But Russ has one weapon left in his arsenal. It\u2019s a skill where he\u2019s not only still one of the league\u2019s best but is in the discussion for best all-time: the moon ball. Wilson has always had one of the prettiest deep balls in the league. He gets so much air under his throws, so much loft, that it gives his receivers extra time to adjust to the pass and make catches. Calvin Austin III<\/a>, who played with Russ last year, likened it to catching a punt<\/a> more than anything else, while opposing cornerbacks say that they\u2019ve struggled to defend them because the passes drop down at such an unusual arc, one they\u2019re not used to seeing. As such, no one has completed more passes of 20-plus air yards than Wilson has since he entered the league. He\u2019s the absolute king of it.<\/p>\n This was apparently news to the Dallas Cowboys, who let Wilson complete seven passes of 20-plus air yards against them last Sunday. That includes three touchdowns<\/a>, and that includes two go-ahead touchdowns<\/a> in the final three minutes<\/a> of the fourth quarter. The Giants may have lost that game, but the Cowboys not defending the moon ball to Malik Nabers<\/a> with 30 seconds late was absolute coaching malpractice \u2013 or course Russ was going to launch one deep, and of course Nabers was going to be on the other end of it. Everyone who has ever watched Russ play knew that what was coming, with the apparent exception of Matt Eberflus.<\/p>\n The two late touchdowns extended Wilson\u2019s lead in a very specific stat. They were Russ\u2019 17th and 18th go-ahead touchdowns in the fourth quarter or overtime of at least 20 yards. Only a dozen players in NFL history have even thrown 10 of them, and Russ now has a lead that is going to take a long, long time to lose.<\/p>\n Most Go-Ahead Touchdowns of 20+ Yards, 4Q\/OT<\/p>\n Rank 1 T2 T2 4 T5 T5 T5 T8 T8 T8 T8 T8 This week, Sunday Night Football against the Chiefs, could theoretically be the last time a national audience gets to see Russell Wilson<\/a> start a football game, so forget the forecast \u2013 there may be a new moon in the sky, but Russ will provide the full moon ball experience!<\/p>\n oh god that was cheesy<\/p>\n Ahem. Nevertheless, we figured we would use this opportunity to look at deep passing through the first two games in our weekly look at StatsHub<\/a>. Last season, Russ led all passers with a 121.7% DVOA on passes of at least 15 air yards. Lamar Jackson<\/a> led the league with 673 DYAR. Caleb Williams<\/a> led the league with 117 attempts, Sam Darnold<\/a> led the league with 61 completions, Justin Herbert<\/a> has 12 touchdowns passes and Jared Goff<\/a> had a 55.1% completion percentage. Let\u2019s take a look at what we\u2019ve seen so far, and see who might be displacing these leaders in 2025.<\/p>\n Note that this doesn\u2019t include Thursday\u2019s Bills-Dolphins game, but as Josh Allen<\/a> and Tua Tagovailoa<\/a> combined for 1.5 air yards per completion, it\u2019s not particularly relevant.<\/p>\n First off, the obvious caveat in that we\u2019re looking at a subset of a stat after just two weeks, so the sample size is miniscule. This is more \u201chere are some neat things to watch going forward\u201d than anything else, but that\u2019s what you get after two weeks.<\/p>\n And after two weeks, the deep shot DYAR race has three familiar faces and what has to, just has to be a mirage, right? Russ is sitting in second with 164 DYAR thanks in large part to volume \u2013 he\u2019s the first to pass 300 yards on deep shots, he\u2019s tied for the league lead with three touchdown passes, he\u2019s tied for third behind Dak Prescott<\/a> and Baker Mayfield<\/a> in attempts, and so on and so forth. A lot of that comes from playing in one crazy shootout game, but Russ is going to be Russ right up until the end. I doubt he\u2019ll end up leading in DYAR because it\u2019s a counting stat and he isn\u2019t likely to last the whole season, but he\u2019s got a real chance to be the DVOA leader if he gets his 110 more dropbacks to qualify. That likely means he has to get the Saints start in three weeks, and maybe hold Dart off until something like the Bears in Week 10? We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n Matthew Stafford<\/a> is right next to Russ in all the various deep ball stats since the early 2010s, so it\u2019s not a huge surprise to see him up here, either, in first place with 189 DYAR. The biggest number here might be that accuracy rating \u2013 a 100% accuracy rating on deep shots is obviously not sustainable, but he led the league at 61.3% last season. His deep ball has been a big part of the Rams looking so good through two weeks, with Davante Adams<\/a> and Puka Nacua<\/a> ranking second and third in deep ball receiving DYAR. This will come down to Earth a little bit, but this is Stafford\u2019s leading skill, too, and as long as that back holds up, the Rams will be contenders.