A data-driven look at NFL quarterback-receiver partnerships

• Jordan Love led the NFL's most efficient connections: Love-to-Matthew Golden topped qualifying QB-WR duos in EPA per play, while Love-to-Tucker Kraft produced the fifth-most efficient season by any quarterback-receiver pairing in the PFF era.

• Volume and efficiency can coexist: Matthew Stafford and Puka Nacua, along with Sam Darnold and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, remained among the NFL's most productive partnerships despite surpassing 180 combined targets.

• PFF's proprietary metrics add context beyond traditional stats: The study combines EPA per play with big-time throw rate, turnover-worthy play rate and Positive Play Partnership (PPP) to evaluate how consistently quarterbacks and receivers execute together.

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Every passing offense is built on one thing: the connection between the quarterback and his receivers. After all, a perfectly placed throw still needs a receiver to finish the play, and even the league's best pass catchers rely on accurate, well-timed passes to maximize their production. Evaluating one without the other only tells part of the story.

This study looks at that relationship directly, examining every quarterback-receiver target from 2006 through 2025 through the lens of PFF grading and expected points added (EPA) per play. Alongside traditional efficiency metrics, we also incorporate three PFF-specific measures that provide additional context. Big-time throw rate captures how often a quarterback delivers a high-level throw to his receiver, while turnover-worthy play rate measures how often a connection results in a bad decision. Finally, positive play partnership (PPP) tracks the percentage of targets on which both the quarterback and receiver earned a positive PFF grade on the same play, highlighting the duos that consistently execute together.

The 2025 Season

1. Jordan Love–Matthew Golden (0.80 EPA/play): The rookie wideout needed only 41 targets to top the position, catching 31 of them for 425 yards without a single drop. Love recorded a 12.2% big-time throw rate throwing to Golden, and 19 of those 41 targets moved the chains.

2. Dak Prescott–Ryan Flournoy (0.74 EPA/play): No duo in the top five earned its efficiency more quietly: Prescott’s big-time throw rate to Flournoy was just 2.1%. Instead, this connection lived on relentless conversion — 27 combined first downs and touchdowns on 47 targets, with 77.1% of Flournoy’s receptions moving the sticks.

3. Bryce Young–Jalen Coker (0.72 EPA/play): Young posted a 14.0% big-time throw rate on passes to Coker, the highest of any qualifying wide receiver duo in 2025, against a single turnover-worthy play. The pair generated a 126.1 passer rating, and their two-year career mark of 0.672 EPA per play already ranks 15th among all duos in the PFF era with 75-plus targets.

4. Dak Prescott–George Pickens (0.69 EPA/play): The only top-five pairing built on true volume: 130 targets, 1,405 receiving yards and 90.2 total EPA, the third-most expected points added by any quarterback-receiver duo in 2025. Prescott and Pickens consistently stayed on the same page, earning positive PFF grades on the same play on 40.0% of their targets, while 78.3% of Pickens' receptions resulted in either a first down or touchdown.

5. Drake Maye–Kayshon Boutte (0.68 EPA/play): No qualifying wide receiver duo was jointly positive more often: Maye and Boutte both earned positive grades on 46.0% of their 63 targets. At 11.4 yards per target with a 129.0 passer rating, this was 2025’s most reliable two-way connection per snap.

One rung below the top five sits the season’s volume monster: Matthew Stafford to Puka Nacua averaged 0.65 EPA per play on 200 targets, piling up 130.1 total EPA — the second-most valuable receiving season of the entire PFF era, behind only Stafford-to-Cooper Kupp in 2021.

1. Jordan Love–Tucker Kraft (1.13 EPA/play): Not just the best connection of 2025 — the fifth-best per-play season by any duo, at any position, in the PFF era. Love posted a 157.2 passer rating targeting Kraft (perfection is 158.3), with six touchdowns and no interceptions, and Kraft manufactured 71% of his 489 yards after the catch.

An interesting note: Through Week 9, before Kraft's injury, Green Bay averaged 5.99 yards per attempt (eighth among 37 qualifying quarterbacks) and 0.118 EPA per attempt (fourth) on Love's zero-graded throws — passes where the quarterback simply executed what was expected without creating or costing value on his own. From Week 10 onward, with Kraft out of the lineup, those numbers fell to 3.72 yards per attempt (35th of 35) and -0.265 EPA per attempt (32nd of 37).

Read more: Performance on zero-graded throws, and what it can tell us about quarterback play

2. Jared Goff–Sam LaPorta (0.92 EPA/play): The cleanest connection on the list: 40 completions on 45 targets (88.9%), zero drops and zero turnover-worthy plays. Goff didn’t need hero throws — just 10.9 yards per target of pure rhythm.

3. Tua Tagovailoa–Darren Waller (0.89 EPA/play): A 26-target sample, but a spectacular one: six touchdowns on 20 receptions — a score every 4.3 targets. Tagovailoa took his shots, too, with a 15.4% big-time throw rate, and the two graded positively together on 46.2% of targets, the best rate of any QB-TE duo.

