NFL

The 20 Best Offensive Players From Week 10

In a week full of elite offensive performances, which player was best in Week 10?

Week 10'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 10.

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 10's results:

Player Position Rating
David Johnson RB 100
Ben Roethlisberger QB 100
Aaron Jones RB 100
Ezekiel Elliott RB 99
Christian McCaffrey RB 99
Nick Chubb RB 99
Todd Gurley RB 99
Drew Brees QB 99
Mitchell Trubisky QB 98
Zay Jones WR 98
Mark Ingram RB 98
Alvin Kamara RB 97
Corey Davis WR 97
Melvin Gordon RB 97
Allen Robinson WR 96
Tyreek Hill WR 94
Baker Mayfield QB 93
Elijah McGuire RB 93
Zach Ertz TE 91
Rashaad Penny RB 90


- David Johnson finally saw some elite usage under new offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich. Johnson totaled 28 touches and 183 yards, as well as 2 touchdowns on the road against the Kansas City Chiefs. In total, Johnson added 5.42 Rushing NEP and 7.74 Reception NEP, besting prior season bests of 1.53 and 3.74, respectively.

- Ben Roethlisberger threw for 5 touchdowns on 25 attempts (with just 3 incompletions) in a Thursday Night Football trouncing of the Carolina Panthers. He racked up 328 yards passing and 30.55 Passing NEP, the second-highest single-game mark of the season.

- Aaron Jones, who played 73.7% of the Green Bay Packers' snaps, totaled 172 yards on 18 touches while adding in 2 rushing scores in a win over the Miami Dolphins. His 9.51 Rushing NEP marked the fifth-most expected points added via rushing in a single game this season.

- Ezekiel Elliott churned out 187 yards on 25 touches for 2 touchdowns in Sunday night's win over the Philadelphia Eagles. In all, he added 2.97 Reception NEP and 8.28 Rushing NEP in a big win for the Dallas Cowboys.

- Christian McCaffrey made the most of a Thursday night loss, turning his 19 touches into 138 yards and 3 touchdowns. He chipped in 4.58 expected points on the ground and 5.85 through the air. McCaffrey has seven scores in his past five games.

- Nick Chubb and the Cleveland Browns fended off the Atlanta Falcons at home. Chubb surpassed 200 yards on 23 touches, including a 92-yard rushing score. Chubb also scored on a reception, of which he had three. On 94 carries, Chubb has added 16.47 points over expectation. By comparison, Carlos Hyde lost 7.16 on 114 carries for the Browns this season.