Week 1 of the NFL season was, well, at least a little weird.
The 2024 season’s first Sunday saw the opening weekend’s biggest favorite lose to the lowly New England Patriots at home. The Chicago Bears overcame a 17-0 deficit without a single offensive touchdown. One of the league’s best quarterbacks was Sam by-god Darnold.
This left a Sunday loaded with quarterbacks who underwhelmed. But which were truly the most disappointing?
Fortunately, we’ve got tools to better understand just how damaging these underwhelming performances were. Using the advanced stat expected points added (EPA) can gauge how much a quarterback brings to the table compared to a typical player. By comparing each passer’s Week 1 EPA against their 2023 average we get a better picture of just how frustrating their debuts were. And we can find both of those thanks to The Athletic’s Ben Baldwin and his incredibly useful stats sites RBSDM.com and HabitatRing.com.
Who was the worst? There were several candidates but only one man can truly call himself the grossest quarterback of Week 1.
