Goff’s perfect night and Daniels’ fast start contribute to record pace for completion percentage
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Jared Goff and Jayden Daniels have put up record-breaking performances in recent weeks when it comes to completing passes at a high rate.
They are far from alone as it has never been easier to complete a pass in the NFL in part because the throws are getting shorter and shorter.
Goff completed all 18 passes he threw in Detroit’s 42-29 victory over Seattle on Monday night, shattering the record for most passes in a game without an incompletion set in 2005 when Kurt Warner had 10 in a game against Houston before leaving in the second quarter with a knee injury.
According to NextGen stats from Zebra Technologies, the odds that a QB would have completed all of those passes based on the completion probability of each attempt was 0.69%, or 1 in 145.
The performance came a week after Goff completed all 12 passes in the first half against Arizona, making him the first starting QB since at least 1991 to have back-to-back perfect first halves in completion percentage. The only other player in that span to do it was receiver Mohamed Sanu, who was 1 for 1 in Weeks 2 and 3 of the 2014 season for Cincinnati.
The only other pass thrown by the Lions was a touchdown from Amon-Ra St. Brown to Goff — marking the eighth time in NFL history a player threw a TD pass and caught a TD pass from the same teammate in a game, according to Sportradar. It has happened just three other times since 1930: Jacksonville’s Blake Bortles and Marquise Lee in 2016, Chicago’s Walter Payton and Jim McMahon in 1985 and Detroit’s Gary Danielson and James Jones in 1984.
If Goff and St. Brown can do it again they will match the exploits of Eddie Kaw and Benny Boynton who did it twice in a three-week span in 1924 for the Buffalo Bisons.
Daniels’ impressive run has gone on longer, as he has completed 82.1% of his passes in the first four games of his rookie season and has led more scoring drives (23) than the number of incomplete passes (19) he has thrown. Daniels has the best completion percentage in a four-game span of any QB since 1950 with at least 100 attempts, topping Peyton Manning’s mark of 81.8% in 2008.
There are six other quarterbacks completing at least 70% of their passes so far this season — a mark hit only 15 times in NFL history for an entire season with QBs with at least 350 attempts.
In all, the completion rate of 66.1% this season is on pace to be the best ever, topping the previous high of 65.2% in 2020 thanks in part to the average pass being thrown 7.4 yards downfield — the lowest mark since air yards were first tracked by Sportradar in 2006.
Mahomes at 100
Patrick Mahomes’ prolific pace has been unmatched by any other QB in history.
Mahomes made his 100th start on Sunday in Kansas City’s 17-10 win over the Los Angeles Chargers, extending his own records for production to begin a career.
Mahomes won for the 78th time, threw his 225th career touchdown pass and increased his yardage total to 29,328 — tops in all three categories for any player in his first 100 starts.
The previous highs in those marks since the NFL first tracked quarterback starts in 1950 was 76 wins for Tom Brady and Roger Staubach, 222 TD passes for Aaron Rodgers and 27,980 yards for Matthew Stafford.
Mahomes already joined Brett Favre as the only QBs to win two MVPs at age 27 or younger and is tied with Joe Montana for the second most Super Bowl MVPs with three — two shy of Brady’s mark.
Mahomes has gotten this far with an amazing knack at pulling off comebacks. Kansas City overcame a 10-0 hole to beat the Chargers on Sunday for Mahomes’ 18th career win in the regular season or playoffs after trailing by double digits. Mahomes is 18-14 (.563) in those scenarios, while all other QBs in the Super Bowl era have a .149 winning percentage with no one else having a winning record with at least 10 tries.
Slinging Sam
A change of scenery has helped Sam Darnold transform himself from one of the NFL’s least effective quarterbacks to one of the best in the opening month of this season.
The No. 3 overall pick by the New York Jets in 2018 had the worst passer rating among 39 quarterbacks with at least 1,000 attempts over his first six seasons. He spent three years as mostly a starter in New York, then had two seasons in Carolina when he started 15 times and then one season spent mostly as a backup in San Francisco.
Darnold then signed a one-year, $10 million deal with Minnesota that looks like a bargain. Darnold leads the NFL with a 118.9 passer rating and 11 TD passes for the undefeated Vikings.
This is just the eighth time in NFL history that a player threw at least two TD passes and had a passer rating of at least 105 in each of the first four games of the season. In five of those previous seven instances, the player ended the season as MVP with Aaron Rodgers winning in 2011 and 2020, Tom Brady in 2007, Peyton Manning in 2013 and Matt Ryan in 2016. Brady also did it in 2015 and Russell Wilson in 2020 without winning MVP.
New Yuck, New Yuck
The New York Giants and Jets drew more than 160,000 fans to their home games in Week 4 and none of them got to see a touchdown for the home team.
The Giants kicked five field goals in a 20-15 loss to Dallas on Thursday night and then the Jets had three field goals in a 10-9 loss to Denver on Sunday.
This was the 57th time both the Giants and Jets were home in the same week since the Jets moved to the Meadowlands in 1984. This was the only time in those weeks that neither New York team scored a touchdown, with the previous low being one TD in Week 3 of the 2022 season when the Giants scored one TD in a 23-16 loss to the Cowboys and the Jets kicked four field goals in a 27-12 loss to Cincinnati.
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