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Dropped passes are a subjective statistic across different platforms. It’s not an official stat kept by the NFL. But in any metric or measurement, the Detroit Lions rank near the worst in the league in drops by receivers.
At NBC Sports, the Lions are second with 21 drops. Pro Football Focus has the Lions with 29. Those statistics are charitable across the board compared to Pro Football Reference, which tends to be the standard statistical book of record.
The Lions have 31 dropped passes per PFR, second only to Pittsburgh (37). The drop rate of 6.6 percent is also second-worst in the league, again to the Steelers (7.0).
The leading culprit, in terms of drop rate, is running back Adrian Peterson. He’s got three drops on 18 targets for a rate of 16.7 percent. Marvin Hall logged four drops on 30 targets, part of the reason why the Lions dumped him recently. T.J. Hockenson has the most drops with seven, though his volume of targets makes the tight end have a lesser drop rate than RBs Kerryon Johnson and D’Andre Swift and WR Quintez Cephus.
From Pro Football Reference:
| No. | Player | Age | Pos | G | GS | Tgt | Rec | Yds | TD | Drop | Drop% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 88 | T.J. Hockenson | 23 | TE | 13 | 13 | 88 | 58 | 657 | 6 | 7 | 8.0 |
| 11 | Marvin Jones | 30 | WR | 13 | 13 | 89 | 55 | 667 | 6 | 4 | 4.5 |
| 80 | Danny Amendola | 35 | wr | 11 | 3 | 56 | 37 | 539 | 0 | 2 | 3.6 |
| 32 | D’Andre Swift | 21 | rb | 10 | 1 | 44 | 35 | 301 | 2 | 4 | 9.1 |
| 19 | Kenny Golladay | 27 | wr | 5 | 5 | 32 | 20 | 338 | 2 | 2 | 6.3 |
| 33 | Kerryon Johnson | 23 | rb | 13 | 2 | 23 | 17 | 170 | 1 | 2 | 8.7 |
| 17 | Marvin Hall | 27 | wr | 11 | 5 | 30 | 17 | 290 | 2 | 4 | 13.3 |
| 87 | Quintez Cephus | 22 | wr | 10 | 2 | 27 | 16 | 253 | 1 | 3 | 11.1 |
| 83 | Jesse James | 26 | te | 13 | 7 | 19 | 12 | 116 | 2 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 39 | Jamal Agnew | 25 | wr | 11 | 1 | 19 | 12 | 76 | 0 | 1 | 5.3 |
| 28 | Adrian Peterson | 35 | RB | 13 | 10 | 18 | 12 | 101 | 0 | 3 | 16.7 |
| 12 | Mohamed Sanu | 31 | wr | 4 | 1 | 8 | 8 | 105 | 1 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 41 | Jonathan Williams | 26 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 21 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| 45 | Jason Cabinda | 24 | mlb | 13 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 89 | Isaac Nauta | 23 | 7 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | |
| Ty Johnson | 23 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | ||
| 9 | Matthew Stafford | 32 | QB | 13 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Team Total | 464 | 306 | 3645 | 23 | 32 | 6.9 |
For a point of comparison for Hockenson, Steelers TE Eric Ebron also has seven drops but owns a higher drop rate of 8.4 because he has fewer targets. Pittsburgh’s Diontae Johnson leads the NFL with 12 drops, followed by Buffalo’s Stefon Diggs, Giants TE Evan Engram and Seattle’s Tyler Lockett with eight apiece.