I remember a prominent NFL quarterback in the 1990s complaining to me about all the cheap touchdown passes - the 1-, 2- and 3-yarders - quarterbacks in West Coast offenses were collecting, inflating their statistics.
Steve Young won the NFL MVP award with the Super Bowl-champion San Francisco 49ers in 1994, when he led the league with 35 touchdown passes. Twenty-two of them covered 10 yards or fewer. Nine went 5 yards or fewer.
Brett Favre won the NFL MVP award with the Super Bowl-champion Green Bay Packers in 1996, when he set an NFC record (since broken) with 39 touchdown passes. Seventeen were 10 yards or shorter, including five 1-yard scoring strikes.
So I've made it a point since the mid-1990s to look beyond the number of TD passes thrown by a quarterback to the average distance of his scores. The number of passes represents quantity - but the yardage amassed on those throws represents quality.
Matt Ryan of Atlanta, Tony Romo of the Cowboys, Chad Pennington of Miami and Ben Roethlisberger of Pittsburgh aren't going to the Pro Bowl this season, but they are four of the five quarterbacks averaging better than 20 yards per touchdown pass this season.
The rookie Ryan leads the NFL with an average of 26.7 yards per score. Romo leads the league with six TDs of 50 yards or more.
Eli Manning of the Super Bowl-champion Giants has thrown 21 touchdown passes, but none longer than 40 yards. He's going to the Pro Bowl. So is Arizona's Kurt Warner, who leads the league with 18 TD passes of 10 yards or fewer.
Who dinks and dunks, who doesn't
Here's a list of the quarterbacks who have thrown at least 15 touchdown passes this season. It includes the average distance of each score, the number of TDs 50 yards or longer and the TDs 10 yards or shorter:
Quarterback Team TD Avg. 50+ 10-
Matt Ryan Atl 15 26.7 4 5
Tony Romo Dal 26 25.6 6 8
Drew Brees NO 30 23.0 3 10
Chad Pennington Mia 17 21.4 3 5
Ben Roethlisberger Pit 17 20.4 2 6
Philip Rivers SD 32 19.2 2 13
Matt Cassel NE 21 19.14 2 8
Jay Cutler Den 24 19.12 2 11
Kyle Orton Chi 16 18.4 2 6
Tyler Thigpen KC 17 15.8 0 8
Peyton Manning Ind 26 15.2 2 15
Brett Favre NYJ 21 14.7 1 9
Aaron Rodgers GB 25 14.3 0 15
Kurt Warner Ariz 26 14.4 4 18
Donovan McNabb Phil 21 13.2 1 15
Eli Manning NYG 21 11.8 0 12
Past QBs Year TD Avg. 50+ 10-
Steve Young, SF 1994 35 16.6 4 22
Brett Favre, GB 1996 39 19.5 5 17
