With one game remaining in Week 13, Andy Dalton leads the way after one of the best games of his career, while the 49ers quarterbacks combined for a historically bad performance. ESPN Stats & Information takes a look at the best and worst QB performances from Week 13 so far in terms of ESPN's Total Quarterback Rating (QBR).
Top 3
Andy Dalton: 97.6 Total QBR
Dalton posted the second-highest QBR of his career in the Cincinnati Bengals' 32-14 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles. He threw for 332 yards and four touchdowns on Sunday, and for the first time in 19 games, he did not turn the ball over or take a sack.
Dalton was effective downfield, completing 5-of-6 passes thrown at least 15 yards past the line of scrimmage. He was also 10-of-12 for 187 yards and a touchdown on third down, including 10 straight completions at one point. While not all of those completions necessarily resulted in a first down (eight of them did), Dalton ended the game with the highest third-down QBR for a player since Week 3.
Joe Flacco: 94.6 Total QBR
It was a good day to be a quarterback in the AFC North, with Dalton, Flacco and Ben Roethlisberger posting Total QBRs above 75 in wins on Sunday. For Flacco, who posted his highest QBR in more than two years for the Baltimore Ravens, the key was high-volume, first-half efficiency.
Flacco was 27-of-34 for 258 yards and three touchdowns in the first half. His 27 first-half completions are the most for any quarterback since Tony Romo in Week 7 of 2007. By halftime, Flacco had a 94.9 Total QBR and a 24-point lead. Since QBR down-weights plays in blowout situations, the rest of the game held less value, but Flacco still added about 9.5 more points to his team’s scoring margin than an average QB would have with the same number of plays. That’s the highest total for any QB in Week 13 and Flacco’s most points added in a game since Week 6 of 2014 against the Buccaneers.
Alex Smith: 90.6 Total QBR
Smith completed 21-of-25 passes for 270 yards and a touchdown in the Kansas City Chiefs' 29-28 win over the Atlanta Falcons. He averaged his most yards per attempt (10.8) in nearly three years as Andy Reid opened up the passing game a bit for Smith and KC’s offense.
While Eric Berry’s two enormous plays will deservedly receive the bulk of the attention, Smith had a big play of his own -- a 3-yard touchdown pass to Spencer Ware on fourth down in the second quarter. That play added 1.9 expected points and tied the game for the Chiefs. The only reason that Smith’s QBR wasn’t higher was a fumble in the first quarter that led directly to a Falcons field goal. Other quarterbacks may have had a greater total impact than Smith on Sunday, but on a per-play basis, he was one of the three best in the league.
Bottom 3
Colin Kaepernick / Blaine Gabbert: Combined 3.6 Total QBR
Neither Colin Kaepernick (2.8 QBR) nor Blaine Gabbert (10.4 QBR) had enough plays to qualify for the official QBR leaderboard, but their combined performance for the San Francisco 49ers cannot be ignored.
Kaepernick dropped back to pass 12 times on Sunday, and the 49ers lost five yards on those plays. Gabbert was not much of an improvement as he averaged 3.5 yards per attempt and had only one completion that gained more than six yards.
Overall, the 49ers averaged 2.67 yards per play, their fewest in a game since 2006 (2.66 vs. Vikings). They gained six net pass yards (39 passing and negative-33 on sacks), their fewest in a game since 1963.
Jared Goff: 11.6 Total QBR
After posting a 55.9 Total QBR in his first start, Goff has posted the NFL’s worst QBR among qualified quarterbacks in each of the last two weeks. On Sunday, Goff did not lead the Los Angeles Rams on a drive longer than 14 yards in the first half and did not have a drive longer than 29 yards until the final four minutes of the game.
Goff was under pressure on 41.7 percent of his dropbacks, but even when he had time to throw, he struggled with his accuracy, completing 9-of-21 passes when not under duress. Overall, 76 percent of his plays on Sunday gained negative EPA, the highest percentage for a player in a game this season.
Drew Brees: 19.7 Total QBR
Brees failed to throw a touchdown pass at home for the first time since 2009, snapping an NFL-record 60-game streak. He also threw three interceptions, the first time since 2007 he was held without a TD pass, and threw at least three interceptions in a home game.
All three of Brees' interceptions came on passes traveling 10 or more yards downfield, and he was 6-for-12 on those passes for the day. On the season, Brees has an 83.8 Total QBR on passes thrown 10 or more yards downfield, which would be his lowest in a season in our dataset (since the start of the 2006 season).
As a result, Brees posted a Total QBR of 19.7, his lowest in a game since Week 7 of 2010, when he had a 16.5 QBR against the Cleveland Browns.