Week 13 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 13.
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 13's results:
| Player | Position | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| David Johnson | RB | 100 |
| LeSean McCoy | RB | 98 |
| Melvin Gordon | RB | 96 |
| Thomas Rawls | RB | 95 |
| Mike Gillislee | RB | 94 |
| Devonta Freeman | RB | 93 |
| Albert Wilson | WR | 92 |
| Brandon LaFell | WR | 91 |
| Ladarius Green | TE | 90 |
| Jordy Nelson | WR | 89 |
| Joe Flacco | QB | 89 |
| Matthew Stafford | QB | 89 |
| Andy Dalton | QB | 89 |
| Carson Palmer | QB | 88 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | QB | 87 |
| Golden Tate | WR | 87 |
| Terrance West | RB | 85 |
| Tyler Lockett | WR | 84 |
| LeGarrette Blount | RB | 83 |
| Derek Carr | QB | 80 |
- Running backs held down the top six spots among Week 13 performers. David Johnson turned in a perfect score, thanks to 5.26 Rushing NEP, sixth among running backs, and 9.23 Reception NEP. No other running back secured more than 5.5 Reception NEP in Week 13.
- LeSean McCoy notched 5.49 Reception NEP to go along with 4.10 Rushing NEP on 17 carries for 130 yards. He wound up with a 98 performance rating for the week.
- Melvin Gordon rushed 17 times for 84 yards and a touchdown (3.85 Rushing NEP) and caught 4 of 6 targets for 54 yards (4.21 Reception NEP).
- Thomas Rawls did the majority of his work on the ground: 15 carries, 106 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 6.18 Rushing NEP.
- McCoy's teammate, Mike Gillislee, actually led the week in Rushing NEP at 7.24 on 8 carries for 49 yards and 2 scores.
- Rounding out the top six was Devonta Freeman, who had a balanced day on the ground and through the air. Freeman secured 56 yards and 2 touchdown on 15 carries and 49 yards receiving on 5 targets. He added 3.14 points on the ground and 3.50 via the reception.
- Albert Wilson notched 7.11 Rushing NEP on a 55-yard touchdown and 4.48 Reception NEP on 4 catches for 48 yards. The only other two players to post a rating of at least 90 were Brandon LaFell, whose 11.38 Reception NEP led the week, and Ladarius Green, who came in second at 11.13.