QBs by Route in Early 2024

Whither the deep ball, Patrick Mahomes?

One of the more surprising results of the first third of the season has been Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs sitting at or near the bottom of the various deep passing metrics. He has the lowest aDOT by leaps and bounds, at 5.2 – Baker Mayfield (5.6) is the only other qualified quarterback below 6.5, so Mahomes’ dink-and-dunkosity stands out. This has been highlighted this week especially as the Chiefs get ready to play the 49ers – Brock Purdy is second in the league in aDOT and first in yards per completion, as the 49ers have shed their YAC identity and become a deep-ball team nearly out of the blue. Is this a sure sign that Mahomes is in decline, and plummeting out of the ranks of the top NFL quarterbacks? Do the Chiefs need to trade for any wide receiver with hands and a pulse? Is it time to start calling for Carson Wentz to take over in Kansas City?!

We looked at Mahomes’ drop in aDOT this past offseason and noted that, hey, the Chiefs had him throw a ton of screens and quick outs thanks to Kansas City’s lack of a wide receiver corps. A full 31% of Mahomes’ pass attempts last season were quick outs or screens to players split out wide, and while his DVOA on those attempts were negative, a -16.8% mark was higher than most of the league could manage on those sorts of attempts. Mahomes’ short passing and comparatively low advanced stats a year ago were in large part a factor of a lack of faith in the receiving corps more than anything wrong with Mahomes. And that’s at least somewhat true once again in 2024.

One of my favorite offseason articles we run on a regular basis is DVOA and DYAR by specific routes, something which we’ve historically had to wait until the end of the season to do. But with FTN StatsHub, you can look that up right now, using the advanced filters to pick and choose which routes you want to focus on.

So, for instance, you can find out that Mahomes is 49-for-55 on screens and quick outs this year, with a league-leading 40.5% DVOA when throwing them. Or that he has a league-leading 50 attempts on passes behind the line of scrimmage, where he’s one of only 10 quarterbacks to have a positive DVOA on the shortest of passes. Or that Mahomes still has the fourth-most DYAR on go routes this season, despite only attempting eight of them – Aaron Rodgers, by comparison, has thrown 37. Where Mahomes hasn’t been clicking is on slants (-24.1% DVOA), curls (-16.1%) and drags (1.2%) – a lot of short, timing-based routes, often over the middle, where Mahomes’ receivers aren’t winning their battles. That’s one of the major reasons the Chiefs are calling so many passes behind the line of scrimmage; no need to ask Xavier Worthy to try to fight for space in the middle of the field with his tiny frame when you can just toss him the ball a yard from the line of scrimmage and tell him to run very, very fast.

Seeing an offense’s route selection can add nuance to just looking at the overall leaderboards – who keeps throwing hopeless go routes; who’s setting up their receivers for tons of YAC on slants, and so on and so forth. A third of the way through the season, let’s go route-by-route and see which quarterbacks have earned the most and least DYAR on each one, starting from the very shortest and ending with the very longest.

Swings

Baker Mayfield (151 DYAR, 130.7% DVOA)
Tua Tagovailoa (38 DYAR, 99.1% DVOA)
Aaron Rodgers (36 DYAR, 35.2% DVOA)

Mayfield’s number is insanely high. Last year, Tagovailoa led the league with 89 passing DYAR on swing routes, so Mayfield already shooting past that is something to behold. That might just be a function of playing the Saints’ defense, however, as both Chris Godwin and Sean Tucker took swing routes and turned them into huge plays – Mayfield got 94 DYAR last week alone. Opponent adjustments might ding that going forward, but when you can throw two touchdowns in one game on a route that’s only produced seven touchdowns all season, you’re having a good day.

