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Do touchdowns repeat from year to year?
Verdict — Much less than receptionsBarely. A player’s touchdowns per game carry over at 0.62 from one season to the next, against 0.81 for his receptions. Last year’s touchdown total is one of the weakest things you can draft on.
“He scored twelve times last year” is among the most repeated arguments in a draft room. It is also among the least predictive, and the comparison that shows it is simple: measure how well each statistic carries from one season to the next.
| Statistic | Year-to-year correlation | Player-seasons |
|---|---|---|
| Touchdowns per game | 0.62 | 1,645 |
| Receptions per game | 0.81 | 1,645 |
Touchdowns are volume multiplied by a rare event. The volume repeats; the rare event does not. A back who takes 14 carries a week will take 14 carries a week again. Whether three of them end in the end zone next year is close to a fresh draw.
This does not mean touchdowns are random. It means they are predicted by something other than themselves — goal-line work, team scoring, and snaps inside the ten. Project those and the scoring follows. Project last season’s touchdown count and you are extrapolating from noise.
How this was measured
Every player-season with at least ten games is paired with the same player’s following season, also with at least ten games, and the per-game rates are correlated across the pair. n = 1,645 season pairs, 2018–2025.