Deep ball rate

Air yards are the distance from the line of scrimmage to where a pass was aimed. A throw of 20 or more is a deep ball, and it stays one whether it is caught, dropped, overthrown or intercepted — the definition is about where the ball was sent, not what came back. Deep ball rate divides those attempts by all of a passer's attempts. Sacks are left out of both halves, because a sack has no air yards and was never an attempt.

It separates two things a passing line runs together. Completion percentage collapses when a quarterback throws deep — the 2025 league average on 20-plus air yards was 36.2 percent against 64.6 percent on all throws — so a passer who goes deep often looks less accurate for reasons that have nothing to do with accuracy. Reading the rate next to the result is what makes the comparison fair, and expected points added per deep attempt is the honest scoreboard, because a deep incompletion costs an offense almost nothing while a deep completion is frequently the whole drive. Drake Maye led 2025 at 1.01 expected points added per deep attempt on 70 attempts, completing half of them for 1,093 yards.

How often a quarterback throws deep is mostly his coordinator's decision and his receivers' speed, not a skill he owns. A high rate is a description of an offense, not a compliment to a passer, which is why the rate belongs beside the outcome columns rather than inside them.