Week 2 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 2.
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 2's results:
| Player | Position | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Tom Brady | QB | 99 |
| C.J. Anderson | RB | 98 |
| Derrick Henry | RB | 97 |
| Jalen Richard | RB | 95 |
| Derek Carr | QB | 94 |
| Rob Gronkowski | TE | 94 |
| Davante Adams | WR | 94 |
| Mike Evans | WR | 92 |
| J.J. Nelson | WR | 91 |
| Philip Rivers | QB | 90 |
| Ty Montgomery | RB | 87 |
| Devonta Freeman | RB | 86 |
| Matt Forte | RB | 86 |
| Julio Jones | WR | 82 |
| Carlos Hyde | RB | 81 |
| Kareem Hunt | RB | 80 |
| Javorius Allen | RB | 79 |
| Martavis Bryant | WR | 79 |
| Todd Gurley | RB | 78 |
| Matt Ryan | QB | 78 |
- Tom Brady had the best performance of the week entering Monday night, which shouldn't surprise anyone. He completed 30 of 39 passing attempts for 447 yards and 3 touchdowns against the Saints. Brady's 41 dropbacks (including 2 sacks) netted the Patriots 28.54 expected points. No other quarterback hit 20 points of expected scoring in Week 2. Brady completed 6 of 6 deep attempts (targets that traveled at least 16 yards downfield) for 179 yards and 2 touchdowns.
- C.J. Anderson and the Broncos bested the Cowboys, and Anderson was a big part of it. He ran 25 times for 118 yards and a touchdown, adding 3.07 points of expected scoring on carries (rushing isn't very efficiency, and only 44.00% of his carries added positive expected scoring). Anderson led the position in Reception NEP (6.15) by turning 3 targets into 3 catches, 36 yards, and a touchdown.
- Derrick Henry added 8.64 points of expected scoring on 14 carries with a stellar 71.43% Success Rate (league average hovers around 40.00%). It helps that 5 of his 14 carries came inside the red zone.
- Jalen Richard needed only 6 carries to make the list, thanks to 58 yards, a touchdown, and 2.08 Rushing NEP. He also added 51 yards on 2 catches (5.36 Reception NEP, third among all running backs in Week 2). Richard's quarterback, Derek Carr also made the top five. Carr's 19.76 Passing NEP was well off of Brady's pace, but he was one of just five passers to add at least 10 points of expected scoring on his collective drop backs in Week 2.