Last year it was common knowledge that Braylon Edwards dropped a lot of balls, and from Pro Football Focus’ analysis of every game, he had a league-leading 19 dropped passes. But sometimes individual stats can be misleading. After all, only 13 more receivers were thrown at more than Edwards and as such, the likelihood of him dropping more passes than someone like Jabar Gaffney, who was thrown at less, increases without necessarily making Edwards more prone to dropping balls.
So what we’ve done at PFF is look at the amount of balls a player has dropped and compare that to the number of catches they made to create a Drop To Catch Percentage (DTC) where the number of catches is equal to 100%.
Getting back to Edwards and the initial basis for this article, how did his drops compare to his receptions? It probably won’t surprise many that wide receivers who caught at least 30 balls during the regular and postseason, Edwards had the highest DTC. In fact it wasn’t even close, with Braylon’s score of 34.55 putting him almost 12 points above the next nearest contender, the Chicago Bears' Rashied Davis. Davis didn’t see as much action as Edwards or nearly as many balls thrown his way but after being targeted 62 times for 35 receptions, his eight dropped passes gave him a 22.86 DTC.
This helps paint a different story of some players who took a lot of criticism for the amount of balls they dropped. Roddy White (14) and Brandon Marshall (16) both fall into this category for following Edwards at the top of the dropped-passes table. Comparing their drops to their catches, neither man was particularly great, but at the same time their DTC was not in the 15 worst. White was slightly worse with a 15.91 rating compared to Marshall’s 15.38, but they both bested players like Randy Moss (15.94) and Dwayne Bowe (18.6), who didn’t receive nearly as much attention for this aspect of their game.
If you’re wondering one of the reasons why Detroit finished 0-16, then look to their receivers' DTC. It didn’t help that there were five quarterbacks throwing to them, but Shaun McDonald was tied for ninth-highest with a 17.14 and Calvin Johnson was three spots behind him with a 16.67. Johnson garnered a lot of attention as being in the same league as the top receivers in the game, but he’ll need to sort this out if he wants to join them. His DTC is one of the reasons he ranks relatively low on the PFF receiver rankings.
And what of the recognized top receivers in the game? Well, this rating shows just why Larry Fitzgerald receives so much praise: His score of 3.17 was sixth-best, with the nearest receiver who had more than 1,000 yards being Derrick Mason in 15th place. Compare this to Andre Johnson, who had a middle-of-the-road 9.56 rating, and you’d have to score one to Fitz. Although, as we will discuess in a follow up article, Johnson was a bigger contributor to his team's passing game than Fitzgerald.
Mason’s Baltimore colleague Mark Clayton is one of two players who scored a perfect rating by not dropping any passes (the other being Chansi Stuckey). Clayton was particularly impressive, not dropping a ball and amassing 47 catches.
Lastly, we always like to take a look how the rookies performed, and special credit to Donnie Avery of the Rams. Avery dropped three balls and caught 53 to score 5.66. Avery was joined by fellow rookies Eddie Royal, who scored a 6.59 on 91 receptions, and PFF favorite Davone Bess with an 8.92 in the top half of receivers.
Most Dropped Passes
Braylon Edwards — 19
Dwayne Bowe — 16
Brandon Marshall — 16
Roddy White — 14
Laveranues Coles — 13
Calvin Johnson — 13
Santana Moss — 12
Randy Moss — 11
Andre Johnson — 11
Terrell Owens — 10
Greg Jennings — 10
Highest Drop To Catch percentage
Braylon Edwards — 34.55
Rashied Davis — 22.86
Jabar Gaffney — 21.05
Koren Robinson — 19.35
Marques Colston — 19.15
Dwayne Bowe — 18.6
Laveranues Coles — 18.57
Michael Clayton — 18.42
Shaun McDonald — 17.14
Plaxico Burress — 17.14
Lowest Drop To Catch percentage
Mark Clayton — 0
Chansi Stuckey — 0
Ike Hilliard — 2.12
Jason Avant — 2.32
Chris Chambers — 2.43
Larry Fitzgerald — 3.17
Isaac Bruce — 3.27
Jason Hill — 3.33
Deion Branch — 3.33
Josh Reed — 3.57
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