Drop rate

FTN charts two things that together make this number: whether a pass was catchable, and whether it was dropped. Drop rate here is drops divided by catchable targets, so a ball thrown at a receiver's ankles never counts against him. That is the difference between this figure and the drop rate carried in box-score data, which divides by every target and so mixes a receiver's hands with his quarterback's accuracy. The two are not comparable, and this one reads higher.

Drops are the part of receiving a player most obviously controls, and measuring them against catchable balls is what isolates it. Receivers and tight ends dropped 5.5% of catchable targets in 2025. The tail matters more than the middle: a receiver at three times the league rate is losing real production. Volume is the check that keeps the tail honest — nine drops on 53 catchable targets is a different claim from nine on two hundred.

Catchability is a human judgment, and charters disagree at the margin about a ball that arrives high and away, so small gaps between two receivers here are noise. Drop rate is also not a measure of hands alone: contested and low-percentage balls are harder to hold and still count as catchable, so a receiver asked to make hard catches will read worse than one fed screens.