Each NFL team uses just one quarterback per game (ideally) and the incidence of producing one of the best eight games allowed by a defense is an elite performance considering that defense, but less difficult than the other fantasy positions that employ several players in the same position per game.
Below shows how often a player logged the best game allowed by a secondary (Top-1), one of the four best performances allowed (Top-4), and one of the best eight performances (Top-8). With 17 games played, a Top-8 game is “above average” among the best quarterbacks from each opponent. Notable too is that players only face 14 teams per year, three division mates are played twice and cannot give them more than one “Top-1.”
The “Better than Average” (BTA) score is a weighting of those games.
See Also: Better than average QB | RB | WR | TE
Bottom line: This is a true measurement of how productive a quarterback once the schedule influences are removed. It compares them to other quarterbacks that faced that same defense. If a player rates higher here than they did with 2022 fantasy points, it means they were limited by a schedule and are better than their last year’s stats suggest.
A high number of Top-8 performances indicate the consistency of their big games. Only seven quarterbacks managed to have more than nine Top-8 games and Geno Smith (13) and Trevor Lawrence (10) fared very well. Lawrence in particular since he lacked the elite wideouts that the others enjoyed. There were only a dozen that managed at least nine which meant they offer solid production week-to-week.
Quarterbacks that managed a Top-4 were naturally far less common. Patrick Mahomes‘ incredible production dominated in this metric while Josh Allen had fewer big games. Only four quarterbacks logged a Top-4 game more than half of the time and each are being drafted before any other quarterbacks this summer.
This is the list of quarterbacks that posted the best fantasy game allowed by an opposing defense all year for 2022.
Only six quarterbacks scored the most allowed by a defense more than once all season. These quarterbacks didn’t just have a big game, they enjoyed the biggest game.