Sizing Up the Race to 6,000 Passing Yards
Dan Marino set a record in 1984 that went untouched for decades.
The Hall of Famer threw for 5,084 yards, which surpassed Dan Fouts’s record of 4,802 set three years earlier. Marino became the NFL’s single-season passing leader in just his second year as a pro. More importantly, he became the first player in league history to cross the 5,000-yard threshold.
Marino was the only member of that club for almost a quarter century, until Drew Brees joined him in 2008. Since then, seven more signal-callers have reached that plateau: Tom Brady (twice), Patrick Mahomes (twice), Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Matthew Stafford, Justin Herbert and Jameis Winston.
Thirty-nine years after Marino created a new frontier, no quarterback has even come close to the next logical milestone. But one did entertain the idea this offseason.
“I want to throw for, like, 6,000 yards with the weapons we have,” Lamar Jackson said in May.
Exaggeration or not, the former league MVP’s lofty goal begs the question: What exactly would it take for a quarterback to accomplish this feat?
The technical answer is easy: It would take 352.941176 passing yards per game over 17 weeks to hit 6,000 on the dot. Let’s call it 353 to keep things neat.
Well, no quarterback has ever averaged 350 passing yards per game, let alone 353. Manning and Brees are tied for the all-time record: 342.3. Even if they had the benefit of a 17th game, both Manning and Brees still would have fallen about 180 yards short of 6,000.
Brees is responsible for five of the 15 5,000-yard seasons in NFL history. But the single-season record? That belongs to Manning. He threw for 5,477 yards in 2013 — one more than Brees’s 2011 total.
Brady, Mahomes and Herbert have all utilized the 17th game, which was introduced in 2021, to break 5,000 (Brady also did it in 16 games back in 2011). Still, none of them has even hit 5,400 yards like Manning and Brees did in 16 games.
Those two called it a career years ago and Brady (so he says) isn’t walking back through those doors. So which active signal-callers are on the short list to make a run at 6,000 yards?
Joe Camporeale/USA TODAY Sports (Mahomes); Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports (Herbert); Jay Biggerstaff/USA TODAY Sports (Burrow)
Mahomes, obviously. Herbert, as one of the four active members of the 5,000-yard club, also belongs in the conversation. Joe Burrow has not yet sniffed 5,000, but given his age, talent level and – perhaps most importantly – infrastructure, it’s not out of the question.
Jackson would have to almost double his career-high of 3,127 yards, which is a stretch – even with the addition of receivers Zay Flowers and Odell Beckham Jr.
The only other quarterbacks who may have a case are Josh Allen and Trevor Lawrence. The former has thrown for more than 4,500 yards just once in his career and his willingness to take off and run limits his number of pass attempts. The latter could set records down the line if he continues to develop, but even coming off a 4,100-yard campaign in his second season, he’s still quite a ways away.
So let’s focus on the top three — Mahomes, Herbert and Burrow — starting with the reigning MVP.
Patrick Mahomes
Mahomes led the league in passing yards in 2022 with 5,250. Second place wasn’t even in shouting distance. In his first season without All-Pro receiver Tyreek Hill, who was traded to the Dolphins last summer, Mahomes set a new career high and posted the fourth-best total in NFL history.
It only took Mahomes 648 passes to do so. He threw 10 more times the year before and finished with 411 fewer yards. That leap in efficiency made all the difference between a “down” year by his otherworldly standards and a second league MVP award. But Mahomes has had more surgical seasons on a per-game and per-pass basis.
Mahomes was good for 308.8 yards per game and 8.1 yards per attempt in 2022. He matched that yards per attempt mark in 2020, when he led the league with 316 passing yards per game across 15 starts. And in his first season as a starter in 2018 — the year he won his first MVP and broke 5,000 yards for the first time — Mahomes averaged 8.8 yards per attempt and 318.6 yards per game, both career-highs. (Roethlisberger beat out Mahomes for the passing title that season by 32 yards, albeit on 95 more attempts.)
