NFL Quarterback ROPE & WAR rankings: Week 16

Here we go. Just one more week of the regular season left and its nearly time to crown the 2017 ROPE Index champion. My Quarterback ROPE Index, WAR ratings and FPAA ratings have all been updated through week 16 to show the best and worst passers in the league from both an efficiency and fantasy standpoint. The fantasy season may well be over for many but it may still help those whose league goes all the way to week 17 (you poor people).

ROPE Index Rankings: Week 16 (min 100 pass attempts)

The outcome of the 2017 ROPE Index is all but nailed on. In week 16 Drew Brees was his usual super efficient self as he posted his 4th straight 60% plus rating (the league average is 49.2%) with 63.6% in the Saints’ win over the Falcons. It was also another game where Brees was over 70% completions (75% to be exact) and Brees (72.0% season to date) is now one game away from breaking Sam Bradford’s 71.6% completions record season from last year.

The only player who can mathematically catch Drew Brees is last week’s new entrant, Jimmy Garoppolo, but even then, it would take for Brees to have his worst day of the season and Jimmy G to post a 90% rating to do it. With the Saints needing a win to top the NFC South and a home game in the wild card round, we can expect to see the best from Drew Brees against the Buccs.

In terms of the form rankings from the last month, its still Blake Bortles leading the way, despite his three interception performance against the 49ers and a 50.0% rating. Bortles has an average ROPE rating of 76.1% over the last four weeks, a 9:3 touchdown to interception ratio, and is third in fantasy points per game with 21.75, so if you’d been bold, he may have won you you championship in the past couple of weeks.

The top ROPE rating of week 16 came jointly from Jameis Winston and Ben Roethlisberger, who posted a rating of 74.2% in their performances against the Panthers and Browns respectively. The worst ROPE rating of the week was also held jointly, with Dak Prescott and Bryce Petty both posting a 15.2% rating. For Dak, it wasn’t quite as bad as the 10.6% rating he had in week 11 against the Eagles but for Bryce Petty, it was his worst ROPE Index rating in six career qualifying games.

WAA/WAR Ratings: Week 16 (min 6 games)

As per last week, Drew Brees remains a whole win ahead of any other quarterback in his win contribution above the average player (4.22). Alex Smith remains close behind Tom Brady in third, though with the Chiefs already guaranteed the AFC West title, we may not see much if any of Smith in the final game of the regular season, so he’ll have to rely on Tom Brady capitulating against the Jets to see him pip Brady for second.

It’s the same four quarterbacks on winning teams who are contributing negatively to their team's success than if their team had the league average quarterback playing (Marcus Mariota, Cam Newton, Tyrod Taylor and Joe Flacco), though Tyrod Taylor (+0.24) and Joe Flacco (+0.57) finally have a positive WAR rating as their late season play has improved enough against the quality of the average replacement quarterback this season.

FPAA/FPAR Ratings: Week 16 (min 6 games)

Its still Russell Wilson who remains the top fantasy QB , with a FPAA rating of 5.6 fantasy points per game. The poor fantasy scoring from the replacement level players means that Wilson is averaging more than 8 fantasy points per game than the replacement players. Wilson faces another middling pass defense in the Cardinals in week 17 with the Seahawks needing a win to have a chance of making the playoffs, so is primed to put up more big numbers this week and further cement his place at the top of the rankings.