Yesterday, I looked at a larger percentage of touchdown passes are coming from shorter distances. While longer touchdown throws used to rule the day, about two-thirds of all touchdown passes now come from inside the red zone.
The average touchdown pass was, at one point, north of 30 yards. Now? It’s south of 20 yards:
Three years ago, I wrote about the average length of touchdown pass. Let’s update that post today, using all quarterbacks who either threw 100+ career touchdown passes or threw a touchdown pass in 2017 and have at least 20 career touchdown passes. Ed Brown is your career leader, although if we raise the limit to 125 touchdowns, Norm Van Brocklin would still be your career leader:
Some thoughts:
- Peyton Manning is the only player to gain over 10,000 yards just on his touchdown passes.
- Among the next three leaders in touchdown passes, you might be surprised to see that Drew Brees has the longest average touchdown pass (18.9 yards), followed by Brett Favre (18.5) and then Tom Brady (17.4). Brady has actually raised his average over the last three years, which used to be under 17 yards.
- Mike Glennon, Brian Hoyer, and Blake Bortles are the only three quarterbacks with an average touchdown pass that was under 16 yards. Sam Bradford has the lowest average if you raise the minimum to 100 passing touchdowns.
- It’s always fun seeing Bart Starr high on these lists. By the time Starr threw his first touchdown pass of less than three yards, he had already won five championships! He threw just one touchdown pass of 1-yard in his entire career, in 1968.
- Jim Hart really stands out for his high average length (27.9) and for playing into the ’80s, while throwing 201 touchdowns. Hart threw the most touchdown passes of 40+ yards in the ’70s, with a lot of those going to Mel Gray.
What stands out to you?
