New Study Reveals Key Metric For Projecting NFL Quarterback Success

A new study has uncovered a common stat to predict a college quarterback’s success at the next level and why one prospective draftee could have an edge in the competition.

Mississippi Rebels quarterback Jaxson Dart (2) calls a play during the first quarter of the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025 at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. [Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union] | Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Evaluating and discerning talent at the quarterback position in the NFL is long and arduous, and not surprisingly, as nailing the player you place at the helm can often make the difference between a franchise winning or falling backward for years to come. 

Most scouts consider many unique factors to determine the prospect who can best handle the transition to the professional level and carry the offense to success for the long haul, including his field vision and mobility outside of the pocket to extend big play opportunities. 

But what if it didn't have to be so hard to dig out which college quarterback could have the greatest chance of acclimating to the NFL and thriving, as we saw with a couple of examples from the 2024 class who took previously dismal organizations to the postseason?

According to a Sports Info Solutions study, teams can use a standard metric to reliably indicate a quarterback’s overall performance once they switch from their school jersey to one of the league’s 32 teams that pick them. 

It’s called the player’s “on-target percentage,” or, more commonly phrased, the accuracy of their throws at three different depths of the field.

Nov 10, 2024; Munich, Germany; Quarterback Daniel Jones (8) carries the ball against the New York Giants in the second half during the 2024 NFL Munich Game at Allianz Arena. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The study included 22 qualified quarterbacks dating back to the 2016 season. They were tracked within their first two to three years of experience in the NFL, extending at least 300 passing attempts in that span.

Those names, including former Giants quarterback Daniel Jones, the team’s 2019 No.6 pick whose time in New York was highly disappointing, were put through correlation testing to see how their collegiate on-target percentages would translate to the next level, starting with short-range throws (less than 11 yards) and extending to intermediate (11-20 yards) and deep (20+ yards). 

As one might expect, the strongest correlation between a quarterback’s accuracy in college and the NFL came in the short-range passing game, where the coefficient was the closest, at 0.73 to 0.50. 

The longer ranges dipped as low as 0.09 and 0.07 for professional accuracy, which seems obvious given that intermediate and deep passes become much harder to land in a more fast-paced game style than prospects see in the NCAA. 

That doesn’t mean there weren’t outliers, of course. The best of them are former No. 1 overall picks Joe Burrow and Baker Mayfield, who seem to surpass any of the study’s expectations for accuracy once they step onto the NFL gridiron. 

On the other side were guys like Jones, who seemingly saw their passing success dip in one or more of the three specified distances. Jones, who held a 22-44-1 as a starter for the Giants in six seasons, saw a decline in his short-range on-target percentage from 86% at Duke to 80% during the first few seasons in East Rutherford. 

While Jones didn’t play the entirety of his rookie season and missed eight games in the next two years due to injuries, he often struggled with patience in his field vision and getting rid of the football too early due to oncoming pressure. 

This factor often led to him missing his receivers or forcing the pigskin into tough spots for potential turnovers. 

This could have explained why he saw a noticeable drop in his accuracy in that department but, at the same time, slightly improved percentage in his intermediate to long-range throws. Jones had about a 67% on-target percentage with the Blue Devils, which was below average but increased to 70% in the NFL, where the average was placed around 64% in the SIS’s testing. 

Jones was always a prospect who had a nice arm when he was given time in the pocket and didn’t get jumpy with the ball in his hand, but it didn’t feel like the team saw enough of that in his first three seasons under center. 

He did see a resume of success in the 2022 season when he finished as the eighth highest-graded quarterback on PFF (91.8) for throws of up to 20+ air yards while leading the Giants into the playoffs and a win against the Minnesota Vikings. 

Still, consistently overcoming obstacles was never in Jones’ wheelhouse, and it was one of the main factors in his dismissal from the Giants. The Giants are now beginning a new era with Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston as they search for their franchise quarterback.

That wasn’t even the most interesting part of the study, though. The next part examined which level of on-target percentage would translate to the most success (“overall QB performance”) at the highest tier of football, and it turns out the answer was the intermediate game. 

With a coefficient of 0.74 compared to 0.55 for short and .24 for deep throws, the study showed that no matter the player’s accuracy correlation to the college number, if their ability to become accurate in the middle distance of 11-20 yards was the sharpest once they arrived in the NFL, then they would carry the greatest success, or as they coined it, “independent quarterback rating” (IQR). 

Looking back at the 2024 class, guys like Washington’s Jayden Daniels and Denver’s Bo Nix produced the highest accuracy correlations between the two environments and reached their peak as bright-eyed rookie starters last fall.

The two finished top three in the same category of air yards and QBRs in their class last season. It helped Daniels guide the Commanders to the brink of the Super Bowl and Nix the Broncos to the playoffs, all while Drake Maye and Caleb Williams’s teams, who saw the most significant drop in the second range, struggled to remain relevant.

Mar 1, 2025; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Mississippi quarterback Jaxson Dart (QB03) during the 2025 NFL Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

So, with the 2025 draft only several days away, the next question is which top prospect will be the successor to the trend? One glance at accuracy from this year’s corps might say Shedeur Sanders for the small tosses or Cam Ward for the deep shots, but the study projects it to be Ole Miss’s Jaxson Dart.

According to the SIS's data, Dart led the class with a 74% intermediate accuracy and a 180.7 rating, which only dipped 10% from his short-range proficiency with the Rebels. He has been widely projected to be a second-round grab but has risen quickly on draft boards as the quarterback market shifts. 

Dart also led the nation with 1,324 passing yards of 20+ yards distance for an average of 16.3 yards per attempt, 15 touchdowns, and just four interceptions. If all goes well in his ascension to the league and he maintains good numbers, he could become the most successful and cleanest passer the Giants have missed in recent years. 

The Giants are uncertain whether they will gamble a high draft choice on a quarterback even before the draft. 

They have two veterans who can carry the room this season before eventually passing the torch to a rookie in 2026, especially as the regime’s backs are against the wall to win more than the three games they did in 2024.

Perhaps this study and what it now could mean for future quarterback evaluations change their mind, and they take the risk of jumping back into the first round to steal Dart and hope that his accuracy joins the small list of outliers who’ve come before him.

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