NFL Consistency - A look back at 2018's Quarterbacks

Leading into the season, we’ve been looking at putting together something of a primer for Week 1. We started with an early look at Week 1 pricing with early FanDuel and DraftKings optimal lineups.

Then it was on to rushing attacks and runnings backs as well as passing games to target heading into the first week of the season. Over the next few articles we’ll look at the consistency or volatility around certain players at each position.

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We’ll do this by comparing the DraftKings coefficient of variation (CV - standard deviation / average points) of each player’s performance over the course of the year. This will allow us to compare players at each position to their peers. The lower the CV, the more consistent the player was over the course of the year. The average DraftKings points, kind of speaks for itself.

For quarterbacks, I took the top 15 average weekly scorers who started eight or more games in 2017.

Check out the graph below.

Takeaways

Models of Consistency

Patrick Mahomes FD 8700 DK 7200
Opponent JAX
Proj Points FD - 21.14 DK - 22.02
Um, what? Mahomes is living so far to the right of this graph that the formatting literally cut his name off. Sure, I could have fixed it, but I appreciated the metaphor here. He was so much better than every other quarterback that they couldn’t even see fully him. It’s not news that he had a historic season, dwarfing the rest of the competition by an epic landslide. But he was also about as consistent as it comes on a week-to-week basis. Only Baker Mayfield and Lamar Jackson had lower CVs and neither played full seasons. It stands to reason each of their numbers would have only trended up if given more run. I don’t believe Mahomes’s TD pace is replicable, but I thought the same thing at the beginning of last season as well and was promptly proven wrong.

Lamar Jackson FD 7400 DK 6000
Opponent MIA
Proj Points FD - 19.48 DK - 20.15
Speaking of Lamar Jackson,I wrote about Lamar Jackson and his potential as a Week 1 play already so go back and check that out for a rehash on how awesome his running statistics were last season. It remains to be seen if he can keep that going for an entire season as defenses adjust to the attack. But the rushing attempts and approach did keep him ultra consistent in his starts last season. In fact only only 2017 Baker Mayfield (.22) and Patrick Mahomes (.25), 2016 Drew Brees’s (.25) and 2015 Jameis Winston (.21) rank anywhere close to the level of consistency Lamar showed in his half season as a starter. That could be worth paying for in cash game this season.

Other thoughts

- Obviously, we can eliminate Andrew Luck from our line of thinking here considering he’s finally put the sidearm away and returned to the farm. We can’t expect Jacoby Brissett to do anything similar.

- It will be interesting to see where Ben Roethlisberger falls on this graph after a season. He’s been living in and around the same zone for the last couple of years, but lost his (arguably) best weapon in the offseason.

- Deshaun Watson and Jameis Winston cover each other up on this graph. They had nearly identical lines, down to the decimal points in each stat. If I had to choose a guy to break out this season and move further to the right and down, it would be Jameis who you can already start targeting in Week 1. Considering the coaching change and possibility they begin using Chris Godwin as the slot/possession receiver that was promised, there’s some chance we see Winston move into the elite group if he stays healthy.

- They aren’t listed on this graph because they didn’t finish high enough in the average, per week scoring but Mitchell Trubisky and Josh Allen were easily the most inconsistent quarterbacks with CV’s of .58 and .55 respectively. It makes sense, though for slightly different reasons. Trubisky had some monster games but the Bears played in a lot of games where they didn’t need him to do much, especially down the stretch. That contributed to some highs and lows.

Allen meanwhile, had some monster performances thanks to his rushing ability but the passing was so inconsistent that he often had a very low floor.

Any other takeaways you see here? Quarterbacks you are wondering about?