I’ll Take A Quarter, Back

by PJ Negri

Follow @PJNegri

I hope everyone has been enjoying the NFL Playoffs so far this season. It has been very exciting thus far. Who would have thought Tim Tebow and the Broncos could beat the big bad Steelers? And the 49ers won the shootout in Candlestick over the Saints! As exciting as the playoffs have been, I want to take some time to talk about the regular season, more specifically the quarterbacks during the regular season.

Here is a list of the top 5 passing performances (for the purposes of this, we are only looking at passing yardage) in the history of the NFL:

Rank	Player Name	Total Yards	Year	Team
1.	Drew Brees	5,476	2011	NOR
2.	Tom Brady	5,235	2011	NWE
3.	Dan Marino	5,084	1984	MIA
4.	Drew Brees	5,069	2008	NOR
5.	Matthew Stafford	5,038	2011	DET

Mariner

The most important thing to note here is the “Year” column. Four of the top five passing seasons happened in the past three years. This season (2011) includes three of those seasons and two in specific (one by Tom Brady and one by Drew Brees), that broke Dan Marino’s single season passing record. This is quite astounding when you think about it. Dan Marino was the first player in NFL history to throw for 5,000+ yards in a single season when he did so in 1984. Then no one threw for 5,000+ yards in a season again until 2008.

So let’s take a second to think about this. The NFL first started in 1920, if you count the American Professional Football Association. That means for 88 years only two players (yes you read that right only two!!) threw for 5,000+ yards in a single season.

Now let’s dive deeper into the numbers.  The league started with 11 teams, but now contains 32. For arguments sake, let’s just say there have been 22 teams in the league each year (and that is low-balling it).  Assuming each team has at least one QB on their team every season so in that time period (1920 – 2008) there were 1,936 opportunities for a QB to throw for 5,000+ yards. (Through 2011 is 2,002 opportunities) If you look at the percentage, 2 out of 1,936 is .1%. This means through 2008, the likelihood of a player throwing for 5,000+ yards in a season is roughly 1 out of every 1,000.

With that said, take a look at the chart above again. Not one, not two, but three! Yes THREE!! Players accomplished that feat this season (Brees (5,476) Brady (5,235) and Stafford (5,038)). So what gives? Are the quarterbacks of today that much better than the quarterbacks of old? Do not get me wrong they are good, but that can’t be the only reason, can it? Is it possible that this is a fluke? Will we not see a 5,000+ season for another 90 years? If that is the case most of us will not even see it.

One thing to consider is the rule change moving the kickoff up to the 35 yard line as oppose to the 30 which caused an increase touchbacks. This means offenses general needed to go more yards to get into scoring position, which logically could lead to more passing yards on passing teams. Still three in one season after happening only twice in 90 years!?!? But who knows, maybe we are in a once in a lifetime era of the quarterback? Tell us what you think below! But before you do that that check out this list of Hall of Fame QBs who never threw for 5,000+ yards in a season, just a little more food for thought.

v    1.      Joe Montana    

      2.    Steve Young

      3.      Roger Staubach

      4.      Troy Aikman

      5.      Johnny Unitas 

      6.      John Elway

      7.      Bart Starr

      8.      Y.A. Tittle

     9.      Fran Tarkenton

      10.  Warren Moon

And yes ... This list continues for a while