Jordan Love is a top 10 passer, C.J. Stroud luxuriates toward the bottom and Week 16 NFL QB ranks

Toyotas are on sale, so Jordan Love is cooking.

For the second straight season, the Green Bay Packers quarterback is thriving after a slow start. In 2023, it could be attributed to adjusting to the game in his first season as a full time starter. In 2024, it was thanks to a slow recovery from a Week 1 lower leg injury.

Or it could be something else. One TikTok user pointed out Love's surge last season coincided with Toyotathon -- the auto giant's annual holiday season sales event. Over on Reddit, one user deduced Love's numbers while Camrys are marked down would make him the most efficient quarterback in NFL history. Indeed, the difference is stark:

Jordan Love before Toyotathon 2024:

• 88.2 passer rating, 15 TDs, 10 INTs, 7.6 yards/att

Jordan Love during Toyotathon 2024:

• 119.9 passer rating, eight TDs, 1 INT, 9.9 yards/att

Those latter numbers are enough to move Love into the top 10 of the quarterback rankings with just three weeks left in the regular season. Who joins him? Fortunately, we’ve got some advanced stats to help figure that out.

Expected points added 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 35 primary quarterbacks — the ones who played at least 240 snaps through 15 weeks — you get a graphic that looks like this:

Allen's EPA per play is in its own tier, even with a surprisingly pedestrian CPOE. If you attempt to split this graph into tiers, you get something that looks like this:

Yeah, it's still a rough scene for Anthony Richardson. Let's look at the full ranks.

1. MVP tier (even though it's gonna go to Josh Allen)

1. Lamar Jackson, Baltimore Ravens: 0.187 EPA+CPOE composite

2. Jared Goff, Detroit Lions: 0.182

3. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills: 0.180

Jackson threw more touchdown passes (five) than incompletions in Week 15. He still didn't make a dent in Allen's MVP odds because the Bills went to Detroit and scored so many points Dan Campbell was left resorting to onside kicks with 12 minutes left in the game. Goff was on the losing side of that bargain despite five touchdowns of his own -- and nearly 500 passing yards.

2. Very, very good (with caveats

4. Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals: 0.162 EPA+CPOE composite

5. Jayden Daniels, Washington Commanders: 0.153

6. Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins: 0.151

7. Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles: 0.150

8. Sam Darnold, Minnesota Vikings: 0.144

9. Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers: 0.143

Love's 0.454 EPA/play since Week 10 is better than anyone in the league. He's been more efficient than Lamar Jackson, Jared Goff or Josh Allen. That's not a take that holds up as well when you compare their tape, but it's clear he's not just thriving in open spaces but taking acceptable risks and putting the ball exactly where it needs to be. If he can do that over three weeks in the postseason, he'll put the Packers in Super Bowl 59.

Elsewhere, Hurts proved his offense isn't just a jackhammer of designed run plays by grinding the Pittsburgh Steelers into dust in Week 15. Tagovailoa turned the ball over four times in Houston, leading to 10 Texans points in a game the Dolphins lost by eight. With Tyreek Hill's impact waning, Miami may be headed toward a difficult decision.

3. Mostly trustworthy

10. Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 0.133 EPA+CPOE composite

11. Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers: 0.122

12. Derek Carr, New Orleans Saints: 0.122

13. Russell Wilson, Pittsburgh Steelers: 0.121

14. Kyler Murray, Arizona Cardinals: 0.114

15. Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs: 0.112

16. Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks: 0.106

Mayfield enters the top 10 by virtue of a four touchdown performance over what had been a top three Los Angeles Chargers passing defense. Mahomes suffered his annual ankle sprain that will somehow push him to new heights.

Purdy stunk in the rain in primetime to effectively shut the door on the Niners' playoff hopes. Now he's got to finish strong or risk losing leverage in contract extension talks this offseason.

4. Capable of better things

17. Justin Fields, Pittsburgh Steelers: 0.100 EPA+CPOE composite

18. Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams: 0.094

19. Kirk Cousins, Atlanta Falcons: 0.084

20. Drake Maye, New England Patriots: 0.078

21. Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers: 0.074

22. Aaron Rodgers, New York Jets: 0.072

Cousins is an immobile mess, so much so that the Falcons ran the ball on 23 of their 24 first down plays in Week 15. Herbert has just 492 net passing yards his last three games thanks to 11 sacks as the Chargers begin to regress back to where we'd expected before the season. Rodgers's 0.117 composite over the last two weeks nearly doubles his mark from Weeks 1-12 -- kicking in with just enough time to ruin New York's draft value.

5. We mostly expected better

23. Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars: 0.060 EPA+CPOE composite

24. Daniel Jones, New York Giants: 0.053

25. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys: 0.050

26. Bo Nix, Denver Broncos: 0.050

27. Jameis Winston, Cleveland Browns: 0.047

28. C.J. Stroud, Houston Texans: 0.039

29. Gardner Minshew II, Las Vegas Raiders: 0.033

30. Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears: 0.031

Nix entered rookie of the year conversations with a solid November but has since receded. He's got five interceptions his last two games, albeit in a pair of Broncos wins.

Williams was supposed to ride Thomas Brown's playcalling to a late-season revival. Instead, the quick-hit passing offense has been shut down and Chicago has been left to languish with a sloppy, undisciplined lineup.

Stroud is getting crushed by a lack of blocking up front. Houston's ineffective interior linemen have cut off his room to step up in the pocket and flattened his downfield passing game. His average completion came 7.4 yards downfield as a rookie. This year, it's barely six yards.

6. It's bad

31. Will Levis, Tennessee Titans: 0.023 EPA+CPOE composite

32. Bryce Young, Carolina Panthers: 0.022

33. Deshaun Watson, Cleveland Browns: 0.014

Two of these players are on their rookie contracts. The other was given $230 million fully guaranteed before he ever played a down for his current team. It followed more than 20 accusations of sexual misconduct and what an NFL investigation described as "predatory behavior."

The Browns, man.

7. It's *very* bad

34. Cooper Rush, Dallas Cowboys: -0.027 EPA+CPOE composite

35. Anthony Richardson, Indianapolis Colts: -0.031

Richardson has one game this season in which he's thrown at least five passes and completed more than half of them. Drops and circumstances abound but this is still egregiously bad (though he makes up for it by launching the ball downfield whenever possible). Rush is, regrettably, still Cooper Rush.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Jordan Love is a top 10 passer, C.J. Stroud luxuriates toward the bottom and Week 16 NFL QB ranks