<\/p>\n Lamar Jackson<\/a> is great at everything, and deep balls falls into the subset of \u201ceverything,\u201d so it makes sense that he\u2019s here, too. Jackson\u2019s deep game often is more a response to pressure than it is pre-planned shots like Stafford and Wilson. He\u2019s averaging 3.56 seconds before throwing his deep passes, compared to 2.77 for Wilson and 2.86 for Stafford, in part because he\u2019s already got an avoided sack. Stafford and Wilson have taken their deep shots from clean pockets about 85% of the time; Lamar\u2019s down at 75%. The scale of these will change with a larger sample size, but this backs what we saw in 2024, as well \u2013 Lamar often looks deep after he\u2019s done one of his Houdini escapes, and makes the defense pay for failing on a blitz.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s Daniel Jones<\/a>, who \u2026 I mean, no, right? There\u2019s no way Indiana Jones keeps up this Colts renaissance. It\u2019s not just deep passing \u2013 he\u2019s leading the league in passing DYAR and DVOA as well through two weeks \u2013 but the big play is just as shocking as everything else he\u2019s done so far in 2025. Last year with New York, he was 20th in deep shot DVOA, but in Indianapolis he\u2019s suddenly an Anthony Richardson Sr.<\/a> who can actually target a receiver? I\u2019m not buying it; not yet. Remember, the Saints looked like they were revolutionizing offense through two weeks in 2024; two weeks can lie to you. This hot start might belong in a museum, but banking on the Colts to be contenders down the line would be choosing \u2026 poorly.<\/p>\n As for last year\u2019s surprise, Sam Darnold<\/a> was second in deep DYAR in 2024 with 662, because Justin Jefferson<\/a> is very good. A drop-off in 2025 was to be expected, but sitting in 16th through two weeks is pretty good for the quarterback Darnold has been for his entire career as opposed to just the version from last season. So far, he\u2019s attempted 11 deep passes, and ten of them have been towards Jaxon Smith-Njigba<\/a>. That appears to be the bulk of the Seattle offense at this point, and it\u2019s no Darnold to Jefferson, but it\u2019s something, I suppose. It would be nice if the rest of the Seattle offense contributed anything to the passing game, as Darnold\u2019s DVOA goes from 68.5% targeting JSN to a league-worst -56.7% targeting anyone else, but I suppose you have to start somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russell Wilson\u2019s time as an NFL starter is winding to an end. It\u2019s been four years since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2067],"tags":[7,6170,519,1917,56,2321,2469,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-380534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-giants","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-football-outsiders","10":"tag-giants","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-giants","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkgiants","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115231587334775137","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPlayer
\nYears
\nTeams
\nTDs<\/p>\n
\nRussell Wilson<\/a>
\n2012-2025
\nSEA\/DEN\/PIT\/NYG
\n18<\/p>\n
\nEli Manning<\/a>
\n2004-2019
\nNYG
\n15<\/p>\n
\nJohnny Unitas
\n1956-1973
\nBALC
\n15<\/p>\n
\nTom Brady<\/a>
\n2000-2022
\nNE\/TB
\n14<\/p>\n
\nTerry Bradshaw
\n1970-1983
\nPIT
\n12<\/p>\n
\nAaron Rodgers<\/a>
\n2005-2025
\nGB\/NYJ
\n12<\/p>\n
\nBrett Favre
\n1991-2010
\nGB\/MIN
\n12<\/p>\n
\nKen Stabler
\n1970-1984
\nOAK\/HOU\/NO
\n10<\/p>\n
\nDan Marino
\n1983-1999
\nMIA
\n10<\/p>\n
\nWarren Moon
\n1984-2000
\nHOIL\/MIN\/SEA
\n10<\/p>\n
\nKirk Cousins<\/a>
\n2012-2025
\nWAS\/MIN\/ATL
\n10<\/p>\n
\nDrew Brees<\/a>
\n2001-2020
\nSD\/NO
\n10<\/p>\n![\"INGLEWOOD,](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Matthew-Stafford-4.jpg\")
INGLEWOOD, CA \u2013 SEPTEMBER 12: Matthew Stafford #9 of the Rams during an NFL game between the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Rams on September 12, 2021, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA. (Photo by Icon Sportswire)<\/p>\n