The 2025 NFL season has been wildly unpredictable, but down quarterback play has been a constant. A combination of inconsistent offensive line play and defensive adjustments have led to the lowest passing in 14 years, and a regression that began in 2020.
Five years ago quarterbacks around the league threw for an average of 240.2 yards per game. Now that has plummeted to 212.3 league wide. In that same 2020 season we had 12 passers who finished with over 4,000 yards passing, while in 2025 we’re projected to have six quarterbacks cross the 4,000 yard mark.
While yardage is down, we are seeing some fascinating trends with some of the top quarterbacks. Advanced metrics which show why some quarterbacks are thriving in 2025, and there’s some fascinating details inside the numbers.
All statistics mentioned come from Football Reference’s advanced passer metrics
No. 1: Drake Maye is on another level
There’s good reason Drake Maye is on the hype train for MVP this season as he’s brought the Patriots back from mediocrity and turned them into one of the best teams in the NFL, but inside the advanced numbers he’s been absolutely stunning.
Maye’s 135 rating in yards-per-attempt almost puts him among the greatest single seasons in NFL history. Averaging 8.7 yards on every play, this kind of deep passing is typically indicative of inaccuracy or high risk-reward variance. That’s just not happening with the Patriots’ QB. He’s managing to throw deep and throw efficiently, which is incongruous.
Not only does Maye have a 122 completion percentage index (league-leading), but only 13.5% of his passes are categorized as bad throws. In addition he’s only had an average of 2.2 seconds in pocket time this year, which is traditionally a marker for quick, short yardage throwing, and a lot of mistakes.
Basically nothing Maye is doing makes sense, but everything is elite. If the Patriots had a high-tier offensive line he could be having one of the greatest seasons in NFL history.
No. 2: Caleb Williams is unlike anyone in the NFL
It’s a little tricky to evaluate Williams based on his whole season performance, because frankly he wasn’t at his best to start the year while adapting to Ben Johnson’s system. Now we’re seeing Williams and Johnson marry their systems together, which is having some huge results.
The Bears have accepted that Williams doesn’t have the precision accuracy the Johnson system typically demands, and thats okay. Caleb has been a 57.8% passer this season, which is below the acceptable level for modern QBs — and he has a rather staggering 20.7% bad throw rate. When he misses, he misses big — but there are also a lot of explosive plays coming out of these attempts.
Very much a feast or famine quarterback at this point in his career, where Williams is truly dominating is his off platform throwing. Not only does Williams have a 116 sack rating, showing he’s one of the best QBs in the league at avoiding pressure — but he has a 116 interception rating as well. This means he’s escaping pressure, throwing deep, but not turning it over. This is a winning formula, especially when the defense is generating turnovers.
No. 3: Trevor Lawrence is the king of structure
A lot has been made out of the work Liam Coen has done to correct the mechanics of Trevor Lawrence this season, and it’s really showing as the season has gone on. Perhaps the most fascinating element of this is how the Jaguars don’t need to use a lot of specific offensive scheming or packages for Lawrence to derive his success.
Of Lawrence’s over 3,400 passing yards this season, only 790 have come on play action, and fewer than 100 yards on RPO plays — which aren’t really a part of the Jaguars playbook. What this means is that Coen and the Jags aren’t needing to try and create scenarios where Lawrence can win in the passing game, he’s simply doing it himself inside of structure, particularly out of the shotgun.
We also see how much room there is to improve even more. Only 14% of Lawrence’s passes are defined as bad throws, putting him up near Drake Maye — however his completion percentage is still below average. Lawrence is missing small, and this means there’s only a few more adjustments to be made to his passing and we’re going to see him get even better.
No. 4: Jared Goff’s mistake-free play in unreal
We know Jared Goff’s best trait is his intelligence when it comes to decision making. Naturally a risk-averse QB who is happy to sacrifice a potential big play for an overall win on a drive, Goff’s accuracy and decision making have been next level in 2025.
This season he he has a career-best 1% interception rate on his passes, meaning that on average he’s only throwing a pick every three games, while throwing the ball over 33 times per game. This is happening despite having a career low 2.0 seconds of pocket time this year. While that has certainly impacted Goff’s on-target throwing this season (which is down to 70.1% from 80.5% a year ago), he’s not turning the ball over.
No. 5: Matthew Stafford is having a career year
The wildest thing about Stafford’s season is how many dang touchdowns he’s throwing. At a TD rate of 7.7% he’s effectively scoring with the football every 14 pass attempts — which is remarkable for a volume thrower. Not only that, but he’s setting career-highs in numerous advanced metrics.
- Adjusted yards-per-attempt
- Adjusted net yards-per-attempt
- Highest TD%
- Lowest INT%
- Passer rating index
Never lauded as being the most accurate passer, Stafford is still in the mid-65% range, which is plenty good enough. The biggest thing is that he’s throwing a lot of touchdowns, an not turning the ball over. This is the difference.
No. 6: Patrick Mahomes was flat-out bad this year for the first time
It doesn’t take a sage to notice that the Chiefs were bad this year, but inside of that Mahomes was really below average this season. This wasn’t simply a case of everyone letting Pat down, but he let the Chiefs down as well.
Most critically the 2025 season was a year where Mahomes was just average in a lot of key areas, which is bad in his book. He had a 100 ranking in interception rate, which puts him dead average. This was paired by a below-average touchdown and completion rate. Also, while he’s obscenely accuracy, Mahomes had a career-low in on target throwing at 74.3% and a high in bad throws.
It was a middling season by NFL standards, which makes it an awful season by Mahomes’ standards.
No. 7: Bryce Young is putting it all together
The Panthers are the weirdest team in the NFL, and inside of that weirdness we’ve seen Bryce Young become a lightning rod for criticism. There has been some serious up-and-down play, but watching the film there are a lot of external factors responsible for that — and the numbers bear it out.
Young only had 15.7% bad throws on the season, putting him in the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks this year. His success rate as a passer has also taken a big jump from 39% last year, to 44.6% this season — which is above Trevor Lawrence or Caleb Williams.
The biggest area that Young has thrived this season is in the clutch. He has the highest passer rating in the fourth quarter of any quaterback, as well as registering four 4th quarter comebacks, and a league-leading six game-winning drives (tied with Bo Nix and Caleb Williams). These 10 clutch games represent the Panthers season and they’ve struggled a lot of defense and required the QB to play them back into the game, and Young has done it.
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