Fantasy Quarterbacks versus Football Quarterbacks: Defending P(100)

Lamar Jackson's lacking performance puts evidence behind our preferred QB metric and why the quarterback talent is not as deep as we think it is

Lamar Jackson will be rewarded with an MVP for a team effort: Baltimore finished the season with the best record in the AFC, and as the hottest team in the NFL. Early season losses to the mediocre Browns, Steelers, and Colts were forgiven. A head-to-head win over rival MVP candidate Brock Purdy and the 49ers aided the cause.

But thinking of Jackson as MVP was always foolish. Our preferred quarterback metric currently has Lamar Jackson rated about 19th in the NFL.

We consider to be Jackson about as good as Andy Dalton (backup), Trevor Lawrence (never successful), and Jordan Love (rookie).

Fantasy QB

In your fantasy league, which tracks traditional yardage and scoring metrics for both running and passing, Jackson is very good.

In most leagues, Jackson was a top 5 fantasy player. The Raven’s QB averaged 21 points per game.

And he’s fun to watch and cheer for. Jackson likes to throw the ball deep and he likes to run about. His play is creative and interesting and athletic.

All of that makes him excellent for SportsCenter or the NFL RedZone or YouTube highlights.

But it doesn’t make him excellent for a winning playoff drive.

Football QB

Football has a truism: “Any Given Sunday.” And while it is true that because football is a single-elimination sport, anything can happen if you show up on Sunday, play hard and get lucky. This, however, also masks another truth: the football playoffs are a series of games.

It is not enough to play well in one game, a quarterback must play well across a series of games. If the team earns a bye, they need to win three times. Otherwise, they need to win four times. And they need to do this against top teams, who are bringing their best performances, with their seasons on the line and championship trophies in their sights.

This is why we created the P(100) rating for quarterbacks.

P(100) estimates the probability that a player will play at or above a 100 passer rating over the course of 4 consecutive games.

By that measure, Jackson was 19th among quarterbacks, 10th among quarterbacks in the playoffs, and last among quarterbacks in the championship round.

The Super Bowl bound quarterbacks, Brock Purdy and Patrick Mahomes, have led the metric all year. They both finished the season with a P(100) that had them likelier then not to play well enough to take their teams to the Super Bowl.

We estimated that Brock Purdy would play at a Super Bowl winning level about 3 out of 4 playoff runs, and Mahomes would play at a Super Bowl winning level about 2 in 3 playoff runs.

Jackson was only expected to perform at that level 1-in-4 times.

In other words, we expected Jackson to be the weak link of the Ravens team. That was the standard outcome, not the surprise.

Evaluating P(100) in 2023

At the beginning of this year, we released P(100) tiers. Purdy and Mahomes were in the top tier with Aaron Rodgers. Jackson was in the bottom tier with the player whose job he took: Joe Flacco.

Jackson had a good season, but ultimately failed to answer most of our concerns about him. He ended the season on the cusp of the third tier, but just outside of it.

Like P(100) metric itself, we try to keep these tiers grounded in reality. Where P(100) reflects your chances of being good enough to win the Super Bowl, the P(100) tiers align to how good you should feel about your quarterback:

• Tier 1: Your quarterback is unlikely to be the weak link

• Tier 2: Your quarterback is even money to let you down

• Tier 3: Your quarterback is somewhat likely to let you down

• Tier 4: Your quarterback is expected to let you down

Far from having the depth of quarterback talent league commentators would make you believe exists in the game today, there are only three players in tier 1. One of whom is the untested rookie Brock Purdy, and one of whom is the aging and injured Aaron Rodgers.

Going into the next season, only the Kansas City Chiefs know quarterback is not their problem.

Beyond that, only three other teams—Dallas, Miami and Detroit—have an even money, Tier 2 quarterback. Joe Burrow was in this grouping at the start of the season, but fell after health problems gave us a lesser version of Burrow for Cincinnati this year.

Most teams have a quarterback problem.

But we are likely to see good quarterback play in the Super Bowl in two weeks.