There was a lot of fuss this week over Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams’ unflattering PFF grade after a Week 1 performance in Carolina that saw him throw for 269 yards and two touchdowns and rush for 65 yards and two more scores.
However, Williams did get some love from The Athletic in their “QB Stock Report,” centered on their new “QBI,” or “Quarterback Index,” metric. According to The Athletic, their new quarterback evaluator removes contributions from the signal caller’s 10 teammates and credits them only for what they provide their offense on a per-play basis.
The metric accounts for passes, rushes, scrambles, sacks, turnovers, and anything else that happens when the football is in the quarterback’s hands. It also accounts for whether the quarterback was pressured and how quickly that pressure came, drops by receivers, and yards after the catch, which are removed from the quarterback’s credit. The model also includes factors like EPA and success rate.
For QBI, 100 is the average, similar to the popular baseball metric weighted runs created plus (wRC+). So, a quarterback at 100 is average, 101 is starter-level, 124 is Pro-Bowl caliber, and 133 is All-Pro caliber.
You can learn more about The Athletic’s QBI in this handy explainer by Austin Mock.
Sep 13, 2026; Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) with Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young (9) after the game at Bank of America Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-Imagn ImagesCaleb Williams Climbs QB Rankings After Week 1 Performance
Entering Week 1, The Athletic ranked Williams No. 13 in the league on its QBI leaderboard. Williams’ performance in Carolina moved him to No. 7, with a QBI of 107.
Here’s what The Athletic’s Jeff Howe had to say about Williams’ Week 1 performance:
Williams totaled 269 passing yards, 65 rushing yards, and four touchdowns against the Panthers, and he didn’t turn the ball over. He looked far more like the player who tallied 19 total touchdowns and four turnovers (three interceptions, one fumble) over the final 10 regular-season games of 2025 than the guy who was intercepted five times in his first pair of playoff appearances.
The playoff picks were little more than a rite of passage for an inexperienced QB. Williams wasn’t nearly as bothered in Carolina.
Here’s where Williams stacks up among the top quarterbacks in the rankings:
At the end of the day, none of this really matters. Williams was terrific on Sunday, stuffed the stat sheet with meaningful numbers, and guided the Bears to a 59-point offensive explosion. Most importantly, Chicago is 1-0.
I didn’t care much about his PFF grade, and I’m not too concerned with the QBI grade either. Like anything, data is a tool, and it represents small pieces of the evaluation process. Every shop evaluates play differently, and I suppose it’s about finding a model that fits how you see things. In baseball, there are FanGraphs truthers and Baseball-Reference truthers, there’s Statcast/Baseball Savant diehards, and there’s the crowd in between and the crowd that cares not at all.
I just found the Athletics’ new QBI formula interesting enough to share. In the original explainer, Mock notes that to create the baseline for the model, he used 20 years of quarterback play; nonetheless, the model is brand new, and there’s some learning to be done for all involved, but in the spirit of establishing a median, above-average, and so on, in the vein of a wRC+ style evaluation, I do like that format and will be monitoring it in the early going this season.
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