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With the FTN Almanac out and ready for purchase, our annual look at slot/wide splits in the passing game continues as we shift from pass catchers to pass throwers. We’ve gone through wide receivers and other pass catchers already, and quarterbacks are, in a sense, just an amalgamation thereof. This sort of analysis, by definition, requires a targeted pass, so there are no issues with sacks, scrambles, or throwaways – the sorts of things that might cause a quarterback’s performance to diverge from their receivers’ performances. This is exacerbated by the fact that we’re technically using receiving DVOA here rather than passing DVOA, which removes things like harsher penalties for interceptions. Go back through those previous articles, find the teams that consistently show up at the top or bottom, and you’ll have a pretty good idea about just how their quarterbacks performed. But that doesn’t mean there’s no interesting data to squeeze out of this. Yes, having a particularly good weapon who solely plays out wide or in the slot is going to have a massive impact on your numbers – Sam Darnold looks better throwing out wide because Jaxon Smith-Njigba is over 60% of his targets out there, and JSN is very good. But any targeted pass is a two-person job. It Hurts to mention it, but some quarterbacks are more comfortable throwing to the boundaries rather than over the middle, or prefer hitting taller receivers to shorter ones, or vice versa. They may have a harder time reading defenses over the middle, or prefer taking advantage of a nickelback’s physical limitations, and so on and so forth. In short, while I think there’s more signal to be found looking at individual pass catchers, this data isn’t just trivia – there’s some useful meat here, as well. The following table shows the data for the 38 qualified passers from 2025. Each player’s DYAR, DVOA and number of targets are shown on passes to receivers both in the slot and split wide. The table is sorted by descending Slot%, which is passes thrown to players who were lined up in the slot as a percentage of passes thrown to players at wide receiver positions (i.e., slot and wide are included, but not receivers at tight end or in the backfield). This includes passes to tight ends and running backs if they lined up in traditional wideout positions.
In 2024, no quarterback with positive DVOA threw more to receivers split out wide than Jalen Hurts. That wasn’t the case at all in 2025, however! Hurts’ rate of slot-to-wide targets rose from 36.4% to 40.0% — or, to put it another, way, an extra 2.1 targets to slot players per game in 2025 than he was in 2024. He targeted DeVonta Smith much more frequently in the slot last year than he did in 2024, 31 targets rising to 59 – and remember, Hurts played one fewer game in 2024. This is surprising! The general consensus about the Eagles offense is that they do not throw to slot receivers. Mike Tanier argued last season that the Eagles had the fewest targets to slot receivers… except that’s not at all what our data shows. So why does our data have 13 quarterbacks throwing to slot less frequently? I suspect the difference in data comes from the definitions of “wide” versus “slot”. Our definition has the widest player on one side of the lineup defined as the “wide” player, and anyone else on that side of the formation but not inline as a tight end as the “slot” receiver. It does not matter how spread out or condensed the formation is. We simply look at where the receivers are lined up in relation to one another. This isn’t the only way to do this, of course! Other data sources might instead record whether a player lined up inside or outside the hashmarks, leading to situations where they could be multiple outside receivers, or a slot receiver with no wide receiver lined up further out than he is. Both definitions have plusses and minuses, but that’s how you’ll get different data from one source than another. On plays where both A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith are lined up on one side of the formation, then. we’d count whichever one was further out (typically Brown) as the wideout, and the other as the slot, even if it’s a bunch formation with both of them lined up right next to each other. That is how we’ve done it since FTN started using DVOA, so it is an apples-to-apples comparison with 2024’s data. The Eagles were using more condensed formations, Smith was aligning up in the slot more frequently, and Hurts was targeting Brown less often than he used to. Whether that was a cause or the reaction to the friction that was in Philadelphia locker room last season is