Tom Brady has a whopping 34 throwaways this year, which is an outlier for him (for reference, last year he had 22 on 84 more pass attempts); it also leads the league by a large margin.
| Games | Passing | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Player | Tm | Age | Pos | G | GS | Cmp | Att | Yds | Bats | Throwawy ▼ |
Spikes | Drops | Drop% | BadTh | Bad% | OnTgt | OnTgt% |
| 1 | Tom Brady | NWE | 42 | QB | 12 | 12 | 297 | 486 | 3268 | 5 | 34 | 0 | 26 | 5.8% | 88 | 19.5% | 334 | 73.9% |
| 2 | Aaron Rodgers | GNB | 36 | QB | 12 | 12 | 266 | 413 | 3065 | 2 | 24 | 1 | 13 | 3.4% | 78 | 20.1% | 298 | 76.8% |
| 3 | Josh Allen | BUF | 23 | QB | 12 | 12 | 225 | 366 | 2591 | 6 | 22 | 3 | 23 | 6.7% | 65 | 19.1% | 259 | 76.0% |
| 4 | Kyle Allen | CAR | 23 | QB | 10 | 10 | 225 | 366 | 2457 | 11 | 22 | 0 | 23 | 6.7% | 58 | 16.9% | 266 | 77.3% |
| 5 | Kirk Cousins | MIN | 31 | QB | 12 | 12 | 248 | 358 | 3032 | 7 | 21 | 0 | 16 | 4.7% | 51 | 15.1% | 272 | 80.7% |
| 6 | Matt Ryan | ATL | 34 | QB | 11 | 11 | 301 | 447 | 3246 | 13 | 19 | 1 | 12 | 2.8% | 60 | 14.1% | 328 | 76.8% |
| 7 | Jameis Winston | TAM | 25 | QB | 12 | 12 | 281 | 467 | 3659 | 9 | 17 | 2 | 19 | 4.2% | 92 | 20.5% | 318 | 71.0% |
| 8 | Kyler Murray | ARI | 22 | QB | 12 | 12 | 273 | 427 | 2866 | 15 | 17 | 3 | 16 | 3.9% | 75 | 18.4% | 298 | 73.2% |
| 9 | Derek Carr | OAK | 28 | QB | 12 | 12 | 259 | 367 | 2843 | 7 | 16 | 1 | 16 | 4.6% | 41 | 11.7% | 283 | 80.9% |
| 10 | Sam Darnold | NYJ | 22 | QB | 9 | 9 | 196 | 311 | 2154 | 8 | 16 | 1 | 16 | 5.4% | 54 | 18.4% | 222 | 75.5% |
Brady has thrown the ball away on a whopping 6.7% of his pass plays (including sacks), which could reflect Brady’s aversion to taking a hit as the pocket collapses, the Patriots receivers being unable to get open or running the wrong routes, Brady being averse to taking sacks or risking interceptions, or the Patriots offensive line breaking down too quickly…. or a combination of all of those factors. In general, though, the quarterback can only control so much: if the line breaks down before the receivers get open, the quarterback can either throw a risky pass, throw it away, or take a sack.
Brady doesn’t take many sacks: in fact, he’s been dropped on only 4.1% of dropbacks. So we could say that on 10.8% of Brady’s pass plays, he’s decided to avoid throwing a catchable pass, “choosing” to either take a sack or throw it away. That’s above average, but only by a small amount. The player who really stands out here (minimum 200 dropbacks) is Panthers quarterback Kyle Allen, who has taken a sack on 9.6% of his dropbacks and also thrown the ball away on another 5.4% of his pass plays. Marcus Mariota and Dwayne Haskins also stand out for not attempting to throw a catchable pass on a significant number of pass plays.
On the other side of the ledger, we have much-maligned Jared Goff. He may be having a rough year, but this is one area where he shines. Goff throws a pass to a receiver on all but 5% of his passes: he has taken a sack on just 4.0% of his dropbacks and thrown the ball away on only 1.3% of his pass plays. We therefore would say that Goff has not thrown a targeted pass — his No Throw% — on only 5.3% of pass plays, the best rate in the league. The full data set below.
