Adam Steele is back with a brand new convention, and we thank him for keeping the site humming.

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With the NFL trade deadline taking place this week, I decided to make a trade of my own. I’m ditching DYAR in favor of EPA per play. After Davis Mills placed seventh in DYAR by turning into Dan Marino down 38-0, I knew I had to switch to a metric that filters out garbage time.

Thanks to Ben Baldwin and his nifty site rbsdm.com, it’s easy to query EPA/P with various amounts of garbage time removed. After some experimentation I settled on a 4% filter; plays which occur when win probability is below 4% or above 96% are thrown out. The vast majority of plays are still counted but nonsense like the Davis Mills experience is rightfully ignored. To wit, Mills drops from -.149 to -.474 EPA/P with this filter applied.

Here are the week eight numbers:

#	QB Week 8	EPA/P	QBR	zEPA/P	zQBR	zAvg
1	Jimmy Garoppolo	0.58	85.6	1.80	1.70	1.75
2	Jalen Hurts	0.45	93.7	1.34	2.06	1.70
3	Geno Smith	0.49	83.7	1.47	1.62	1.55
4	Matthew Stafford	0.47	75.3	1.40	1.24	1.32
5	Justin Fields	0.38	63.4	1.08	0.70	0.89
6	Ryan Tannehill	0.32	60.4	0.87	0.57	0.72
7	Mike White	0.39	54.1	1.12	0.29	0.70
8	Tom Brady	0.24	62.2	0.56	0.65	0.61
9	Aaron Rodgers	0.06	75.7	-0.09	1.26	0.58
10	Sam Darnold	0.25	56.1	0.59	0.38	0.48
11	Trevor Siemian	0.05	64.8	-0.12	0.77	0.32
12	Baker Mayfield	0.14	53.8	0.22	0.27	0.24
13	Tua Tagovailoa	-0.03	67.8	-0.43	0.90	0.24
14	Josh Allen	0.17	45.1	0.30	-0.12	0.09
15	Mac Jones	0.07	52.7	-0.05	0.22	0.08
16	Ben Roethlisberger	0.25	37.7	0.59	-0.45	0.07
17	Kyler Murray	0.08	49.1	-0.01	0.06	0.03
18	Cooper Rush	0.06	44.7	-0.09	-0.14	-0.11
19	Teddy Bridgewater	0.13	31.0	0.18	-0.75	-0.29
20	Joe Burrow	0.03	34.7	-0.19	-0.59	-0.39
21	Carson Wentz	-0.01	30.8	-0.32	-0.76	-0.54
22	Taylor Heinicke	-0.01	29.0	-0.34	-0.84	-0.59
23	Daniel Jones	-0.05	32.5	-0.50	-0.68	-0.59
24	Kirk Cousins	-0.16	36.5	-0.87	-0.50	-0.69
25	Patrick Mahomes	0.06	19.3	-0.10	-1.28	-0.69
26	Matt Ryan	-0.21	34.8	-1.08	-0.58	-0.83
27	Jared Goff	-0.28	17.5	-1.31	-1.36	-1.34
28	Justin Herbert	-0.40	15.9	-1.75	-1.43	-1.59
29	Davis Mills	-0.47	12.6	-2.02	-1.58	-1.80
30	Trevor Lawrence	-0.53	11.7	-2.22	-1.62	-1.92

We might as well start by discussing Mike White, the anonymous backup who threw for 405 yards and beat the #1 seed Bengals in his first career start. The difference between White’s EPA and QBR is pretty stark, and it’s pretty clear why that’s the case. The Jets QB gained more than 60% of his yardage after the catch and had the second shallowest aDOT of any qualifier this week. No doubt White played well, but his receivers made a lot of plays which inflated his numbers. QBR adjusts for this while EPA does not.

The converse is Aaron Rodgers, who scores much higher in QBR than he does in EPA. This is no surprise given that he was forced to play with a bunch of practice squad receivers. Rodgers played a great game but his stats were muted by his temporary teammates’ bumbling performance.

The downfall of Patrick Mahomes continued in week eight. His EPA was bad but his QBR was really bad. The former MVP was missing throws left and right and his average completion traveled only 2.0 yards in the air. One of his worst plays, a strip sack in the fourth quarter, is penalized far more harshly by QBR because it doesn’t care that a Chiefs teammate recovered his fumble. I thought a date against the lowly Giants would allow Mahomes to return to his old form, but apparently he’s mired in a legitimate slump.

Here are the updated season rankings:

#	QB Season	EPA/P	QBR	zEPA/P	zQBR	zAvg
1	Matthew Stafford	0.41	77.6	2.14	2.07	2.11
2	Tom Brady	0.28	69.4	1.16	1.43	1.29
3	Aaron Rodgers	0.28	66.8	1.14	1.22	1.18
4	Jameis Winston	0.25	64.6	0.91	1.05	0.98
5	Ryan Tannehill	0.27	61.3	1.06	0.79	0.92
6	Kyler Murray	0.24	63.0	0.88	0.92	0.90
7	Josh Allen	0.22	62.0	0.66	0.84	0.75
8	Derek Carr	0.23	60.6	0.74	0.73	0.74
9	Russell Wilson	0.19	62.6	0.50	0.89	0.69
10	Patrick Mahomes	0.25	56.7	0.90	0.43	0.66
11	Dak Prescott	0.22	57.6	0.69	0.50	0.60
12	Lamar Jackson	0.16	60.1	0.28	0.69	0.49
13	Joe Burrow	0.22	54.7	0.68	0.27	0.47
14	Justin Herbert	0.16	56.2	0.26	0.39	0.32
15	Matt Ryan	0.18	52.0	0.36	0.06	0.21
16	Jimmy Garoppolo	0.21	47.3	0.63	-0.31	0.16
17	Kirk Cousins	0.15	53.6	0.13	0.18	0.16
18	Mac Jones	0.14	52.9	0.10	0.13	0.12
19	Teddy Bridgewater	0.16	48.4	0.23	-0.23	0.00
20	Carson Wentz	0.09	54.1	-0.26	0.22	-0.02
21	Tua Tagovailoa	0.08	52.9	-0.39	0.13	-0.13
22	Jacoby Brissett	-0.03	56.5	-1.21	0.41	-0.40
23	Baker Mayfield	0.10	42.2	-0.21	-0.72	-0.46
24	Daniel Jones	0.07	45.3	-0.46	-0.47	-0.46
25	Taylor Heinicke	0.09	42.7	-0.31	-0.68	-0.49
26	Jalen Hurts	0.06	43.0	-0.52	-0.65	-0.59
27	Sam Darnold	0.03	44.0	-0.72	-0.57	-0.65
28	Ben Roethlisberger	0.04	41.4	-0.64	-0.78	-0.71
29	Trevor Lawrence	-0.05	34.7	-1.30	-1.31	-1.31
30	Justin Fields	-0.04	23.1	-1.23	-2.22	-1.73
31	Jared Goff	-0.13	30.3	-1.96	-1.65	-1.81
32	Davis Mills	-0.13	29.2	-1.94	-1.74	-1.84
33	Zach Wilson	-0.18	25.9	-2.30	-2.00	-2.15

What are your thoughts?