Matthew Stafford sets Lions passing-yardage record in his fifth season

Matthew Stafford in on pace to set all sorts of records for the Detroit Lions. (Gene J. Puskar/AP) Admittedly, it helps when your current franchise quarterback

Doug Farrar | Nov 17, 2013

Matthew Stafford sets Lions passing-yardage record in his fifth season /

Matthew Stafford in on pace to set all sorts of records for the Detroit Lions. (Gene J. Puskar/AP)

Admittedly, it helps when your current franchise quarterback has led the league in passing attempts twice in his career, and it's also favorable when your franchise has a history of unimpressive quarterbacks. But what Matthew Stafford did for the Detroit Lions on Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers is historically impressive, to be sure.

When Stafford threw a 79-yard touchdown pass to Calvin Johnson with 10:27 left in the second quarter, he passed Hall of Famer Bobby Layne as the franchise's all-time leader in passing yards. Stafford, in just his fifth season, set the mark with 15,782 yards to Layne's 15,710 from 1950 through '57. And in his 55th NFL game, Stafford also became the fourth-fastest player to reach 100 career touchdown passes, behind only Dan Marino (44 games), Kurt Warner (50 games) and Johnny Unitas (53 games).

Even more interestingly, Stafford and Layne attended the same high school -- Highland Park High in Dallas. And now it's Stafford, who has a cherished record in his fifth season for a franchise that has been around since 1930.

Scott Linehan said

Published Nov 17, 2013

DOUG FARRAR

SI.com contributing NFL writer and Seattle resident Doug Farrar started writing about football locally in 2002, and became Football Outsiders' West Coast NFL guy in 2006. He was fascinated by FO's idea to combine Bill James with Dr. Z, and wrote for the site for six years. He wrote a game-tape column called "Cover-2" for a number of years, and contributed to six editions of "Pro Football Prospectus" and the "Football Outsiders Almanac." In 2009, Doug was invited to join Yahoo Sports' NFL team, and covered Senior Bowls, scouting combines, Super Bowls, and all sorts of other things for Yahoo Sports and the Shutdown Corner blog through June, 2013. Doug received the proverbial offer he couldn't refuse from SI.com in 2013, and that was that. Doug has also written for the Seattle Times, the Washington Post, the New York Sun, FOX Sports, ESPN.com, and ESPN The Magazine. He also makes regular appearances on several local and national radio shows, and has hosted several podcasts over the years. He counts Dan Jenkins, Thomas Boswell, Frank Deford, Ralph Wiley, Peter King, and Bill Simmons as the writers who made him want to do this for a living. In his rare off-time, Doug can be found reading, hiking, working out, searching for new Hendrix, Who, and MC5 bootlegs, and wondering if the Mariners will ever be good again.