The 20 Best Offensive Players From Week 11
Week 11 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 11.
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 11's results:
| Player | Position | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Le'Veon Bell | RB | 100 |
| Kirk Cousins | QB | 99 |
| David Johnson | RB | 99 |
| Dak Prescott | QB | 97 |
| T.Y. Hilton | WR | 93 |
| Terrelle Pryor | WR | 93 |
| Jameis Winston | QB | 92 |
| Doug Baldwin | WR | 90 |
| Jamison Crowder | WR | 90 |
| Aaron Rodgers | QB | 88 |
| Tim Hightower | RB | 88 |
| Rashad Jennings | RB | 86 |
| Malcolm Mitchell | WR | 83 |
| Rishard Matthews | WR | 82 |
| Steve Smith | WR | 82 |
| Tom Brady | QB | 82 |
| Russell Wilson | QB | 80 |
| Pierre Garcon | WR | 78 |
| Joe Flacco | QB | 78 |
| Dez Bryant | WR | 77 |
- To say that Le'Veon Bell outplayed his running back peers in Week 11, well, you know where this is headed. Bell posted a Rushing NEP of 9.93, and no other player topped 4.70. Actually, C.J. Prosise notched a 4.70, but he was boosted by a long touchdown run and saw just 4 carries on the day. After Prosise, Rob Kelley's 3.67 Rushing NEP was the only score above 2.81. So, yeah, Bell -- and his 146 yards and a score -- dominated the running back conversation on the ground in Week 11.
- Of course, David Johnson posted a 99 performance rating despite just 2.65 Rushing NEP on 22 carries (for 103 yards and a touchdown). Johnson really impacted the game with his receiving: 7.59 Reception NEP on 11 targets for 7 catches, 57 yards, and a touchdown.
- Kirk Cousins out-dueled the rest of the quarterbacks this week with a Passing NEP of 27.90 on just 30 attempts (21 completions for 375 yards and 3 touchdowns). Dak Prescott (23.14 Passing NEP on 27 of 36 passing for 301 yards and 3 touchdowns), Jameis Winston (17.57 Passing NEP on 24 of 39 for 331 yards and a touchdown), and Tom Brady (14.12 Passing NEP on 24 of 40 for 280 yards and 4 touchdowns) were the top four passers by our NEP metric, and Cousins nearly doubled-up the fourth-ranked Brady.
- Just three receivers hit double-digits in Reception NEP. T.Y. Hilton paced the week at 12.05, thanks to his 5-catch, 97-yard, 1-touchdown game. Terrelle Pryor notched the same line but without a touchdown, earning 11.92 Reception NEP. Jamison Crowder caught all 3 targets for 102 yards and a touchdown, yielding 11.20 Reception NEP.
