Better Box Score Metrics: UFA Weeks 3-5

Catching up on the last few weeks and getting some early season tallies.

May 30, 2025 by Paul Würtztack in Analysis

Welcome to Better Box Score Metrics, our analytics column focused primarily on semi-pro statistics and discovering new ways to use data to explore ultimate. It is anchored by EDGE, which we can summarize as converting goals, assists, blocks, turnovers, and yards gained into one metric, while accounting for the scoring and turnover environment.

We’re a little backed up here at BBSM HQ, having not published a UFA update since Week 2, and with Week 6 now upon us, we’ll quickly recap the leading individual game performances from the past three weeks, as well as a look at season leaders in a couple of metrics.

Tables 1 and 2 show what we’ve assessed to be the best individual game performances from Weeks 3-5. (We’re going 20 deep instead of 10 to account for the extra weeks). We base this on our E+ stat, which is a composite of the relative awesomeness of each player’s EDGE, E16, and Player Efficiency Rating (PER) in that game. It’s past time for a deeper dive into PER, but we will kick it down the road again in order to get this out. Quickly though, it is a production-per-turnover stat, with production coming from both scoring and yardage (with throwing yardage heavily weighted to reflect the higher risk of turnovers), and with turnover counts modestly adjusted to reflect the lower cost of turns in windy, high-turnover games and the lower cost of throwing huck incompletions. Although the “per-possession” E16 stat amps up the value of blocks relative to E100, most everything is still heavily influenced by offensive playing opportunities, so Table 2 offers a separate table for D-liners. A short key to the metrics and abbreviations is at the bottom.