an exercise left to the reader, or at least to the Pennsylvania Psychological Association. It also explains why Matthew Stafford had the second-highest rate of throws out wide. The Rams threw a league-high 133 passes with only one receiver on the field, typically Puka Nacua. While you can line up a tight end wider than your wideout, you generally don’t. Nacua or Davante Adams would sometimes be the “wide” receiver by default. That’s true of any team that runs a lot of true heavy multi-tight end sets. We’re not talking guys like Trey McBride who are glorified big slot receivers, but rather teams that frequently have multiple tight ends lined up inline. The Rams set a record for most usage of 13 personnel last season, using it 44% of the time in Weeks 6-18. The Seahawks, with Sam Darnold having the largest gap between slot and wide usage, were in a bit of a similar boat. Seattle had the seventh-most passes out of multi-tight end sets in 2025, and only the Cardinals and Rams threw to inline players more than Seattle did last season. The Seahawks wanted to be heavy, and they were. Plus, you know, they had Jaxon Smith-Njibga out wide 80% of the time, and “throw the ball to JSN” was the right play most of the time. Darnold saw the biggest jump from his slot DVOA (-9.9%) to his wide DVOA (26.4%), because that’s where JSN was. Cooper Kupp was Darnold’s top target in the slot, and he had a negative DVOA there, so it’s not just JSN being very good, but again, JSN was very good. Darnold did not have this level of split last year in Minnesota – in fact, he was a little bit better throwing to the slot in 2024. Justin Jefferson was more likely to line up in the slot in 2024 than Smith-Njigba was in 2025, so that’s mostly what I think we’re seeing there. Darnold might be an “insanely talented receiver” merchant. Well, hey, it works. Hurts having the third-biggest jump from slot to wide DVOA makes a lot of sense. It’s a little stranger to see Jared Goff in the top five. Amon-Ra St. Brown was third in the league in Route DVOA, which takes his massive target volume into account, but in regular, per-target DVOA, Jameson Williams actually had a more effective season than St. Brown did, and we’re seeing that reflected in the data. St. Brown had the lowest success rate of his career as Goff and the Detroit passing offense seemed to run solely through him for much of the year. Fixing Goff’s protection so he wasn’t always forcing the ball to St. Brown on hot routes probably wouldn’t hurt. The two Atlanta quarterbacks, Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr., had the biggest gap the other way, each improving by about 30% when targeting the slot rather than going out wide. Some of that was that’s where Kyle Pitts was, but Drake London was also more valuable in the slot than split wide. London is a much tougher matchup when he gets lined up against a slot defender, but Atlanta just really didn’t have the depth to use him there as much as they maybe should have. Atlanta’s receiver room has been drastically revamped this year, so we’ll see how Penix (or Tua Tagovailoa?) manages in 2026.
Joe Burrow also being in the top five here makes sense, as both Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins fit the wideout mold, leaving their best slot option as… Mike Gesicki? Andrei Iosivas? Nothing great. Jordan Love being in the top five is more interesting, considering the shuffling their wide receiver room has undergone this offseason. Love’s best target out wide in 2025, both in number of attempts and DYAR generated, was Romeo Doubs; he’s in New England. His most frequent target in the slot was Dontayvion Wicks; he’s in Philadelphia. His most DYAR in the slot was Christian Watson, and while he’s still around, the plan is to play him more out wide to make up for the loss of Doubs! Even if you like the combination of Watson, Matthew Golden and Jayden Reed (plus Tucker Kraft) as Green Bay’s top pass-catching weapons, that’s a lot of shuffling going on in terms of who does what and where. Green Bay’s offense will be one of the most fascinating to watch next season.
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| Quarterbacks, Slot vs. Wide, 2025 | |||||||||
| DVOADif | Slot | Wide | |||||||
| Player | Team | Slot% | DYAR | DVOA | Pass | DYAR | DVOA | Pass | |
| Jaxson Dart | NYG | 51.6% | 17.4% | 89 | -1.0% | 130 | -56 | -18.4% | 122 |
| Cam Ward | TEN | 50.8% | 1.6% | -17 | -12.1% | 189 | -14 | -13.6% | 183 |
| Patrick Mahomes | KC | 50.5% | -1.7% | 242 | 6.7% | 185 | 276 | 8.4% | 181 |
| Lamar Jackson | BAL | 47.4% | -0.2% | 165 | 11.4% | 108 | 221 | 11.6% | 120 |
| Mac Jones | SF | 47.1% | -32.2% | 43 | -3.6% | 81 | 282 | 28.6% | 91 |
