Deep passes are the most exciting play in televised football—the viewing audience can't see the situation downfield until the ball (and the camera) make it down there, so the play always feels, in that tiny moment before we catch up, like a sure touchdown or interception. It's well known that not every QB in the league has the ability (or proclivity) to throw a good deep ball, but we want to know: Who are best deeper passers in the NFL?

Let's look at this from a few different angles. For starters, let's look at who's actually throwing it downfield. Pro Football Focus has tracked every single passing attempt at a target 20+ yards down the field going back to 2008. The chart at the top shows, for this year's QBs (min. 150 total attempts), who's thrown deep passes the most often over the six seasons, as a percentage of total attempts. There are some surprises in there—I didn't know Jake Locker chucked it so often—but for the most part this conforms with general assumptions about who have the "strong arms" in the league. Slingers like Eli Manning and Joe Flacco are towards the top, while dink-and-dunkers like Ryan Tannehill, Christian Ponder, Alex Smith, and Matt Schaub are towards the bottom.

But who's throwing the most accurate deep throws? Pro Football Focus also tracks receiver drops, so instead of completion percentage—which knocks the QB for throws that should have been caught—we can use PFF's "accuracy" figure, which is a measurement of how many throws were on target (completions + drops over attempts):

 

Well that might be why I hadn't heard too much about Jake Locker—while he ranks first in the league in deep pass attempt rate, just 35.6 percent of his deep looks are on target, which puts him at 26th in the league. Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick have been accurate on over 50 percent of their deep throws so far in their careers, which is just absurd, joining Drew Brees at the very top (with Geno Smith and Aaron Rodgers close behind). Mike Glennon and Matt Schaub are notable in that they attempt very few deep passes, but when they do they've been very accurate. Finally, it's interesting to see that while Eli Manning has seen a lot of success with the deep ball, Joe Flacco has actually been pretty terrible.

Accuracy isn't a perfectly fair measure though; a 25-yard first down is great, but it's not as good as a 50-yard touchdown, even if that throw is harder to hit. Here's a chart of yards per attempt by QB on 20+ yard targets, still from 2008 through present:

Drew Brees takes over the top spot, thanks in no small part to the absurd downfield dominance of Jimmy Graham. Joe Flacco joins a very sad group of passers who are at least 10% below the league average, although Tom Brady, Jay Cutler, and Matt Stafford aren't far behind. The Jets face the Ravens this weekend in a critical game for the AFC playoff picture, and while a very successful deep passer will be taking the field, it probably isn't the QB you'd expect it to be.

 

Or this one from Pro Football Focus. https://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2013/12/07/signature-stats-play-action-deep-passing/

 

Deep Passing

We set the baseline at targets aimed at least 20 yards downfield when defining a deep pass attempt. At this distance you’ll almost exclusively see vertical routes (posts, corners, go’s, etc.). Hitches, ins, and outs make up just 8% of the targets 20 yards down the field while variations of the go route make up 51%.

  20+ Under 20
QB Rating 87.8 86.7
YPA 11.8 6.6
Comp% 34.5% 65.0%
Int Rate 6.8% 2.1%
TD Rate 10.9% 3.5%
Usage 11.9% 88.1%

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One doesn’t need to see these stats to understand that deep targets are more volatile, but the numbers do a good job of showing the extent. Interception rates and touchdown rates triple while yards per attempt doubles and completion percentage is nearly chopped in half. Surprisingly though with all those variations, quarterback rating is almost unchanged.

While success with deep passes fluctuates wildly, the rate at which quarterbacks throw them are much less deviated than even play action. The lowest rate in the league is a mere 11.2 percentage points behind the highest compared to a difference of 24.1 for play action. Assuming 35 attempts a game, that difference translates to about four throws a game and 63 for a season.

Top 10 Deep Passing attempt percentages:

# Name Team Att. %
1  Nick Foles PHI 17.3
2  Jake Locker TEN 16.4
3  Jay Cutler CHI 15.8
4  Michael Vick PHI 15.6
5  Geno Smith NYJ 15.3
6  Colin Kaepernick SF 15.2
7  Russell Wilson SEA 14.8
8  Andy Dalton CIN 14.5
8  E.J. Manuel BUF 14.5
10  Joe Flacco BLT 14.4

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Bottom 10 Deep Passing attempt percentages:

# Name Team Att. %
30  Mike Glennon TB 10.0
31  Ryan Tannehill MIA 10.0
32  Tony Romo DAL 9.8
33  Josh McCown CHI 8.7
34  Chad Henne JAX 8.4
34  Sam Bradford SL 8.4
36  Jason Campbell CLV 7.8
37  Alex D. Smith KC 7.7
38  Matt Schaub HST 6.6
39  Matt Ryan ATL 6.1

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Deep Passing Accuracy Percentage

If there has been one aspect of Russell Wilson’s game that stands out above all over his brief NFL career, it’s his deep ball. No one can match the frequency and precision that Wilson has shown on targets over 20 yards the past two seasons. For Wilson’s career he has gone deep on 15.6% of his passes, been accurate on 48.6% of those, and averaged 16.5 yards per attempt.

Top 10 Deep Passing Accuracy Percentages:

# Name Team Att. Comp Acc. %
1  Russell Wilson SEA 45 25 60.0
2  Matt Cassel MIN 15 9 60.0
3  Case Keenum HST 30 12 53.3
4  Aaron Rodgers GB 32 16 53.1
5  Alex D. Smith KC 34 12 52.9
6  Mike Glennon TB 29 12 48.3
7  Kellen Clemens SL 19 6 47.4
8  Nick Foles PHI 34 16 47.1
9  Peyton Manning DEN 58 26 46.6
10  Geno Smith NYJ 50 21 46.0


Bottom 10 Deep Passing Accuracy Percentages:

# Name Team Att. Comp Acc. %
30  Eli Manning NYG 53 14 32.1
31  Terrelle Pryor OAK 25 7 32.0
32  Chad Henne JAX 32 8 31.3
33  E.J. Manuel BUF 36 9 30.6
34  Robert Griffin III WAS 44 11 29.5
35  Joe Flacco BLT 63 14 28.6
36  Cam Newton CAR 49 11 28.6
37  Carson Palmer ARZ 59 16 27.1
38  Jason Campbell CLV 12 3 25.0
39  Jake Locker TEN 30 7 23.3

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Maybe Jake Locker should reign in the deep balls a little next season. He’s attempting them at the second highest rate yet he’s accurate on by far the fewest. He’s amazingly almost 40 percentage points behind the leaders in terms of accuracy. That number could very well just be an aberration though as he was accurate on 40.8% in 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

Geno must really bother you given the shenanigans you're resorting to.