Justin Herbert (-29 DYAR, -83.7% DVOA)
Gardner Minshew (-39 DYAR, -51.9% DVOA)
Kyler Murray (-67 DYAR, -150.4% DVOA)

Murray has only attempted eight swing passes, so he’s in a small sample size trap at the moment. More intriguing is Minshew, who is 13-for-16 on swings, with a touchdown included, but still has so much negative DYAR. Minshew and Murray have thrown the only two interceptions on swing passes this season, and those are some of the easiest to return for massive yards, so DVOA hates you for it. But Minshew’s wasn’t charted as turnover-worthy; it was a weird, unlucky tip into the arms of Poona Ford Justice for Minshew! …Or, at least, we’d be saying that if it wasn’t for all the other bad plays Minshew has made.

Screens

Baker Mayfield (88 DYAR, 65.1% DVOA)
Patrick Mahomes (85 DYAR, 34.4% DVOA)
Lamar Jackson (78 DYAR, 60.1% DVOA)

Mahomes was the screen king a year ago, doubling the entire rest of the field with 305 DYAR, but he’s met his match through a third of 2024! Rachaad White may not be the most effective runner, but Mayfield is 14-for-14 targeting him and Chris Godwin on screens and letting them race after the catch. This is why White has maintained a role in Tampa’s ever-growing backfield rotation despite having a -33.2% rushing DVOA. The passing game matters, too!

Matthew Stafford (-31 DYAR, -45.8% DVOA)
Gardner Minshew (-42 DYAR, -46.5% DVOA)
Joe Flacco (-52 DYAR, -76.8% DVOA)

Flacco is averaging 3.0 YAC on his screen passes. Every other quarterback is at 4.4 or higher. This may be just a sample size fluke, as Anthony Richardson’s screen passes average 11.3 YAC to mostly the same receivers, but it just hasn’t been there for Flacco so far.

Quick Outs

Geno Smith (167 DYAR, 55.6% DVOA)
Baker Mayfield (140 DYAR, 31.8% DVOA)
Trevor Lawrence (134 DYAR, 33.1% DVOA)

Smith and Jaxon Smith-Njigba have been quick-out machines through six games. Smith’s targeted JSN nine times, resulting in eight catches (and seven successes) for 70 yards. Smith has also had a lot of success on quick outs to A.J. Barner and Tyler Lockett, and not so much to another wide receiver who we might have to mention in a route or two.

Andy Dalton (-55 DYAR, -35.6% DVOA)
Tua Tagovailoa (-75 DYAR, -94.2% DVOA)
Will Levis (-78 DYAR, -70.4% DVOA)

Note to Brian Callahan: stop throwing quick outs to your tight ends. They are not working. Levis had tried 11 quick outs to tight ends this season, and is 10-for-11 for 41 yards. That doesn’t sound terrible, except only four of them were actual successful plays. Levis has a 30% success rate on these quick outs; that’s third-worst behind Tyler Huntley and Anthony Richardson, both of whom a) have a smaller sample size, b) throw them further than an aDOT of 1.4, and c) have yet to throw a terrible interception on one while actively falling down.

Drags

Jalen Hurts (177 DYAR, 163.0% DVOA)
Jared Goff (126 DYAR, 106.0% DVOA)
Sam Darnold (89 DYAR, 100.2% DVOA)

Hurts is 15-for-16 on drag routes this year, the highest completion percentage for anyone with double-digit attempts. He’s also averaging a massive 16.6 yards per attempt, with both DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert breaking some big gains by catching a short pass underneath and just hitting the accelerator. Hurts gains nearly 20 more yards per game than any other quarterback on these short drag routes; they’re not supposed to be nearly this explosive. It does feel like Hurts is bound to come back to the pack sooner or later here, but don’t knock it while it’s working.

Joe Flacco (-29 DYAR, -90.3% DVOA)
Andy Dalton (-48 DYAR, -202.6% DVOA)
Bo Nix (-55 DYAR, -95.3% DVOA)

Unlike some of the other routes, Nix can hit the drag route very well – he’s 9-for-11, pending Thursday Night. He also has just 43 yards, has thrown a pick, and has a terrible 18.2% success rate. Nix’s tendency to throw a zillion underneath passes would be fine if he was hitting receivers in stride and giving them big YAC opportunities. Drew Brees made a living like that for years in Sean Payton’s offense. So far, uh, Bo Nix has not been that quarterback.