| Dillon Gabriel | CLE | 46.3% | 28.3% | -15 | -14.2% | 56 | -144 | -42.5% | 65 |
| Aaron Rodgers | PIT | 45.8% | 2.3% | 85 | -0.8% | 146 | 126 | -3.1% | 173 |
| Jared Goff | DET | 45.6% | -22.3% | 240 | 6.2% | 177 | 642 | 28.4% | 211 |
| Justin Herbert | LAC | 45.4% | -2.0% | 124 | -2.6% | 173 | 188 | -0.7% | 208 |
| Josh Allen | BUF | 45.3% | -1.1% | 137 | 3.5% | 139 | 215 | 4.5% | 168 |
| Tyler Shough | NO | 44.9% | 23.4% | 152 | 9.5% | 110 | -17 | -13.9% | 135 |
| Jayden Daniels | WAS | 44.0% | -14.1% | 5 | -9.5% | 59 | 97 | 4.6% | 75 |
| Kirk Cousins | ATL | 43.6% | 32.8% | 58 | 1.0% | 75 | -140 | -31.7% | 97 |
| DVOA Dif | Slot | Wide | |||||||
| Player | Team | Slot% | DYAR | DVOA | Pass | DYAR | DVOA | Pass | |
| Jordan Love | GB | 43.3% | 25.1% | 376 | 30.6% | 119 | 220 | 5.5% | 156 |
| Spencer Rattler | NO | 42.4% | 2.5% | 49 | -2.2% | 78 | 62 | -4.7% | 106 |
| Bo Nix | DEN | 42.4% | -0.1% | 83 | -5.1% | 169 | 137 | -4.9% | 230 |
| Marcus Mariota | WAS | 41.8% | -19.1% | 27 | -5.8% | 66 | 181 | 13.2% | 92 |
| Daniel Jones | IND | 41.2% | -16.8% | 104 | 1.4% | 110 | 369 | 18.2% | 157 |
| Shedeur Sanders | CLE | 41.1% | 21.5% | 14 | -8.0% | 44 | -78 | -29.5% | 63 |
| Jacoby Brissett | ARI | 41.0% | 20.4% | 253 | 19.9% | 126 | 159 | -0.6% | 181 |
| Trevor Lawrence | JAX | 40.8% | -5.5% | 91 | -4.8% | 167 | 237 | 0.7% | 242 |
| Tua Tagovailoa | MIA | 40.5% | -22.8% | -12 | -12.8% | 102 | 251 | 9.9% | 150 |
| Bryce Young | CAR | 40.3% | -3.6% | 19 | -9.7% | 127 | 95 | -6.1% | 188 |
| Geno Smith | LV | 40.1% | -3.1% | 50 | -4.6% | 115 | 134 | -1.5% | 172 |
| Jalen Hurts | PHI | 40.0% | -30.5% | -66 | -18.1% | 130 | 369 | 12.4% | 195 |
| Brock Purdy | SF | 39.6% | -11.3% | 86 | 8.6% | 59 | 220 | 19.8% | 90 |
| DVOA Dif | Slot | Wide | |||||||
| Player | Team | Slot% | DYAR | DVOA | Pass | DYAR | DVOA | Pass | |
| Caleb Williams | CHI | 39.5% | -12.9% | -31 | -13.5% | 151 | 202 | -0.7% | 231 |
| C.J. Stroud | HOU | 39.4% | 4.3% | 156 | 7.2% | 112 | 194 | 3.0% | 172 |
| Baker Mayfield | TB | 38.9% | 17.8% | 197 | 5.2% | 162 | 1 | -12.6% | 254 |
| Michael Penix Jr. | ATL | 38.5% | 29.5% | 144 | 12.6% | 80 | -47 | -17.0% | 128 |
| Joe Burrow | CIN | 38.4% | 28.7% | 209 | 30.3% | 68 | 121 | 1.6% | 109 |
| Drake Maye | NE | 38.3% | -16.6% | 228 | 12.6% | 128 | 655 | 29.2% | 206 |
| Justin Fields | NYJ | 36.7% | 7.7% | -19 | -17.6% | 44 | -72 | -25.3% | 76 |
| J.J. McCarthy | MIN | 36.7% | 10.2% | 20 | -6.9% | 66 | -39 | -17.1% | 114 |
| Joe Flacco | 2TM | 36.2% | 4.0% | 32 | -6.0% | 100 | 36 | -9.9% | 176 |
| Dak Prescott | DAL | 35.9% | -3.3% | 251 | 9.5% | 162 | 580 | 12.8% | 289 |
| Matthew Stafford | LAR | 33.8% | 7.9% | 353 | 22.0% | 132 | 542 | 14.1% | 259 |
| Sam Darnold | SEA | 31.2% | -36.2% | 19 | -9.9% | 98 | 646 | 26.4% | 216 |
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In 2024, no quarterback with positive DVOA threw more to receivers split out wide than Jalen Hurts. That wasn’t the case at all in 2025, however! Hurts’ rate of slot-to-wide targets rose from 36.4% to 40.0% — or, to put it another, way, an extra 2.1 targets to slot players per game in 2025 than he was in 2024. He targeted DeVonta Smith much more frequently in the slot last year than he did in 2024, 31 targets rising to 59 – and remember, Hurts played one fewer game in 2024. This is surprising! The general consensus about the Eagles offense is that they do not throw to slot receivers. Mike Tanier argued last season that the Eagles had the fewest targets to slot receivers… except that’s not at all what our data shows. So why does our data have 13 quarterbacks throwing to slot less frequently? I suspect the difference in data comes from the definitions of “wide” versus “slot”. Our definition has the widest player on one side of the lineup defined as the “wide” player, and anyone else on that side of the formation but not inline as a tight end as the “slot” receiver. It does not matter how spread out or condensed the formation is. We simply look at where the receivers are lined up in relation to one another. This isn’t the only way to do this, of course! Other data sources might instead record whether a player lined up inside or outside the hashmarks, leading to situations where they could be multiple outside receivers, or a slot receiver with no wide receiver lined up further out than he is. Both definitions have plusses and minuses, but that’s how you’ll get different data from one source than another. On plays where both A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith are lined up on one side of the formation, then. we’d count whichever one was further out (typically Brown) as the wideout, and the other as the