Week 15's 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 15.
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 15's results:
| Player | Position | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| DeAndre Hopkins | WR | 100 |
| Dalvin Cook | RB | 98 |
| Jaylen Samuels | RB | 98 |
| Damien Williams | RB | 97 |
| Derrick Henry | RB | 97 |
| Tevin Coleman | RB | 96 |
| Robby Anderson | WR | 95 |
| Kenny Golladay | WR | 95 |
| Gus Edwards | RB | 94 |
| Todd Gurley | RB | 94 |
| Doug Baldwin | WR | 94 |
| Davante Adams | WR | 93 |
| Alshon Jeffery | WR | 91 |
| David Johnson | RB | 90 |
| Mike Williams | WR | 89 |
| Mike Evans | WR | 89 |
| Mitchell Trubisky | QB | 89 |
| Ezekiel Elliott | RB | 88 |
| Marlon Mack | RB | 87 |
| Joe Mixon | RB | 87 |
- DeAndre Hopkins locked up a top-five outing with a 10-catch, 170-yard, 2-touchdown line against the New York Jets on Saturday. Hopkins had averaged fewer than 65.0 yards in four games entering this one. He added 16.96 expected points to the Houston Texans' offense.
- Dalvin Cook generated 136 yards and 2 touchdowns on 19 carries (7.46 Rushing NEP) and 27 yards on 2 targets (1.76 Reception NEP) in a big win over the Miami Dolphins to get the Minnesota Vikings to a 7-6-1 record.
- Jaylen Samuels and the Pittsburgh Steelers fended off the New England Patriots with a 17-10 win. Touchdowns were scarce, and Samuels didn't get one of his own but still produced 142 yards on 19 carries (5.92 Rushing NEP) and 30 yards on 2 targets (2.83 Reception NEP). Pittsburgh moved to 8-6-1 on the season.
- Damien Williams stepped in for Spencer Ware and had a solid outing despite the loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Thursday night. Williams' 10 carries were good for 49 yards and 2 touchdowns (4.00 Rushing NEP), and his 6 targets produced 74 yards (4.64 Reception NEP).
- Derrick Henry did it again, rushing 33 times for 170 yards and 2 touchdowns (8.56 Rushing NEP). He played 70.0% of the snaps (his prior best was 51.6% of the snaps), and the Tennessee Titans moved to 8-6. Henry's 26.34 Rushing NEP the past two games would rank him third on the full season.