Bill Streicher/USA TODAY Sports
The case for 6k:
Based on Mahomes’s career average of 8.1 yards per attempt, it would take him 741 passes to crack 6,000. That’s eight more attempts than the record Brady set in 2022. If we go off Mahomes’s career-best 8.8 yards per attempt from 2018, it would take him 682 passes, which, while it’s a lofty figure, there’s at least some precedent. Brady (2021 and ‘22), Stafford (2012), Herbert (2022) and Drew Bledsoe (1994) have all thrown that many passes in a season before — Stafford and Bledsoe did so in 16 games.
So all it would take to hit 6,000 is the sixth-most passing attempts in NFL history and Mahomes matching a career-best mark in yards per attempt.
Mahomes reached 5,250 a season ago with just one 1,000-yard receiver (Travis Kelce). He might need another two or three to hit quadruple digits in order to help him hit the big 6,000. Brees had a pair of 1,000-yard pass-catchers in 2011 (Jimmy Graham and Marques Colston) and Manning also had two in 2013 (Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker). For what it’s worth, no current K.C. pass-catcher not named Kelce has ever logged a 700-yard season.
The case against 6k:
Even with a 17th game tacked on, the 2018 version of Mahomes would still have fallen short of 2013 Manning. Evidently, the league’s best passer needs to pass more — a lot more — in order to pioneer this new club. This is in spite of the fact that the Chiefs consistently lead the league in pass rate over expectation and rank among the leaders in pass rate.
It would surely help for Kansas City to not only go up against some suspect defenses but also to have a sieve-like unit itself to facilitate shootouts and juice Mahomes’s number of pass attempts. The Chiefs are, at worst, league average on that side of the ball and they’re up against one of the hardest schedules in the NFL in 2023, which is only made worse by a draw against the AFC East.
Justin Herbert
Scott Galvin/USA Today Sports
Herbert has never finished worse than sixth in passing yards across three seasons in the league. He was second in 2021 behind Brady; Mahomes beat him out in 2022. The sheer volume of passes doesn’t hurt his case: Herbert has the second-most attempts in the NFL since he was drafted in 2020, more than 100 more than third-place Mahomes and less than 100 shy of first-place Brady.
A rib injury hampered Herbert last season and his efficiency numbers plummeted. His yards per attempt, yards per game and quarterback rating were all down. Many of his efficiency stats were worse than his first two years except for completion percentage, which rose as his intended air yards per attempt fell more than a full yard.
With Herbert, the volume is already there; his pass attempts are consistently in the high 600s. His per-pass efficiency, however, is not nearly on Mahomes’s level. Mahomes’s career-low yards per attempt is 7.4; Herbert’s career-high is 7.5.
The case for 6k:
If we use Herbert’s career average of 7.2 yards per attempt, it would take him a whopping 834 pass attempts to break 6,000. That’s 101 more passes than the all-time record. However, that career average was dragged down quite a bit by Herbert’s 2022 campaign. If we use his career-best 7.5 yards per attempt from 2021… he would still need 800 attempts. Herbert would need to throw more than 47 times per game to reach 800. Brady averaged just over 43 attempts per game when he set the record last season.
Considering Herbert’s heading into his fourth season and is still just 25 years old, we can project some growth. The Chargers also brought in offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, who helped Dak Prescott dramatically increase his yards per attempt in Dallas. In three seasons before Moore became the Cowboys’ coordinator, Prescott averaged 7.4 yards per attempt. In four years with Moore, Prescott’s yards per attempt rose to 7.8, peaking at 8.4 across a blistering five-game start in 2020.
Perhaps Moore’s arrival, good health for deep threat Mike Williams and the addition of first-round receiver Quentin Johnston can help Herbert hover closer to the 8.0 yards per attempt range, which would make 6,000 quite a bit more manageable, though still a tall task. Herbert attempted 699 passes last season — the fourth-most ever — if he gets into the low 700s and sees a sizable boost in his yards per attempt, there’s certainly a chance.
The case against 6k:
Herbert has never averaged 300 yards per game for a season — he peaked at 294.9 in 2021. That’s more than 50 yards shy of the requisite average necessary to make 6,000 a reality. The Chargers’ top two receiving options are also not necessarily field stretchers. Keenan Allen and Austin Ekeler are reliable targets for Herbert, but they do most of their damage short of the sticks.