slot, even if it’s a bunch formation with both of them lined up right next to each other. That is how we’ve done it since FTN started using DVOA, so it is an apples-to-apples comparison with 2024’s data. The Eagles were using more condensed formations, Smith was aligning up in the slot more frequently, and Hurts was targeting Brown less often than he used to. Whether that was a cause or the reaction to the friction that was in Philadelphia locker room last season is an exercise left to the reader, or at least to the Pennsylvania Psychological Association. It also explains why Matthew Stafford had the second-highest rate of throws out wide. The Rams threw a league-high 133 passes with only one receiver on the field, typically Puka Nacua. While you can line up a tight end wider than your wideout, you generally don’t. Nacua or Davante Adams would sometimes be the “wide” receiver by default. That’s true of any team that runs a lot of true heavy multi-tight end sets. We’re not talking guys like Trey McBride who are glorified big slot receivers, but rather teams that frequently have multiple tight ends lined up inline. The Rams set a record for most usage of 13 personnel last season, using it 44% of the time in Weeks 6-18. The Seahawks, with Sam Darnold having the largest gap between slot and wide usage, were in a bit of a similar boat. Seattle had the seventh-most passes out of multi-tight end sets in 2025, and only the Cardinals and Rams threw to inline players more than Seattle did last season. The Seahawks wanted to be heavy, and they were. Plus, you know, they had Jaxon Smith-Njibga out wide 80% of the time, and “throw the ball to JSN” was the right play most of the time. Darnold saw the biggest jump from his slot DVOA (-9.9%) to his wide DVOA (26.4%), because that’s where JSN was. Cooper Kupp was Darnold’s top target in the slot, and he had a negative DVOA there, so it’s not just JSN being very good, but again, JSN was very good. Darnold did not have this level of split last year in Minnesota – in fact, he was a little bit better throwing to the slot in 2024. Justin Jefferson was more likely to line up in the slot in 2024 than Smith-Njigba was in 2025, so that’s mostly what I think we’re seeing there. Darnold might be an “insanely talented receiver” merchant. Well, hey, it works. Hurts having the third-biggest jump from slot to wide DVOA makes a lot of sense. It’s a little stranger to see Jared Goff in the top five. Amon-Ra St. Brown was third in the league in Route DVOA, which takes his massive target volume into account, but in regular, per-target DVOA, Jameson Williams actually had a more effective season than St. Brown did, and we’re seeing that reflected in the data. St. Brown had the lowest success rate of his career as Goff and the Detroit passing offense seemed to run solely through him for much of the year. Fixing Goff’s protection so he wasn’t always forcing the ball to St. Brown on hot routes probably wouldn’t hurt. The two Atlanta quarterbacks, Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr., had the biggest gap the other way, each improving by about 30% when targeting the slot rather than going out wide. Some of that was that’s where Kyle Pitts was, but Drake London was also more valuable in the slot than split wide. London is a much tougher matchup when he gets lined up against a slot defender, but Atlanta just really didn’t have the depth to use him there as much as they maybe should have. Atlanta’s receiver room has been drastically revamped this year, so we’ll see how Penix (or Tua Tagovailoa?) manages in 2026.
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Joe Burrow also being in the top five here makes sense, as both Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins fit the wideout mold, leaving their best slot option as… Mike Gesicki? Andrei Iosivas? Nothing great. Jordan Love being in the top five is more interesting, considering the shuffling their wide receiver room has undergone this offseason. Love’s best target out wide in 2025, both in number of attempts and DYAR generated, was Romeo Doubs; he’s in New England. His most frequent target in the slot was Dontayvion Wicks; he’s in Philadelphia. His most DYAR in the slot was Christian Watson, and while he’s still around, the plan is to play him more out wide to make up for the loss of Doubs! Even if you like the combination of Watson, Matthew Golden and Jayden Reed (plus Tucker Kraft) as Green Bay’s top pass-catching weapons, that’s a lot of shuffling going on in terms of who does what and where. Green Bay’s offense will be one of the most fascinating to watch next season.
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