Canton Pace: Is He Keeping Up With the Best Since 1999?

How it works

Same position, same number of seasons. A receiver in his 4th season at wide receiver is measured against the top 10 wide receivers’ first 4 seasons at wide receiver, not their first 4 seasons in the league.

Since 1999, not all time

Our stats come from nflverse, whose player statistics begin with the 1999 season. Seasons before 1999 are not in the data, so every list here is the top 10 since 1999. It is not an all-time list, and these are not “the all-time greats”: Walter Payton, Joe Montana, Barry Sanders and every other career that finished before 1999 are simply not in it.

• Who can be one of the 10: only players whose careers began in 1999 or later. A career that began earlier would show up with its first seasons missing, so its “first 4 seasons” would really be seasons 6 to 9. We take the start year from nflverse’s season rosters (the rookie year, or the season minus years of experience). A player whose first nflverse season is 1999 and whose start year is not recorded is treated as possibly starting earlier and left out.
• That rule leaves out some players who would otherwise rank in a top 10 on their 1999-and-later seasons alone, such as Peyton Manning (rookie year 1998), Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Tony Gonzalez and Tiki Barber. The Rankings tab lists them by name under each position.
• How the 10 are ranked: by career adjusted yards (below) over every full season at the position from 1999 to 2025. Totals reward long, productive careers, which is what a top-10 list of careers should do. The 2026 season is still being played, so it is not used to pick the 10.

What counts as a season at a position

• His position that season is the one nflverse’s season roster lists him at (the most common listing if he appears more than once that year). A player can have seasons at more than one position: Cordarrelle Patterson is listed at wide receiver through 2020 and at running back from 2021. Fullback seasons are not counted as running back seasons.
• A full season counts when he appeared in at least 8 games with a recorded statistic (about half a season) and was used at the position: at least 100 dropbacks (pass attempts plus sacks) for a quarterback, at least 50 touches (carries plus receptions) for a running back, at least 20 touches for a wide receiver or tight end.
• The 2026 season, still under way, counts for a current player when he has played at least half of his team’s games so far and his usage is at least the full-season floor scaled by his team’s games over 17. It is labelled “2026 to date”, and its totals cover only the weeks played.
• Seasons do not need to be in a row; seasons elsewhere, or short seasons, are skipped. A current player with games at his position but no season that counts yet (a rookie with a handful of games, say) is shown as Year 1 (partial), using his most recent season there, and is left off the leaderboard.

The comparison

• N is the number of seasons the current player has at the position. Each of the top 10 contributes his first N seasons there. One who played fewer than N seasons there contributes all of his and is flagged.
• A current player who is himself in the top 10 (Travis Kelce at tight end, for example) is left out of his own comparison and measured against the other nine.
• The top-10 average averages their totals; its rates are computed from those averaged totals. Every rate on the page is computed from summed totals, never by averaging seasons.
• A season’s numbers are the player’s whole regular season, as nflverse sums it. Playoff games are not included.

The Canton Pace score

100 means exactly level with the top-10 average at the same point. 120 means 20% better; 80 means 20% worse.

• Quarterbacks: adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A) = (passing yards + 20 × passing TDs − 45 × interceptions − sack yards) ÷ (attempts + sacks). His ANY/A ÷ the top-10 ANY/A × 100. Rushing and expected points added (EPA) per dropback are shown but not scored: a ratio of EPA, which sits near zero and can be negative, is not a stable score.
• Running backs, wide receivers and tight ends: adjusted scrimmage yards per game = (rushing yards + receiving yards + 20 × rushing and receiving TDs − 45 × fumbles lost on runs and catches) ÷ games. His figure ÷ the top-10 figure × 100. Per game, so a season cut short does not count against him.
• The 20-yard touchdown and 45-yard turnover weights are the ones ANY/A uses, applied the same way at every position.
• 115 and up: ahead of the legends’ pace · 100 to 114: on their pace · 85 to 99: within striking distance · below 85: behind their pace.
• A pace score measures production at the position. It does not measure blocking, route running that draws coverage, or the team around a player, and it is not a forecast.

Data and limits

• Statistics: nflverse (nflverse-data player statistics, season level 1999 to 2025, and 2026 weekly statistics summed through the last completed week), released under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Positions and career start years: nflverse season rosters. We combined, summed and rated them; nflverse does not endorse this page.
• Regular season only. Teams listed for past seasons are each player’s last team that season; for 2026, every team he has played for.
• Fumbles lost are those nflverse credits on runs and catches; quarterbacks’ fumbles are not part of ANY/A.
• The snapshot is rebuilt when we refresh it; the date of the data is shown at the bottom of the page.

Data as of: see above.