Hitches and Curls

Geno Smith (282 DYAR, 59.7% DVOA)
Brock Purdy (180 DYAR, 62.9% DVOA)
Joe Burrow (161 DYAR, 54.8% DVOA)

More great connections here – Smith is so high in DYAR because Ryan Grubb wants to throw the ball ten zillion times, but Smith has had tremendous success finding Tyler Lockett and Noah Fant over and over. If you prefer traditional stats, Smith is averaging 75 yards per game on these short and intermediate hitches, and the Seahawks have racked up 188 YAC on them. Nearly everyone on Seattle’s offense has been eating a steady diet of these positive plays. Almost everyone. Well, we’ll find the one guy who’s missing, just wait…

C.J. Stroud (-6 DYAR, -14.2% DVOA)
Patrick Mahomes (-6 DYAR, -16.1% DVOA)
Will Levis (-36 DYAR, -33.8% DVOA)

It’s really tough to be below replacement level on curls; these are quick and easy throws. Usually, bad numbers come if you’re throwing very, very short; Mahomes and Stroud are the only two quarterbacks averaging less than seven yards per completion on their hitches. These routes are safe, too, generally speaking. Unless, that is, your name is Will Levis, who has already thrown two interceptions on hitch routes this season. A change simply has to come in Tennessee.

Slants

Kirk Cousins (109 DYAR, 97.1% DVOA)
Dak Prescott (96 DYAR, 63.3% DVOA)
Daniel Jones (88 DYAR, 45.6% DVOA)

Drake London had 13 targets on slants in all of 2023. He has eight already in 2024, resulting in a pair of touchdowns and a league-leading 47 DYAR. What Arthur Smith did to the Atlanta offense is going to be studied by historians for decades, trying to figure out how someone could put his offensive weapons into such poor positions.

Geno Smith (-17 DYAR, -38.2% DVOA)
Tyler Huntley (-53 DYAR, -181.5% DVOA)
Jared Goff (-53 DYAR, -305.3% DVOA)

The Lions don’t really run a ton of slants, and Goff has thrown one interception on his four shots at it this year. Geno Smith’s number is perhaps more surprising, as Smith had 128 DYAR on slant routes a year ago. And here’s where we get to the missing man in the Seattle offense. Smith and DK Metcalf have not been on the same page for much of this season, and their lack of connection on slants (4-for-7 for 44 yards, typically on long downs and distances) is something that needs to get worked out sooner rather than later. Metcalf sitting at a -13.8% DVOA overall is not something Seattle can have if they want to contend for a playoff berth this year.

Ins and Digs

Lamar Jackson (218 DYAR, 154.3% DVOA)
Jayden Daniels (169 DYAR, 142.7% DVOA)
Joe Burrow (126 DYAR, 103.2% DVOA)

With Brock Purdy and Josh Allen rounding out the top five, this apparently is the route you want to excel at if you want to be in award conversation this year. Jackson, in particular, has been on a heater – 18-for-22 for 287 yards and a touchdown, and a perfect 8-for-8 to Zay Flowers for a 100% success rate. Jackson was second to Jared Goff in DYAR on ins and digs last season, but only threw 48 of them. They’ve become a larger part of Baltimore’s offense this year, and it’s paying dividends.

Dak Prescott (-35 DYAR, -38.2% DVOA)
Anthony Richardson (-84 DYAR, -139.3% DVOA)
Bo Nix (-118 DYAR, -94.3% DVOA)

This was written before Thursday Night Football, so maybe Nix completed his fifth dig route at some point during the game! That wouldn’t be so bad if you were, say, Richardson, who only has 10 attempts, but Nix has attempted 23 of them. With two interceptions, he’s completed half as many to his opponents than he has to anyone in a Denver uniform. Nix’s 26.1% accuracy rate on digs is by far the worst in the league, and yet the Broncos run more of them when they get close to the end zone than anyone else in football.

