Seahawks QB Geno Smith: To extend or not to extend

Are the numbers on Geno’s side?

Adjusted net yards per pass attempt (ANY/A) is a metric created by the fine folks at Pro Football Reference that attempts to measure how valuable a QB has been to his team by taking their passing yards and measuring it against their passing volume, turnover rate, and sack rate (sacks are a QB stat, primarily, but that’s a discussion for another time).

It’s not a perfect metric, but it does serve as a good measure of how efficiently a QB can move the ball without giving it away. Smith currently ranks 7th in the NFL in ANY/A, trailing names like Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes, and Justin Herbert.

Okay, but ANY/A is still pretty rudimentary as far as advanced stats go. How about something a little more comprehensive? Expected points added per play (EPA/play) is one of the more advanced metrics out there, and it is essentially a measure of how a team or player has performed in relation to what an average team would do in the same situation.

The calculations themselves are way too complex to describe in passing, but the idea is essentially that every play affects the likelihood of scoring on that drive, and EPA/play attempts to calculate how much likelier a team is to score based on the results of the play, taking into account down, distance, and yardage gained. Geno currently ranks fifth among QBs in in EPA/play, trailing only Patrick Mahomes, Tua Tagovailoa, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson.