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 prior weekend of football.
Here are Week 16's results:
| Player | Position | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Todd Gurley | RB | 100 |
| Dion Lewis | RB | 99 |
| Matt Breida | RB | 96 |
| Giovani Bernard | RB | 95 |
| LeSean McCoy | RB | 93 |
| Larry Fitzgerald | WR | 92 |
| Julio Jones | WR | 91 |
| Tion Green | RB | 88 |
| Jimmy Garoppolo | QB | 87 |
| Alex Smith | QB | 86 |
| Mike Evans | WR | 84 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | QB | 93 |
| Le'Veon Bell | RB | 92 |
| Melvin Gordon | RB | 91 |
| CJ Anderson | RB | 80 |
| TY Hilton | WR | 79 |
| Javorius Allen | RB | 77 |
| Keelan Cole | WR | 76 |
| Kirk Cousins | QB | 75 |
| AJ Green | WR | 75 |
- Todd Gurley's 22 carries (118 yards) and 10 catches (158 yards and 2 touchdowns) earned him a perfect 100 score, as the Los Angeles Rams toppled the Tennessee Titans. Gurley's 12.32 Reception NEP was the second-best receiving performance by a running back all season (Chris Thompson had 15.64 in Week 3).
- Dion Lewis filled the void of Rex Burkhead nicely and handled 24 carries and 5 catches for 153 yards and 2 total touchdowns. Lewis' 7.17 Rushing NEP led all running backs this week and was the 18th-most for any rusher all season.
- Matt Breida was just on his heels, with 7.12 Rushing NEP, thanks to 74 yards and a score on 11 carries, as the San Francisco 49ers dropped 44 points on the league's best defense in the Jacksonville Jaguars.
- Giovani Bernard turned 23 carries into 116 yards and a touchdown for only 3.81 Rushing NEP. However, he hauled in all 7 targets for 52 yards and 3.65 Reception NEP to boost his importance for the Cincinnati Bengals, who bested the Detroit Lions and eliminated them from playoff contention.
- LeSean McCoy did all he could to keep his Buffalo Bills in the mix against the New England Patriots. McCoy caught 5 of 7 targets for 76 yards and 5.89 Reception NEP. His 17 carries and 71 yards on the ground yielded just 0.79 Rushing NEP, and it wasn't enough, as the Bills lost 37-16.