Insights · NFL · 2025 season and 2026 to date
When the QB hits, who hits with him?
Across 544 team-games, a quarterback clearing his passing-yards number lifts his wide receivers' hit rate from 37% to 62% and his tight ends' from 37% to 64%. His running back's receiving numbers rise with him too. His running back's rushing numbers do not: they sit near independent and lean slightly the other way. Whether any of that is worth betting is not a question this page answers; it shows what happened.
League-wide, by position and stat
Each player's own season median is his number. Lift is the skill player's hit rate when the QB clears, minus his rate when the QB misses, in percentage points.
Bars to the right of zero mean the skill player cleared his number more often on the QB's good days; left means less often. Hover or focus a bar for the counts.
| Position | Stat | n | Skill clears · QB clears | Skill clears · QB misses | Lift | Both clear | If independent | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tight end | Receiving Yards | 723 | 63.6%248 of 390 | 36.9%123 of 333 | +26.7 | 34.3% | 27.7% | 1.24 |
| Tight end | Receptions | 519 | 64.4%179 of 278 | 38.6%93 of 241 | +25.8 | 34.5% | 28.1% | 1.23 |
| Wide receiver | Receiving Yards | 1418 | 62.1%472 of 760 | 37.4%246 of 658 | +24.7 | 33.3% | 27.1% | 1.23 |
| Wide receiver | Receptions | 1092 | 60.6%357 of 589 | 38.2%192 of 503 | +22.4 | 32.7% | 27.1% | 1.21 |
| Running back | Receptions | 635 | 60.1%197 of 328 | 44.0%135 of 307 | +16.1 | 31.0% | 27.0% | 1.15 |
| Running back | Receiving Yards | 801 | 60.0%254 of 423 | 47.4%179 of 378 | +12.7 | 31.7% | 28.5% | 1.11 |
| Running back | Rush + Rec Yards | 910 | 54.3%261 of 481 | 45.9%197 of 429 | +8.3 | 28.7% | 26.6% | 1.08 |
| Running back | Rushing Yards | 893 | 49.7%232 of 467 | 52.6%224 of 426 | -2.9 | 26.0% | 26.7% | 0.97 |
| Running back | Carries | 811 | 48.7%206 of 423 | 55.4%215 of 388 | -6.7 | 25.4% | 27.1% | 0.94 |
“Both clear” is how often the two-leg combo would have hit; “if independent” is what it would be if the two outcomes had nothing to do with each other. The ratio between them is the whole story for a same-team pair: 1.23 means the receiver combo landed 23% more often than independence predicts.
Which two players, tonight
This page is about positions, because a pattern that holds across every tight end in the league is worth more than one that holds for one of them. The named pairs on tonight's board — which quarterback and teammate have most often landed together, on the numbers actually posted — are on the Top 20 QB duos tab.
See tonight's duos60 pairs on tonight's board · 213 pairs with twelve or more shared games
How this was counted, and what it cannot tell you
- Games
- 5,370 player-games from nflverse weekly stats, regular season 2025 plus 2026 to date. Positions are nflverse's; players with no listed position were left out.
- The quarterback
- One per team-game: the passer with the most attempts, and at least ten. Backups in garbage time are not a quarterback's good day.
- “His number”
- Each player's own median for that stat across his games, requiring at least 8. Past lines are not stored, and by construction a median makes each player's base rate about 50%, so any lift is co-movement and nothing else. On today's board, the actual posted line is used instead, applied to every past game.
- Hits and pushes
- A hit is strictly above the number. A game where either player landed exactly on his number is excluded, the way a push is settled.
- Lift
- P(skill hits | QB hits) minus P(skill hits | QB misses). Both halves are shown as counts on every row, because “100% vs 0%” on eight games is four and four.
What it cannot tell you
These are past co-occurrences, not forecasts. A quarterback's good day and his receiver's are one event seen twice, not a cause and an effect. Lines move week to week, so today's line applied to last October is an approximation. And the pick'em apps already know that same-team legs move together, which is why several of them restrict or discount correlated entries; a rate on this page is not a payout.
Nothing here is a recommendation. It is the answer to one question, stated as counts.
Refreshed Sep 7, 1:21 AM ET, with the nightly board. Game logs from nflverse, CC BY 4.0.