0 of 10

Eric Gay/Associated Press

Deep passes—throws that travel 20 or more yards in the air—rarely comprise more than 15 percent of an offense’s arsenal of plays in any given season. But those plays can define an offense, for better or worse. If you have a quarterback and receiving corps who are aligned on explosive plays that come out of the passing game, it can change the mentality of the entire franchise.

There isn’t as much pressure on the running game and the defense. Comebacks are more easily facilitated, which leads to a greater sense of confidence that a team is rarely really out of a game. But the real key to the deep passing game is efficiency. It’s nice if your quarterback can zing the ball all over the field with a Howitzer arm, but if the ball doesn’t go where he wants it to go, it’s irrelevant.

Last season, San Diego’s Philip Rivers may have been the best example of this paradox. Rivers completed 23 deep passes in 66 attempts for 859 yards and 10 touchdowns—all favorable numbers. But declining arm strength had Rivers pushing the ball too often, underthrowing the ball and forcing deep passes into multiple coverage under pressure. The eight deep interceptions he threw as a result led the league and forced him off this list.

When looking at the best deep passers, one must also rate season-to-season consistency highly. One-year wonders who thrive under favorable circumstances are questionable future prospects, especially when those circumstances are removed. In 2016, Washington’s Kirk Cousins upped his deep attempts from 67 the year before to 82, his completions from 25 to 39, his deep yardage from 807 to 1,359, his deep touchdowns from six to 11 and had the same number of deep interceptions in each season (three).

However, the departure of receiver DeSean Jackson to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in free agency is an irreplaceable loss—Jackson was one of the NFL’s most prolific deep receivers in the league in 2016, with 16 catches of 20 or more yards downfield for 579 yards and three touchdowns, and his ability to take the top off a coverage even when he wasn’t Cousins’ target isn’t something any other receiver on the team possesses. Now, Cousins will have to rely far more on his own mechanics to get those deep completions happening, and it’s entirely possible that he’ll regress to his 2015 numbers.

As a result, it’s impossible to put him on this list, no matter how great his 2016 was—the best deep throwers in the NFL maintain a high rate of explosive-play consistency regardless of the personnel around them. Cousins has yet to prove that.

And that’s what the top 10 deep throwers on this list have in common—no matter the quality of their offensive lines, the diversity of their offensive schemes or the talents of their receiver corps, these quarterbacks stretch the field and test defenses most consistently and accurately.

All advanced stats are from Pro Football Focus unless otherwise noted.