100 yards on the ground (Williams had 116; Mack had 109) in their 33-13 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
- Dak Prescott keeps balling out. This week, he accumulated 444 passing yards and 3 touchdowns on 46 attempts, good for 24.04 Passing NEP. Prescott ranks second in Passing NEP per drop back (0.36) on the full season.
- Lamar Jackson tallied 18.61 Passing NEP and 5.02 Rushing NEP in a drubbing of the Houston Texans, a top-half adjusted pass defense. On the season, Jackson has averaged 0.32 Passing NEP per drop back (ranking him third behind Prescott and Patrick Mahomes). Even in matchups with top-half pass defenses, Jackson has produced 0.18 Passing NEP per drop back. The NFL average in that split: 0.03.
- Courtland Sutton's fingerprints were all over the Denver Broncos' offense in a blown opportunity against the Minnesota Vikings, as he racked up positive NEP in all three facets.
- Christian McCaffrey actually lost expected points as a rusher, which isn't all that uncommon, but racked up 121 yards on 14 targets. McCaffrey now has 3 of 12 games by a running back with at least 7.0 Reception NEP this season.