Lamar Jackson's next MVP may be inevitable, Bryce Young rises slightly in Week 10's quarterback ranks

The 2024 NFL regular season officially hit its halfway point in Week 9. When it comes to the MVP vote, it’s starting to look a lot like 2023.

Lamar Jackson sprinkled a dusting of touchdowns and completions on the Denver Broncos’ top three defense en route to a 41-10 win and a perfect 158.3 passer rating. It was more compelling evidence he can repeat as Most Valuable Player and join the ranks of legends like Tom Brady, Jim Brown, Peyton Manning and Johnny Unitas with at least three MVP awards.

However, he hasn’t run away with it yet. While 2024 as a whole has seen a decline in prolific passing offenses, this year’s crop of quarterbacks has been wildly efficient at the top. Josh Allen fended off the idea of a Buffalo Bills rebuild and is in position to run away with another AFC East title. Joe Burrow has overcome his customary slow start and is looking to rally the Cincinnati Bengals. Jayden Daniels has the Washington Commanders in place not only for a playoff berth, but a divisional title and maybe even a first round bye along the way.

Which of these quarterbacks has been the most effective through Week 9? Fortunately, we’ve got some advanced stats to help figure that out.

Expected points added (EPA) is a concept that’s been around since 1970. It’s effectively a comparison between what an average quarterback could be expected to do on a certain down and what he actually did — and how it increased his team’s chances of scoring. The model we use comes from The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin and his RBSDM.com website, which is both wildly useful AND includes adjusted EPA, which accounts for defensive strength. It considers the impact of penalties and does not negatively impact passers for fumbles after a completion.

The other piece of the puzzle is completion percentage over expected (CPOE), which is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s a comparison of all the completions a quarterback would be expected to make versus the ones he actually did. Like EPA, it can veer into the negatives and higher is better. So if you chart all 36 primary quarterbacks — the ones who played at least 144 snaps through nine weeks — you get a chart that looks like this:

Spencer Rattler’s return to the bench and Bryce Young’s modest competence means poor Anthony Richardson remains alone in what’s effectively his own quadrant. Ooof. If you split up the rest of the league’s starters into tiers, it looks something like this:

Let’s see how this week’s rankings shook out.