Larry Fitzgerald catches TD at 2009 Pro Bowl

gridiron football Gridiron football,"Gridiron football"
''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Ret ...

, a touchdown pass is a

pass Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to: Places *Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland * Pass, Poland, a village in Poland *Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see List of straits *Mountain pass, a lower place in a mountai ...

thrown from the passer (usually the

quarterback The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. In modern Ame ...

) to a receiver that results in a

touchdown A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Ameri ...

being scored. The pass can either be caught in the

end zone The end zone is the scoring area on the field, according to gridiron-based codes of football. It is the area between the end line and goal line bounded by the sidelines. There are two end zones, each being on an opposite side of the field. ...

itself, resulting in an immediate touchdown, or in the field of play, followed by the receiver carrying the ball into the endzone himself for the score. Either way, the quarterback is credited in his statistics with the touchdown pass. The term "touchdown pass" is mostly used for statistical purposes for the quarterback. The statistic is considered to be highly prestigious among quarterbacks, and is one of the four factors in determining the

passer rating Passer rating (also known as passing efficiency in college football) is a measure of the performance of passers, primarily quarterbacks, in gridiron football. There are two formulas currently in use: one used by both the National Football Leag ...

. In the game, the effect is simply the scoring of a touchdown (6 points). When a touchdown is achieved by running, the quarterback is not credited with a touchdown pass.

References

{{American football concepts American football terminology

See also

References