Looking at the analytics
Using the DYAR and DVOA metrics calculated by Football Outsiders, meant to measure a player’s overall value and a player’s efficiency on a play-by-play basis against the league average respectively, we can match Winston’s performance up against the rest of the quarterbacks in the league. In the past four seasons of his career, Winston has always finished between 11th and 17th in these given metrics; this would peg the former number one overall pick as an average quarterback.
This season, Winston is ranked as the 18th most valuable using the DYAR metric, and is ranked as the 20th most efficient quarterback against the league average in the league at the midway point. Given these metrics, Winston is on pace for his lowest ranking analytically on his career, but is relatively on the same path that we have seen throughout his career.
Collapsing the above into one measure, applying roughly equal weight to EPA + CPOE, we get updated QB DAKOTA ratings.
— Computer Cowboy (@benbbaldwin) November 5, 2019
Dak stays narrowly ahead of Wilson. (note that Brees has a very small sample) pic.twitter.com/XNKyDNWGc6
Winston is also ranked as the 17th highest quarterback in QBR with a rating of 53.1 according to Football Outsiders (a different metric than ESPN’s QBR). Given the metric shown above, Winston’s large dot indicates he has been given a significant amount of dropbacks, and ranks slightly below the league’s average in quarterback efficiency on the season.
Looking at his grade according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Winston is on the rise, but still grading out at an average 69.1. The box score and the analytical evidence seemingly align when evaluating Winston’s 2019 season thus far.