Let's chart quarterbacks: Weighted On-Target Percentage for Shedeur Sanders and the 2025 NFL Draft class

Who are the most accurate QBs in the 2025 NFL Draft? I've got you covered.

The 2025 NFL Draft crop of quarterbacks, highlighted by Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders, Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, and more, has turned into a highly debated one.

Some analysts will say it’s a deep class, while the smaller group of well-respected ones will tell you it’s one of the more shallow ones. I tend to agree that it’s an extremely narrow group. It’s not as bad as the 2022 class led by Kenny Pickett, but it is on par with the 2014 class where E.J. Manuel was the first quarterback off the board and Geno Smith was selected in the second round.

So how do we sift through all of this information? How do we get the full picture and not just create takes and assumptions based on the highlights we are blasted with on SportsCenter or social media 15-second byes? By looking at the full picture.

That’s why I’ve created an accuracy metric that requires me to watch every single throw a quarterback makes to give a full and dense image of just how well the quarterback gives his receivers a chance to make a play.

That’s how Weighted On-Target Percentage came to life.

Now that I am getting five-game sample sizes, what I need for a definitive number for each level of the field, we are starting to get some real-time numbers to spit out for consumption.

Still a work in progress that will continually be updated as this father of two kids who are two and under works through the class. All of the 2025 NFL Draft charts can be found below:

The methodology behind Weighted On-Target Percentage

I want to reward high-leverage and big-time throws that quarterbacks are capable of making. Those are the game-changing plays, especially as they become rarer at the NFL level as explosive play rates continue to fall. So when a quarterback has the opportunity to stretch the field, they need to be able to connect.

Throughout the four years that I have been charting now as well, deep throws (25+ yards in depth) have the highest difference in standard deviation as well. This is where great quarterbacks separate themselves from good ones.

Similarly, boundary throws are going to be weighed slightly higher than throws over the middle, and middle-of-the-field throws will carry a larger weight than the short game (the least difference in standard deviation among quarterbacks).

When weighing their on-target percentage to each of these four levels of the field, I will get one solid number: their Weighted On-Target Percentage.

Understanding the charts

When looking through the charts, you will see five different colors: green, red, blue, yellow, and black. Here are the breakdowns of what these colors mean:

Green: On-target and a completion

Red: Off-target and incomplete

Blue: On-target and incomplete

Yellow: Off-target but completed

Black: Unchartable throw

When referring to the totals to the right of the charts, these tallies are percentages of on-target throws. If a deep ball is leveraged correctly and hits the right landmark but is not tracked appropriately by the wideout or dropped, then that ball will be deemed on-target and the quarterback will be given credit for that throw.

If the receiver catches a throw but takes a substantial adjustment because the throw is leveraged back into coverage or on the wrong shoulder, I’ll ding the quarterback for that throw.

This might seem ticky-tacky, but the margin for error when evaluating quarterbacks and what makes them tick at the NFL is razor-thin. It’s necessary to be critical.

Uncharted throws include throwaways, miscommunications between the wide receiver and quarterback, quarterback hits that significantly impact the flight of the football, and Hail Marys.

Occasionally an “O” will appear over a throw as well. This is just a way for me to indicate if a throw came out of structure.

Here is what a chart will come out looking like when done (this is Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders’ heroic performance against Baylor in Week 4):

For a better visual example, I created a video on the Daft on Draft YouTube channel charting out a game live to show you exactly how my eyes see this play out:

The Limitations of Weighted On-Target Percentage

This is not the full picture of a quarterback’s NFL Draft profile, however. This simply helps to distinguish and prioritize which quarterbacks thrive more at levels of the field that create more explosive plays.

Weighted On-Target Percentage does not tell how strong a quarterback’s arm is. It does not indicate how they manage a difficult pocket. It doesn’t measure the speed of a quarterback’s eyes at dissecting a coverage post-snap or what they are seeing pre-snap. It simply measures ball placement and accuracy.

And sometimes even the final number can be a bit deceiving. Bo Nix’s chart out of Oregon from the 2023 season is a great example of this, as is Bailey Zappe’s when he was coming out of Western Kentucky.

Both of those quarterbacks finished with a Weighted On-Target Percentage of around 70 and lingered near the top of their classes. However, their volume of underneath throws was in some cases 30 percent more than others in the class. Naturally, their number is going to be inflated if they only threw 15 deep balls all season and were on target on 8 of them.

There is more to the evaluation of a quarterback than strictly Weighted On-Target Percentage. This is why Nix was still my QB6 last year despite having the third-highest Weighted On-Target Percentage last year.

My hope, however, is that it is a significant tool to help dissect one of the key aspects of playing the quarterback position: ball placement and accuracy.