Ryan Fitzpatrick averaged 9.61 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt in week 1, good enough for the 4th best grade of the week. But the Houston signal caller — who went 14/22 for 206 yards with 1 touchdown, no interceptions, and 1 sack — was not a very good fantasy quarterback. Using the Footballguys.com standard scoring system of 1 point per 20 yards passing, 1 point per 10 yards rushing, 4 points per touchdown pass, and -1 point per interception, Fitzpatrick had just 15.3 fantasy points (he rushed for 10 yards). That tied him for only the 25th best performance by a quarterback in week one.

Obviously there’s a big difference between ANY/A and fantasy points.  But while we use ANY/A as our main metric for lots of reasons, it’s always helpful to compare it to other statistics.  For example, RG3 ranked 17th in ANY/A in week 1, but only 27th in ESPN’s Total QBR. Why is that? Well, Griffin fumbled twice (losing one), and he completed a lot of very short throws (he had the third lowest air yards per throw and air yards per completion).  But another factor is that his third down performance was a bit misleading using conventional metrics, which is something Total QBR is good at identifying.

Griffin gained 75 net yards on 10 third down dropbacks in the game: that’s pretty good, but he only picked up first downs on 3 of 10 opportunities.   He had a 48-yard completion on a 3rd-and-7, which is great, but it also inflates his average gain; he also had a pair of 9 yard completions on third and very long that added little value.

We can also look at Football Outsiders’ main efficiency metric, DVOA, and compare that to other statistics.  Matt Cassel is an interesting player to analyze.  In DVOA, he ranked 5th.  In ANY/A, he ranked 10th.  In Total QBR, he was 15th, and in fantasy points, he was 21st!   So what gives?

As noted by Vince Verhei, Cassel’s “average pass traveled just 4.8 yards past the line of scrimmage, nearly a full yard shorter than the next shortest quarterback (Derek Carr, 5.6).” That would explain why QBR would be less high on Cassel than other statistics.  And since Cassel threw just 25 passes for only 170 yards, his fantasy value won’t be very high. Football Outsiders, on the other hand, gives Cassel credit for things like his a 9-yard pass on third-and-10 that created better field goal range.  Overall, comparing what Cassel did to the baseline, he looks really good according to FO, and just pretty good according to QBR.  As for ANY/A, it’s impressed by his 2 TD/0 INT ratio, but it’s hard to get a great ANY/A grade when you are averaging just 10.0 yards per completion.

The table below shows each quarterback’s stats in each metric.  For example, Matthew Stafford averaged 11.55 ANY/A in week 1, scored 31.5 fantasy points, had a Total QBR of 97.5, and a DVOA of 90.3%.  Those ratings, among the 33 quarterbacks in week 1 (curses, Rams!), ranked him 1st in ANY/A, 3rd in fantasy points, 1st in QBR, and 1st in DVOA, for an average rank of 1.5.

• How good was Stafford on Monday night? Well, as always, the “Matthew Stafford” line really just means Matthew Stafford, throwing to Calvin Johnson, Reggie Bush, and Golden Tate, and playing against the Giants “defense.” But Stafford ranked atop all three efficiency metrics. He only trailed Matt Ryan and Andrew Luck in fantasy points because those players threw significantly more passes.

• Speaking of Ryan, we all know he played well against New Orleans. But the numbers here are a good reminder that he played really, really well. He produced strong enough efficiency numbers to rank 1st or 2nd in ANY/A, Total QBR, and DVOA, while throwing 43 passes, which allowed him to be the week’s top fantasy performer. Of course, no team was more pass-happy than Atlanta last year; combined with his surgical efficiency (perhaps courtesy of having a healthy Julio Jones and Roddy White) in week 1, that spells great things for Ryan’s fantasy prospects in 2014.

• Andrew Luck, on the other hand, ranked 2nd in fantasy points but outside the top 15 in every other metric. Luck rushed for a touchdown, which is good for fantasy points, but useless for ANY/A and DVOA (since I am using only passing DVOA grades). His two interceptions look bad in QBR, ANY/A, and DVOA, but are pretty meaningless in fantasy football (in fact, his 19 rushing yards neutralizes those picks almost completely). Luck did lead a nice comeback against Denver, and is often a QBR pet, but even QBR wasn’t a big fan of Luck’s game against the Broncos (perhaps, in part, because of an uncharacteristic failure on a key running play — that ugly 4th-and-1 sneak).

• Geno Smith had an interesting week one. He rushed for first downs on 3rd-and-8 and 3rd-and-13 at critical moments in the game; I thought that might make his QBR look pretty good. On the other hand, he threw an interception and fumbled twice (losing one). On the, uh, third hand, Smith led the NFL in completion percentage, but on the fourth hand, his average completion traveled 3.5 yards past the line of scrimmage, the lowest mark in the league. On hand #5, Smith lost a touchdown thanks to Greg Salas. As it turns out, all four metrics put Geno in the 18-to-25 group, which may be important for advertisers, but is a far cry from his #1 ranking in completion percentage.

• After a few weeks, Football Outsiders begins including strength of schedule in its ratings. That’s important for Aaron Rodgers, who would obviously shoot up all four sets of rankings once you factor in the Seattle defense. For what it’s worth, ESPN’s Total QBR was still very high on Rodgers, which may just be a sign that his play was better than his raw numbers.

What stands out to you when looking at the table above? Is this a useful feature? Is it something you’d like to see every week? What suggestions do you have for improving it?