4. Josh Allen–Dalton Kincaid (0.86 EPA/play): Seven touchdowns, zero interceptions and a 152.6 passer rating on 57 targets. The pair posted a 42.1% PPP rate, and more than two-thirds of Kincaid’s receptions went for either a first down or a touchdown.

5. Brock Purdy–George Kittle (0.59 EPA/play): A fourth consecutive qualifying season inside the position’s top tier, this time at a 141.1 passer rating with five scores and no picks. The career body of work — 0.750 EPA per play across 269 targets — ranks fourth among all duos in the PFF era with 75-plus targets.

1. Justin Fields–Breece Hall (0.55 EPA/play): Fields completed 19 of his 20 targets to Hall, who turned them into 189 yards.

2. Matthew Stafford–Kyren Williams (0.51 EPA/play): Five receiving touchdowns on 53 targets with zero turnover-worthy plays — the safest high-end connection at the position. Stafford posted a 125.7 rating throwing Williams’ way.

3. Mac Jones–Christian McCaffrey (0.46 EPA/play): McCaffrey is the only back with two qualifying quarterbacks in the top 10, ranking third with Jones and sixth with Brock Purdy (0.38). The Jones version was the more explosive one: 527 yards on 65 targets, 404 of them after the catch.

4. Drake Maye–Rhamondre Stevenson (0.45 EPA/play): Almost everything here was manufactured after the throw — 411 of Stevenson’s 469 receiving yards (87.6%) came after the catch. Maye completed 43 of 51 targets without an interception for a 124.6 rating.

5. Michael Penix Jr.–Bijan Robinson (0.39 EPA/play): Robinson generated 423 yards after the catch against 460 total receiving yards on these targets — 92% of the production came with the ball in his hands. At 9.4 yards per target, no top-five back stretched backfield passes further.

The QB Annual Is Live

Every qualifying quarterback. Every metric that matters. PFF grades, passing splits, EPA per dropback, clutch performance, interception luck and more — all in one interactive guide built on the same data trusted by all 32 NFL teams.

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The most efficient seasons in the PFF era

1. Russell Wilson–Tyler Lockett, 2018 (1.21 EPA/play): The gold standard. Wilson posted a perfect 158.3 passer rating across all 71 targets to Lockett — 10 touchdowns, no interceptions, no drops — while unleashing a 26.8% big-time throw rate, the highest of any qualifying season in the PFF era. Both players graded positively on 53.5% of their targets, and it produced an era-best 1.21 EPA every time Wilson looked his way.

2. Deshaun Watson–Amari Cooper, 2023 (1.19 EPA/play): A 35-target sample with zero interceptions and zero turnover-worthy plays, at 13.7 yards per target. Nearly half the targets (48.6%) ended with both players grading positively.

3. Brandon Weeden-Josh Gordon, 2013 (1.19 EPA/play): The most improbable name on the list. Weeden-to-Gordon averaged 15.0 yards per target — 660 yards on just 44 throws — with four scores, no picks and a 13.6% big-time throw rate.

4. Justin Herbert–Tyron Johnson, 2020 (1.14 EPA/play): The rookie-year Herbert deep-ball special: 15.3 yards per target and a 19.2% big-time throw rate on 26 targets, good for a 156.7 passer rating. More than half of the targets (53.8%) saw both players grade positively.

5. Jordan Love-Tucker Kraft, 2025 (1.13 EPA/play): The lone 2025 entry, and one of just two tight end seasons in the top 15 alongside Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski’s 2016. Love and Kraft got there differently than the field — a modest 2.5% big-time throw rate, but 347 yards after the catch and a near-perfect 157.2 rating.

The most efficient duos of all time

1. Justin Fields-DJ Moore (0.830 EPA/play): One season, 97 targets, and the best per-play partnership the PFF era has recorded at this volume. Fields threw eight touchdowns and zero interceptions to Moore with a 13.4% big-time throw rate — second in the top 15 only to Deshaun Watson and Will Fuller V — for 1,109 yards and a 139.1 passer rating.

2. Drew Brees-Kenny Stills (0.830 EPA/play): Behind Fields and Moore by four ten-thousandths of a point. Brees averaged 12.4 yards per target to Stills across 130 attempts, and no duo in the top 15 graded positively together more often — a 46.2% PPP rate.

3. Sam Bradford-Adam Thielen (0.756 EPA/play): The definition of reliable: Thielen caught 76 of 97 targets (78.4%) from Bradford with a drop rate under 4%, turning nearly half of them (48 of 97) into first downs.

4. Brock Purdy-George Kittle, 2022–25 (0.750 EPA/play): The volume king of the list — 269 targets, more than any other top-15 duo by a margin of 52 — while still averaging 0.75 EPA per play. The four-year haul: 3,035 yards, 26 touchdowns and a 139.7 passer rating, without a single sub-0.58 EPA-per-play season.

5. Case Keenum-Kenny Britt, 2015–16 (0.742 EPA/play): The only duo in the top 15 without a single turnover-worthy play — zero across 84 targets. Keenum and Britt both graded positively on 41.7% of their targets, producing 11.3 yards per target from one of the era’s least-heralded passing games.