The Drop in Passing Volume and Fantasy Quarterback Play and What to Expect Moving Forward
Passing numbers through two weeks are as low as they've been in over a decade. That affects fantasy owners and the league as a whole, especially as rushing is up.
Quarterbacks haven’t been good through two weeks, at least not in fantasy terms. Teams ask different things of their quarterbacks, and “good” is a relative term that everyone is judged on differently. From a fantasy perspective, it’s been a wasteland of sorts.
The numbers back up what we’re seeing, too. I was provided information covering the passing and rushing stats of the first two weeks in every season from 2013-2024. It was stark how much less teams threw the ball to open this season than they have over the last decade-plus.
Let’s run through some of the most interesting and most telling numbers from those statistics. I won’t provide a table with every number, because there’s way too much for our purpose here, but we’ll look at the averages of the previous seasons versus 2024 and how much different it’s really been.
Lack of Passing Volume
Fantasy football is all about volume: It doesn’t matter how many yards per carry your running back averages, just how many yards he ends up with. When looking for good fantasy production from quarterbacks, we’re looking for a lot of yards and a few touchdowns thrown in.
Quarterbacks have thrown significantly less through two weeks than they did over the sample. No season between 2013-2023 saw QBs throw less than 2,000 passes, and 10 of those 11 years had over 2,200 attempts. In 2024, that number was at just 1,942.
Naturally, less attempts means less completions, yards and touchdowns. No individual season in the sample had as low a total in any of those categories as 2024. And it isn’t just that the numbers have dropped a little; every number is significantly lower this year.
| Time Frame | Attempts | Completions | Passing Yards | Passing TDs |
| 2013-2023 Average | 2,261.1 | 1,461.5 | 16,317.9 | 101.6 |
| 2024 | 1,942 | 1,265 | 13,343 | 69 |
| Percentage Drop | 14.1% | 13.4% | 18.2% | 32.1% |
Every statistic is at least 10% lower in 2024 than the average of the last 11 years and touchdowns show the biggest decrease. Quarterbacks in 2024’s opening two weeks have been less than 90% of what the position has been at the beginning of the season over the past decade. That’s a noticeable difference that affects the league and fantasy football.
Pass Efficiency
Volume is only part of the game. Some quarterbacks excel by racking up yards, and others do their work more methodically, making big plays at the right time but not showing up as big in the box score.
Yards per attempt are down this season, but not as much as the volume stats. Completion percentage is actually higher, so quarterbacks are completing passes more often but doing it with shorter throws.
QBs also have their worst TD-to-INT ratio in the sample: The lowest rate in the previous 11 seasons never dropped below 1.7, but 2024 sees quarterbacks at 1.4 in the first two games. Even as the other volume stats are down, interceptions are as high as ever, sitting well within the range of the rest of the sample (49 this season versus the average of 51).
| Time Frame | Completion Percentage | Yards Per Attempt | TD-to-INT Ratio |
| 2013-2023 Average | 64.6% | 7.2 | 2.0 |
| 2024 | 65.1% | 6.9 | 1.4 |
| Percentage Drop | N/A | 4.2% | 30% |
Increased Running
With fewer pass attempts comes more work on the ground. Conversely to everything we saw above, 2024 is first or second in most rushing attempts, yards, touchdowns and yards per attempt out of the years in the sample.
| Time Frame | Rush Attempts | Rushing Yards | Rushing TDs | Yards Per Attempt |
| 2013-2023 Averages | 1,667.3 | 6,926 | 49.7 | 4.2 |
| 2024 | 1,762 | 7,992 | 60 | 4.5 |
| Percentage Increase | 5.6% | 15.4% | 20.7% | 9.4% |
These numbers aren’t up as much as the pass numbers are down, but a 15% increase in yardage with only a 5% increase in attempts is a good thing for efficiency. That accounts for the increase in yards per attempt, showing teams aren’t just running more but also doing it better.
A big part of this is likely the increase in quarterback runs. QB rush attempts are successful at a higher rate than running back rushes, and scrambles often account for some of the longest plays with athletic guys like Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen running the ball.
With more plays dominated by the quarterback happening on the ground, either because of design or scramble, the percentage of pass plays is naturally going to fall. The shift in popular quarterback type is likely a big factor in the start to this season.
Conclusion
NFL teams have been throwing less this season, causing a decrease in quarterback fantasy production. I wrote an article after Week 1 looking at poor QB performance and theorized that things would go back to normal. Well, I’m still thinking the same thing will happen, but we’ve now seen lower quarterback numbers twice; one more is a true streak.
The league has gone totally toward passing over the past decade or so, and the running game has suffered as a consequence. It makes sense: More passing means less running, and more running means less passing. It’s not always that easy. Pace of play factors in, as does pure randomness. It’s a small sample when we’re only talking about only the first two weeks of each season.
Recent trends say there will be more passing moving forward, but this is now something to watch. The fantasy implications would be that wide receivers and tight ends would become less valuable and running backs more valuable.
It would make sense to think quarterbacks would also lose value, but only those who rely on throwing the ball would be fully affected. Running quarterbacks are still going to get their yards, and they might even get more if the run game keeps flourishing.
I’m not panicking or changing my plans yet. Again, it’s such a small sample, and everything has been moving toward the pass for several decades, so I want to see more than two weeks of proof that the running game has been revived. Total yards and total touchdowns are each at their second lowest mark since 2013, so teams might see the decrease in production and realize passing is the most productive path.
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