| Rk | Player | Att | Sk | Throwaway | Pass Plays | Sack % | Throwaway% | No Throw | No Throw% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jared Goff | 453 | 19 | 6 | 472 | 4% | 1.3% | 25 | 5.3% |
| 2 | Dak Prescott | 447 | 16 | 10 | 463 | 3.5% | 2.2% | 26 | 5.6% |
| 3 | Drew Brees | 240 | 9 | 5 | 249 | 3.6% | 2% | 14 | 5.6% |
| 4 | Patrick Mahomes | 352 | 12 | 14 | 364 | 3.3% | 3.8% | 26 | 7.1% |
| 5 | Matthew Stafford | 291 | 18 | 5 | 309 | 5.8% | 1.6% | 23 | 7.4% |
| 6 | Case Keenum | 188 | 12 | 3 | 200 | 6% | 1.5% | 15 | 7.5% |
| 7 | Jimmy Garoppolo | 358 | 24 | 5 | 382 | 6.3% | 1.3% | 29 | 7.6% |
| 8 | Carson Wentz | 434 | 30 | 6 | 464 | 6.5% | 1.3% | 36 | 7.8% |
| 9 | Philip Rivers | 445 | 26 | 11 | 471 | 5.5% | 2.3% | 37 | 7.9% |
| 10 | Lamar Jackson | 322 | 21 | 6 | 343 | 6.1% | 1.7% | 27 | 7.9% |
| 11 | Mitchell Trubisky | 361 | 26 | 5 | 387 | 6.7% | 1.3% | 31 | 8% |
| 12 | Derek Carr | 367 | 18 | 16 | 385 | 4.7% | 4.2% | 34 | 8.8% |
| 13 | Ryan Fitzpatrick | 331 | 31 | 3 | 362 | 8.6% | 0.8% | 34 | 9.4% |
| 14 | Andy Dalton | 375 | 30 | 9 | 405 | 7.4% | 2.2% | 39 | 9.6% |
| 15 | Teddy Bridgewater | 195 | 11 | 9 | 206 | 5.3% | 4.4% | 20 | 9.7% |
| 16 | Jacoby Brissett | 325 | 19 | 15 | 344 | 5.5% | 4.4% | 34 | 9.9% |
| 17 | Mason Rudolph | 263 | 14 | 14 | 277 | 5.1% | 5.1% | 28 | 10.1% |
| 18 | Baker Mayfield | 407 | 32 | 14 | 439 | 7.3% | 3.2% | 46 | 10.5% |
| 19 | Gardner Minshew | 334 | 23 | 15 | 357 | 6.4% | 4.2% | 38 | 10.6% |
| 20 | Daniel Jones | 370 | 33 | 10 | 403 | 8.2% | 2.5% | 43 | 10.7% |
| 21 | Tom Brady | 486 | 21 | 34 | 507 | 4.1% | 6.7% | 55 | 10.8% |
| 22 | Deshaun Watson | 386 | 35 | 12 | 421 | 8.3% | 2.9% | 47 | 11.2% |
| 23 | Jameis Winston | 467 | 40 | 17 | 507 | 7.9% | 3.4% | 57 | 11.2% |
| 24 | Russell Wilson | 383 | 35 | 12 | 418 | 8.4% | 2.9% | 47 | 11.2% |
| 25 | Kirk Cousins | 358 | 22 | 21 | 380 | 5.8% | 5.5% | 43 | 11.3% |
| 26 | Aaron Rodgers | 413 | 27 | 24 | 440 | 6.1% | 5.5% | 51 | 11.6% |
| 27 | Matt Ryan | 447 | 38 | 19 | 485 | 7.8% | 3.9% | 57 | 11.8% |
| 28 | Kyler Murray | 427 | 41 | 17 | 468 | 8.8% | 3.6% | 58 | 12.4% |
| 29 | Josh Allen | 366 | 27 | 22 | 393 | 6.9% | 5.6% | 49 | 12.5% |
| 30 | Sam Darnold | 311 | 27 | 16 | 338 | 8% | 4.7% | 43 | 12.7% |
| 31 | Joe Flacco | 262 | 26 | 12 | 288 | 9% | 4.2% | 38 | 13.2% |
| 32 | Ryan Tannehill | 176 | 24 | 3 | 200 | 12% | 1.5% | 27 | 13.5% |
| 33 | Kyle Allen | 366 | 39 | 22 | 405 | 9.6% | 5.4% | 61 | 15.1% |
| 34 | Dwayne Haskins | 133 | 22 | 5 | 155 | 14.2% | 3.2% | 27 | 17.4% |
| 35 | Marcus Mariota | 159 | 25 | 9 | 184 | 13.6% | 4.9% | 34 | 18.5% |
Mariota’s No Throw % is a whopping 18.5%,