Based on his current production, Herbert would have to air the ball out a lot more often to even come close to 6,000. Los Angeles, like Kansas City, is already among the league leaders in passing rate and pass rate over expectation, so there’s not a lot of room for Herbert to throw much more. The Chargers are also up against one of the toughest schedules in the NFL in 2023 and their defense does enough to ensure that every game — even in the AFC West with two bouts annually against the Chiefs — doesn’t turn into a shootout.
Joe Burrow
Sam Greene/The Enquirer/USA Today Network
Burrow doesn’t throw as often as some other elite passers. That’s at least in part due to the fact that he played 16 games each of the last two seasons while Mahomes and Herbert played all 17. Burrow finished 15th in attempts (520) in 2021 and sixth in passing yards (4,611). The five quarterbacks ahead of him all threw at least 600 passes, but Burrow’s league-leading yards per attempt (8.9) allowed him to finish among the NFL’s best despite his relatively low volume.
Last year was the first time Burrow aired out more than 600 passes in a season. Some of his efficiency metrics (completion percentage, yards per attempt) regressed as his attempts rose, but he remains one of the most accurate signal-callers in the league.
If Burrow’s attempts continue trending upward and he can repeat (or even improve upon) his 2021 yards per attempt mark, then he has just as good a shot as Mahomes or Herbert of making history.
The case for 6k:
Burrow’s 7.7 career yards per attempt falls between that of Mahomes and Herbert. He’s had a lower low (6.7 as a rookie) and a higher high (8.9 as a sophomore) than either of them. If Burrow were to repeat that mark from his second season, it would take him just 675 attempts to reach 6,000. That’s a realistic number of passes, even if it’s 155 more than he threw that year and 69 more than his career high.
There have been seven seasons in NFL history in which a quarterback logged that many attempts — three have happened in the last two years. However, none of those quarterbacks eclipsed even eight yards per attempt, so Burrow would still be operating in uncharted territory.
More than any other quarterback in the league, Burrow is set up with the weapons to help him make history. His college teammate, Ja’Marr Chase, has already established himself as one of the league’s elite receivers as he heads into his third season. He’s just 23 years old. And opposite him is Tee Higgins, an overqualified No. 2 option who’s turned in back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons despite being out-targeted by Chase. Higgins is 24. This trio, though they’re about to become very expensive, should be together for years to come.
The case against 6k:
Burrow finished with 4,611 yards in his most prolific season as a passer. Based on his per-game average of 282.3 yards, even a 17th game would have left him just shy of 4,900 yards. The Bengals’ passing percentage shot up last season and they finished second only to the Chiefs in pass rate above expectation in 2022. There’s still some room for Burrow to increase his number of attempts, but running back Joe Mixon agreeing to return on a discount does not bode well for Cincinnati abandoning the run.
The Bengals have a relatively tough schedule this season and they play in a division that’s home to some of the league’s better secondaries: Cleveland and Baltimore. Those matchups will make it even harder for Burrow to crack 5,000 yards, let alone approach 6,000. However, some high-profile departures on defense may put more pressure on Cincinnati’s offense going forward.
Conclusion
While no quarterback has ever come close to 6,000 passing yards in the regular season, six have done it with the inclusion of postseason stats. Brees, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Brady, Marino and Stafford have all done so with the help of a few extra playoff games.
Perhaps the league’s latest schedule expansion will allow for a 6,000-yard season to come to fruition — or perhaps it will have to wait until an 18th game is introduced. After all, Marino’s 5,000-yard season happened six years after the schedule expanded from 14 to 16 games and even then it was years before other quarterbacks followed suit.
The convoluted calculations it took for Mahomes, Herbert and Burrow to hypothetically throw for 6,000 show just how difficult it would be. Passing volume is on the rise, but nothing would help a quarterback make history more than an extra game. Even the league’s best passers are still hundreds of yards shy of Manning’s record, let alone a new frontier.
