This Chart Will Show You Just How Well Your Team’s Quarterback Is Performing So Far This Season

Getty Image / Julio Aguilar

Through two weeks of the NFL season, fans and pundits are already full of hot takes around quarterback play from around the league’s 32 teams. But, a handy chart that shows how accurate quarterbacks are throwing to open receivers, and how often they are finding open receivers.

Here’s the chart, by Twitter user @throwthedamball.

To be clear, the X-Axis is showing the percentage of all throws that are made to targets considered open. And, the Y-axis is the percent of those throws only that are deemed accurate. Notably, passes don’t need to be caught to be considered accurate throws for the chart.

The accurate throw numbers speak for themselves, but the number of balls thrown to open receivers can be influenced by a few things. First, a good scheme is going to get targets wide open better than a bad one. But, also, some quarterbacks are better at finding the open man than others.

The first thing that stands out is Kirk Cousins way up there are the top of the upper right-hand quadrant. Not only is he hitting open receivers at a really high rate, but he’s throwing to a lot of open receivers, too! Is that due to arguably the league’s best receiver, Justin Jefferson, getting open a lot? That’s definitely part of it. But, it shows that Kirk Cousins is getting through his reads incredibly well. Yes, the Minnesota Vikings are 0-2, but he’s been exceptional in a contract year, as he has 708 yards, six touchdowns, and one interceptions so far.

In the top left is Carolina Panthers’ rookie Bryce Young. Statistically, things have not been good for the first-overall pick so far. He’s thrown for just 299 yards and two touchdowns to go with two interceptions while completing just 59% of his passes. But, it appears the problem is not Bryce Young, but everyone else. No one is throwing to less open receivers than Young, but of the guys that are open, he’s hitting them very often! Is he not seeing some open guys? Pretty unlikely, given his ability to see the field and process. It simply seems like the scheme isn’t very good and his targets aren’t creating much separation .

There has been a lot of talk about Chicago Bears quarterback Justin Fields and the lack of development shown early on. And, while this chart certainly doesn’t tell the whole story, it’s not good. The biggest knocks on Fields is that he holds on to the ball too long, doesn’t trust his eyes, and is too risk-averse. This chart confirms all of those notions. He’s basically only throwing to open guys, but he’s not throwing particularly accurately to them. Only throwing to open guys seems good on the surface, but anyone who has watched the Bears knows that guys aren’t just running through the secondary wide open all the time. Great quarterbacks can complete passes into tight windows. Fields doesn’t do a good job throwing to open receivers, let alone throwing into tight windows.

One could stare at this chart for hours. One thing is for sure, though. This won’t slow down NFL quarterback hot takes.