After 12 minutes of Sunday’s game between the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills, Bailey Zappe and Josh Allen had combined to complete four passes. Technically.
Exactly half those caught balls were Zappe interceptions in a stretch of absolute garbage football. That’s not ideal, but whatever. It’s Bailey Zappe. If he were expected to be good, someone would have claimed him when the Patriots released him prior to Week 1.
Allen, on the other hand, is more concerning. In one quarter of play he’d dropped back 12 times. His Bills gained negative-10 net yards in that span. Neither one of his two completions actually made it beyond the line of scrimmage.
Allen eventually regressed back to the mean, though his struggles with deep throws continued. His 169 passing yards — on a 50 percent completion rate — were enough to outlast Zappe en route to a 27-21 win that keeps the Bills’ AFC East title hopes alive. He and Zappe combined for zero passing touchdowns, four interceptions and a 100.6 stacked-up passer rating on the same day Lamar Jackson was roasting the Miami Dolphins for five touchdowns, zero turnovers and a perfect 158.3 rating.
That leaves plenty of questions left to be answered. Not for the Patriots, who expected little from their backup quarterback and who benefitted from a loss (top two draft pick coming, maybe?). And since Zappe couldn’t be Sunday’s most disappointing quarterback because his baseline of play is nearly subterranean, does that mean Allen was? If not him, then who?
Fortunately, we’ve got tools to better understand just how damaging each underwhelming performances was. Using the advanced stat expected points added (EPA) can gauge how much a quarterback brings to the table compared to a typical player.
By comparing each passer’s Week 17 EPA against their 2023 adjusted average, we get a better picture of just how frustrating their days were. And we can find both of those thanks to The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin and his incredibly useful stats sites RBSDM.com and HabitatRing.com. So let’s take a look at who disappointed the most in the 17th Sunday of the 2023 season.