Wilson ranked 21st among qualifying quarterbacks (QBs with 20 action plays per team game) with a 50.7 QBR rating in 2023. Stidham ranks 31st with a 30.6 QBR rating.
ESPN’s Total QBR “values the quarterback on all play types on a 0-100 scale,” taking into account factors such as the defense faced, the QB’s actual contribution to a play and efficiency.
To see how Wilson and Stidham compared to other QBs across the league this season, we’ve listed ESPN’s 30 qualifying QBs from the 2023 season below, plus Joe Flacco (now a starter for the Cleveland Browns) and Stidham (who ended the year as Denver’s starter).
Wilson ended his 2023 campaign ranked 21st among qualifying* quarterbacks with a 50.7 Total QBR rating (*ESPN’s season-long list only includes QBs with 20 action plays per team game).
ESPN’s Total QBR “values the quarterback on all play types on a 0-100 scale,” taking into account factors such as the defense faced, the QB’s actual contribution to a play and efficiency.
To see where Stidham stacks up, we’ve listed all 32 starting quarterbacks below, ranked in order of their Total QBR rating.
Stidham’s rating (31.3) is considerably lower than Wilson’s and it ranks 30th among current starters, but he only has a one-game sample size. In fact, multiple current starters listed below have a very small sample size, which skews the ratings.
With that caveat in mind, here’s a quick look at all 32 (projected) starting quarterbacks going into the final week of the 2023 NFL season.
Ranking every NFL quarterback by Total QBR in Week 17
New England Patriots quarterback Bailey Zappe took a significant step back in the Total QBR department in Sunday’s loss to the Buffalo Bills.
The second-year signal caller ranked 26th out of the other Week 17 quarterbacks after a run-in with a ferocious Bills defense on the road. He threw for 209 yards, zero touchdowns and three interceptions.
All of the turnovers came in the first half, and Zappe was able to make plays down the stretch to keep the Patriots in the game. So his performance wasn’t nearly as bad as it looks on paper.
If anything, Zappe showed a willingness to step up in the pocket and make plays, even when nothing seemed to be going right around him initially. The Patriots also fielded a banged-up offensive line that struggled to hold up against the Bills’ pass rush.
Per ESPN.com, Total QBR “incorporates all of a quarterback’s contributions to winning, including how he impacts the game on passes, rushes, turnovers and penalties.”
Here is where every NFL quarterback, including Zappe, ranked in Week 17:
Bailey Zappe made a leap in the Total QBR rankings after the Patriots’ Week 16 win over the Broncos.
New England Patriots quarterback Bailey Zappe bounced back in a big way in Sunday’s Christmas Eve road win over the Denver Broncos.
Last week, he fell all the way to 27th in the Total QBR ratings, but a stellar effort at Mile High had him soaring all the way up to the No. 12 spot in Week 16. And to think, the game started with him being the victim of a strip sack fumble on the very first play.
The only difference this time around is the fact that Zappe and the offense played better as the game went on. They even put together a game-winning drive in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter, which ended on a 56-yard field goal from kicker Chad Ryland.
However, it was Zappe and the offense that got Ryland within striking distance to even make the miracle kick a possibility. The second-year quarterback went 25-of-33 passing for 256 yards and two touchdowns.
Per ESPN.com, Total QBR “incorporates all of a quarterback’s contributions to winning, including how he impacts the game on passes, rushes, turnovers and penalties.”
Here are the Total QBR rankings for NFL quarterbacks in Week 16:
Broncos QB Russell Wilson ranks 7th with a 97.5 passer rating this season. His 50.0 “Total QBR” rating ranks 16th among current starters.
Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson ranks eighth in the NFL with 24 passing touchdowns this season and his 97.5 passer rating ranks seventh overall (the NFL’s passer rating is rated on a 0 to 158.3 scale).
Fans might be surprised to see that despite those positive stats, Wilson ranks 16th among current starters with a 50.0 “Total QBR” rating in 2023.
Unlike a traditional passer rating, ESPN’s Total QBR “values the quarterback on all play types on a 0-100 scale,” taking into account factors such as the defense faced, the QB’s actual contribution to a play and efficiency.
To see where Wilson stacks up, we’ve listed all 32 starting quarterbacks below, ranked in order of their Total QBR rating.
Note that these ratings are from before the Thursday Night Football showdown between the Saints (Derek Carr) and Rams (Matthew Stafford) last night. It’s also worth noting that a few QBs on this list have an extremely small sample size.
With those caveats in mind, here’s a look at all 32 (expected) starting quarterbacks from across the NFL going into Week 16.
Houston’s Donovan Smith jumped up five spots, thanks to his performance against Texas Tech.
With another week of performances in the rearview mirror, College Sports Wire is checking in on the Big 12’s QBR ranking from ESPN.
This week’s QBR update shows no change at the top. The top six quarterbacks all maintained their spots in the weekly update. Dillon Gabriel and Quinn Ewers showed why they are the top two quarterbacks of the conference, who are leading their unbeaten teams into a major head-to-head matchup in Week 6. Plenty is on the line when these two teams kick off from the Cotton Bowl on the Texas State Fairgrounds.
Donovan Smith had a big jump in the rankings going from No. 12 to No. 7 thanks in large part to his performance against Texas Tech. Unfortunately for the Houston Cougars, it was another loss. The team looked good in the first half with 28 points but failed to do much of anything in the second half. Smith posted the second-best QBR of the week (93.0) just behind Oklahoma’s Dillon Gabriel (95.7).
