The 20 Best Offensive Players From Week 5
Week 5 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 5.
But that's not really a concise headline.
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 from the Thursday and Sunday games.
Here are Week 5's results:
| Player | Position | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Isaiah Crowell | RB | 100 |
| Odell Beckham | WR | 100 |
| James Conner | RB | 100 |
| Davante Adams | WR | 99 |
| Kenyan Drake | RB | 98 |
| TJ Yeldon | RB | 97 |
| Philip Rivers | QB | 95 |
| Robby Anderson | WR | 94 |
| Eric Ebron | TE | 91 |
| Aaron Rodgers | QB | 89 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | QB | 85 |
| Tom Brady | QB | 85 |
| Antonio Brown | WR | 84 |
| Melvin Gordon | RB | 84 |
| Sony Michel | RB | 83 |
| Kenny Golladay | WR | 82 |
| Zach Ertz | TE | 82 |
| Tyler Lockett | WR | 80 |
| Chris Ivory | RB | 79 |
| AJ Green | WR | 78 |
- Isaiah Crowell ripped off one of a few perfect 100 scores thanks to a whopping 219 yards on 15 carries (plus a rushing touchdown) against the Denver Broncos. Crowell tallied 13.57 Rushing NEP, giving him the first double-digit score in the Rushing NEP department by a running back all season.
- Odell Beckham finally caught a touchdown and recorded 12.60 Reception NEP on 14 targets (8 catches, 131 yards). Beckham also threw a 57-yard touchdown to Saquon Barkley, adding 6.12 Passing NEP on the play.
- James Conner had 99 yards and a score before the second quarter in a big win for the Pittsburgh Steelers over the Atlanta Falcons. Conner combined his 25 touches for 185 yards and 2 rushing touchdowns (6.17 Rushing NEP and 6.92 Reception NEP).
- Davante Adams found the end zone and added 140 receiving yards on his 12 targets. His 14.76 Reception NEP weren't enough to help the Green Bay Packers net a win over the Detroit Lions, but it was the fifth-best receiving performance of the year by our Net Expected Points model.
- Kenyan Drake turned his 11 targets into 69 yards and a touchdown (5.57 Reception NEP), and he added 3.84 Rushing NEP despite just 2 successful carries (out of 6 total). His strong outing couldn't help the Miami Dolphins fend off the Cincinnati Bengals.