Deep Outs

Brock Purdy (130 DYAR, 86.9% DVOA)
Jared Goff (102 DYAR, 128.4% DVOA)
Baker Mayfield (97 DYAR, 162.9% DVOA)

Purdy’s DVOA here would be even higher if his receivers could catch the ball in the end zone. Purdy is 1-for-5 on deep outs into the end zone, including one of Brandon Aiyuk’s biggest drops. That’s OK, though – Aiyuk has 6 catches for 141 yards on deep outs from Purdy, and Purdy is the only passer in the league with more than 200 yards on the route so far. And it’s not his best deep route, either; stay tuned.

Drake Maye (-41 DYAR, -189.2% DVOA)
Anthony Richardson (-49 DYAR, -130.6% DVOA)
Aaron Rodgers (-80 DYAR, -118.8% DVOA)

Maye has attempted just three deep outs; Richardson just six. Rodgers is 2-for-10 for 28 yards and an interception on his deep outs, trying and failing to hook up with Garrett Wilson on a regular basis. Davante Adams isn’t much of a deep out receiver (-3 DYAR last year in Las Vegas), but anything has to be better than this, right?

Gos

Sam Darnold (208 DYAR, 230.7% DVOA)
Aaron Rodgers (167 DYAR, 61.6% DVOA)
Jayden Daniels (142 DYAR, 205.1% DVOA)

No, only two of Darnold’s five go route completions were to Justin Jefferson Yes, they did result in two touchdowns and 111 yards. But Jordan Addison is a thing, too, and “chuck the ball on a straight route into the end zone and dare a great receiver to come down with it” seems like a pretty good strategy when your starting quarterback is Sam Darnold Darnold has thrown nine go routes; Rodgers has thrown 37. Both have thrown three touchdowns. Crazy.

Aidan O’Connell (-16 DYAR, -72.3% DVOA)
Tyler Huntley (-21 DYAR, -115.5% DVOA)
C.J. Stroud (-30 DYAR, -114.5% DVOA)

I was not aware Houston’s offensive line gave Stroud enough time to even attempt go routes. The more you learn! Stroud is 0-for-4 on go routes this season; you’d expect someone to come down with one of the end zone rainbows sooner or later.

Corners

Baker Mayfield (160 DYAR, 172.3% DVOA)
C.J. Stroud (130 DYAR, 184.0% DVOA)
Jared Goff (99 DYAR, 154.2% DVOA)

If you’re in the top two in DYAR on the shortest routes and led the league in DYAR on the deepest routes, then you’re doing something right. Mayfield has the most DYAR on passes of five yards or shorter (436), and perhaps it’s that success, forcing defenders to play closer to the line, which allows him to cash in on the occasional deep corner or out to Mike Evans or Chris Godwin

Anthony Richardson (-45 DYAR, -204.3% DVOA)
Caleb Williams (-61 DYAR, -104.1% DVOA)
Patrick Mahomes (-84 DYAR, -201.9% DVOA)

For routes this deep downfield, we’re well into small sample size territory for players with negative DYAR. Still, seeing Mahomes at the bottom of anything passing related is worth noting. He’s 1-for-5 on his corner routes with two interceptions, including one in the end zone. His only completion came to Rashee Rice, who is now out for the season. This is where we mention, just thinking outloud, that DeAndre Hopkins has 21 DYAR and 43 yards on corner routes this season. No reason.

Posts

Brock Purdy (152 DYAR, 222.9% DVOA)
C.J. Stroud (117 DYAR, 110.8% DVOA)
Trevor Lawrence (114 DYAR, 235.5% DVOA)

Purdy has nine completions on deep post routes; only three other quarterbacks have even attempted as many. This has been Purdy’s connection with Jauan Jennings so far this season; Purdy’s hooked up with him four times for 126 yards – there’s been a little luck there, as three of Jennings’ catches have been contested, but it’s no fluke. Purdy led the league in DYAR on deep posts in 2023, as well.