The 20 Best Offensive Players From Week 17
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 17's results:
Player | Position | Passing NEP |
Rushing NEP |
Reception NEP |
Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Damien Williams | RB | — | 10.02 | 1.67 | 100 |
Derrick Henry | RB | — | 10.99 | — | 99 |
Cooper Kupp | WR | — | — | 13.52 | 97 |
Mike Boone | RB | — | 7.81 | 0.44 | 97 |
Joe Mixon | RB | — | 6.79 | 0.93 | 96 |
Davante Adams | WR | — | — | 12.50 | 95 |
Raheem Mostert | RB | — | 4.17 | 2.95 | 94 |
Boston Scott | RB | — | -0.18 | 7.19 | 94 |
Michael Gallup | WR | — | — | 12.08 | 93 |
Drew Brees | QB | 18.90 | — | — | 92 |
Jared Goff | QB | 18.12 | 0.05 | — | 91 |
Keenan Allen | WR | — | — | 11.43 | 91 |
Deebo Samuel | WR | — | 3.31 | 8.05 | 91 |
Jimmy Garoppolo | QB | 16.74 | 0.24 | — | 91 |
Ezekiel Elliott | RB | — | 6.16 | -0.08 | 90 |
Travis Homer | RB | — | 2.75 | 3.25 | 90 |
Breshad Perriman | WR | — | — | 11.09 | 89 |
Melvin Gordon | RB | — | -1.14 | 6.90 | 89 |
A.J. Brown | WR | — | — | 10.84 | 88 |
DeVante Parker | WR | — | — | 10.47 | 86 |
- Damien Williams and the Kansas City Chiefs benefitted from a New England Patriots loss, and now the Chiefs have a first-round bye. Williams racked up 154 total yards and 2 touchdowns on only 16 touches in a win over the Los Angeles Chargers. The Chiefs now have a 14.8% chance to win the Super Bowl.
- Derrick Henry did what he had to do to get the Tennessee Titans to the playoffs, as well. Against a Houston Texans team that had nothing much to play for, Henry ran 32 times for 211 yards and 3 touchdowns. The Titans have a 41% chance to knock off the Patriots next week and a 1.5% chance to win the Super Bowl, second-lowest of all playoff teams.
- Cooper Kupp came back from the dead in Week 17. Kupp's usage had fallen off the map down the stretch, and the Los Angeles Rams were eliminated from contention after Week 16. Kupp still had 99 yards and a score on 10 targets, good for the best Reception NEP score of the week.
- Mike Boone also bounced back after a Week 16 letdown. Boone saw 19 touches for 160 yards and a touchdown for the Minnesota Vikings, who travel to face the New Orleans Saints in the Wild Card Round. numberFire Live gives the Vikings just a 28% chance to win that matchup.
- Joe Mixon and the Cincinnati Bengals not only didn't make the playoffs but had the first overall pick locked up, and Mixon continued to cash in on a hefty workload: 27 touches for 176 yards and 2 touchdowns.