Which quarterbacks are standing tall for their teams and looking to unseat Gabriel from the top spot?
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A breakdown of the good, bad and mostly the ugly from the Dallas Cowboys’ crushing 31-24 loss at the hands of the Chicago Bears on Thursday.
The Dallas Cowboys’ crushing 31-24 loss to the Chicago Bears on Thursday night was a signature game. The Cowboys have gone through various ups and downs during the 2019 season, but they are now riding a three-game losing streak at the hands of the New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills and now the Bears. Technically all is not lost as the Cowboys still hold first place in the woeful NFC East, despite their middling record of 6-7.
It has been an unfortunate turn of events for the Cowboys. The expectations of head coach Jason Garrett leading a star-studded roster into a Super Bowl run now seems like a pipe dream as the team again looked outmatched in every aspect. It was a bad scene and at times it looked liked many players were on the field reluctantly. Here is a breakdown of the good, the bad and mostly the ugly from Thursday’s primetime defeat.
The Good: The Opening Drive
David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
The Cowboys looked like a dominant football team to start the game. Their opening drive was impressive as they gained 75 yards on 17 plays. It elapsed 8:57 of game time and the end result was a rushing touchdown from Ezekiel Elliott for an early 7-0 lead. It was the longest drive of the 2019 season and by the time the Bears got the ball on their first possession there was only 6:03 left in the first quarter.
The Cowboys effortlessly moved the ball at will, and if the opening drive was to be an indication, Cowboys Nation was sure in for a treat on Thursday night. As it would eventually turn out, that wasn’t the case. In truth, there is not many positives to gleam from the loss. Playoff hopes and scenarios aside, it seems like the product on the football field has not matched the hype.
The Bad: Brett Maher
Cowboys’ owner and de facto general manager Jerry Jones has already voiced his opinions about Garrett and the state of his football team. At this point, it is safe to say the entire coaching staff will be allowed to finish up the season uninterrupted with the team’s current playoff positioning. With that fans can likely, sadly expect Garrett’s continued dependency on kicker Brett Maher in crucial situations.
In fairness to him, he has made some long kicks in his two-year tenure. But a couple 60-plus-yard field goals do not make up for the plethora of misses that have plagued the team throughout the season.
Cowboys kicker Brett Maher has now missed 10 field goals this season.
That's more than any kicker in a single season in the last 4 years.
For the second-straight week, Maher’s misses had a direct impact on Dallas’ late-game decisions, keeping them more than one-possession down late in the contest when they were finally able to put points on the board. The morale erosion when the offense makes headway only to come away not just empty handed, but gifting the opponent prime field position resonates throughout the sideline for a team barely hanging on to belief they can play a complete game.
To make matters worse in this contest, after Dallas was able to shrink the lead to 24-14 with a touchdown, Maher’s kickoff dribbled out of bounds, starting the Bears off at their 40-yard line.
The Bears went on to score in four more plays, their final points of the game and the final margin of victory; set up by the short field.
The conservative nature of Garrett and the inaccuracy of Maher has been the perfect disaster for a Cowboys team struggling to win in close games. But with three games left in the season the misses will continue to be a problem. Much like their current coaching situation, ownership seems adamant to stick with Maher for the remainder of the season in spite of the mediocrity. The Cowboys’ season in a nutshell.
The Ugly: The Cowboys’ Defense
AP Photo/Morry Gash
It was another poor outing for a porous Cowboys defense. They allowed the Bears, led by quarterback Mitchell Trubisky to score 31 points. In addition, the defense had trouble tackling all night, which led to some bonus yards after the catch opportunities for the Bears’ offense.
Mitchell Trubisky threw multiple touchdowns in the opening half of a game for the 4th time in his career.
In the previous 3 instances, Trubisky had a 77.0 comp pct, 12 pass TD, 1 INT, and a 146.1 passer rating … and the @ChicagoBears won all 3 games.#ThursdayNightFootball
To put things into perspective, the Cowboys’ defense allowed Trubisky, who is an average QB at best, to pick them apart with surgical precision. To gauge Trubisky’s season from an analytical standpoint, ESPN’s Total QBR is a good measuring stick. According to their metric, Trubisky currently ranks No. 27 in the league with a a QBR of 43.0 for the season. A Pro-Bowl caliber player is rated with a QBR of 75. Against the Cowboys Trubisky produced a QBR of 80.6.
Another was to measure Trubisky and the rest of the Bears’ offensive efficiency is through the use of Expected Points Added (EPA). The nflscrapR package provides this data, with EPA measuring the value of a play given down, distance to first downs and field position.
This chart illustrates the Bears’ offensive efficiency, or lack thereof, over the course of the season. For the most part, the Bears have struggled to produce on the offensive end of the spectrum. Their EPA/play was usually well below zero, which means that the majority of their plays were unsuccessful.
Against the Cowboys in Week 14, they saw one of their biggest offensive breakouts of the season. The Cowboys’ defense surrendered 0.36 EPA per pass play, which is the Bears’ greatest mark of 2019.
Overall, this was a daunting loss for the Cowboys who were the road favorites against a Bears team led by Trubisky. There was hope the Cowboys would bounce back in Week 14 after their stunning defeat by the Bills on Thanksgiving. The team had a chance to prove they were a resilient bunch, able to withstand a string of losses. Now, after a three game losing streak and a record of 6-7, this team is treading the same old ground to end the 2019 season.
