On the Numbers: Peyton Manning’s passing yards record in perspective

Peyton Manning is the NFL’s all-time passing yards leader, passing Brett Favre on Sunday afternoon. Just how insane is his career through the air?

Peyton Manning set the NFL’s all-time passing yards record on Sunday on a four-yard completion to Ronnie Hillman with 10:37 remaining in the first quarter against the Chiefs, bringing him to 71,840 career yards. There was little doubt he would, as he entered Week 10 just two yards shy of the previous record, held by Brett Favre.

Manning, whose 35 yards through the air on the afternoon brought his career total to 71,871, now owns the career records for yards and touchdowns, along with the most MVP awards, but he squandered his chance to surpass Brett Favre’s wins record with a turnover-prone afternoon that resulted in a surprise benching in Denver’s 29–13 loss to Kansas City. 

Say what you want about his playoff record (or the legitimacy of QB wins as a stat, for that matter) but there’s no doubt Manning has made a case for himself as one of the best regular season quarterbacks ever, the quarterback with the best statistical career and any other number of arbitrary titles.

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At this point, comparing Manning to his peers is a pretty unfair fight. Unfortunately, Charles Woodson and Matt Hasselbeck are the only other players from the 1998 draft class still lining up to play on Sundays. And fellow class of 1998 quarterbacks Ryan Leaf, Charlie Batch, Jonathan Quinn, Brian Griese, John Dutton and Moses Moreno haven’t been heard from in a while.

So in the absence of other players, let’s compare Manning’s career passing yards to the passing stats of each entire franchise since his rookie season in 1998.

Manning vs. NFL franchises

The numbers below are accurate as of Sunday’s action. One thing to keep in mind: These are cumulative passing yards for each player on each team over that time frame. Team passing stats typically subtract yardage lost on sacks. But Manning’s individual numbers don’t lose the sack yardage, so neither should these teams’. But don’t worry—I’ve accounted for every yard, positive or negative. The Patriots get four yards from Adam Vinatieri, and the Ravens lose six yards thanks to Anquan Boldin.

New Orleans	76,626	Kansas City	63,564
Indianapolis	75,014	Oakland	63,017
Green Bay	74,080	Cincinnati	62,742*
New England	72,843	Seattle	61,930*
St. Louis	69,522	Tennessee	62,066
Denver	69,159	Miami	61,459
San Diego	67,753	Carolina	61,292
Philadelphia	67,698	Jacksonville	60,752
Detroit	67,599	Tampa Bay	60,567
Arizona	66,717*	San Francisco	60,144
NY Giants	66,981	Baltimore	59,989
Dallas	66,459	Buffalo	59,946
Minnesota	65,519	Chicago	59,577
Pittsburgh	65,412	NY Jets	58,948
Washington	64,125	Cleveland	55,015
Atlanta	64,112	Houston	50,025*

A few more housekeeping notes. Keep in mind that Cleveland has one fewer season than most other teams because the Browns didn’t return to the NFL until 1999. Along those lines, Houston was shorted five seasons because the Texans didn’t exist until 2002. And teams have played an unequal number of games this season. But to be fair, Manning also missed the whole 2011 season. 

This is always the danger in comparing counting stats. If this was a serious study, I would have converted them to yards per game for a fair comparison. But this is just for fun—Manning broke a counting stat record, and it’s more fun to look at the thousands of yards racked up than to compare smaller numbers with decimal points. Plus, I’ve done the math, and the Browns and Texans won’t suddenly be more prolific than Manning if you switch to yards per game.

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Still, we can draw some fun conclusions from the chart above. First, it seems like Manning has an astronomical amount of passing yards since coming into the league, but four teams have actually thrown for more yardage than he has! Not surprisingly, those teams were quarterbacked by Drew Brees, Tom Brady, the Brett Favre–Aaron Rodgers tandem, and Manning himself with a little help from Andrew Luck.

But the Saints, Colts, Packers and Patriots all lead Manning by a margin smaller than whatever each of those teams gained in 2011, so the list would look different if Manning hadn’t missed a season.

Mostly, it’s just fun to look at where all these teams rank since Manning came into the league, and notice things like, “Peyton Manning has thrown for 13,000 more yards than the Jets … and at least 10,000 more yards than the majority of the AFC East.”

Manning vs. first round draft classes

It’s not easy to draft a Peyton Manning. But how tough is it for an entire class of QBs to measure up to him statistically? Let’s make one more chart and compare Manning to various draft classes of first round quarterbacks.

This time it’ll only be first-round picks (apologies to guys like Tom Brady and Russell Wilson) and only quarterbacks (apologies to guys like Ladanian Tomlinson, who has 143 passing yards, and Randy Moss, who has 106). So how long has it been since an entire draft class surpassed Manning’s total? Not since his brother was drafted as part of the impressive 2004 trio (with a J.P. Losman cameo, of course). Here’s the full list.

Year	first-round qbs	passing yards
2004	Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, J.P. Losman	129,358
1999	Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, Akili Smith, Daunte Culpepper, Cade McNown	77,883
1998	Peyton Manning, Ryan Leaf	75,537
	Peyton Manning by himself	71,871
2005	Alex Smith, Aaron Rodgers, Jason Campbell	70,650
2003	Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman	67,446*
2008	Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco	58,891
2009	Matthew Stafford, Mark Sanchez, Josh Freeman	52,429
2012	Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Ryan Tannehill, Brandon Weeden	42,799
2006	Vince Young, Matt Leinart, Jay Cutler	42,823
2002	David Carr, Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey	35,075
2011	Cam Newton, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder	32,758
2001	Michael Vick	22,464
2000	Chad Pennington	17,823
2010	Sam Bradford, Tim Tebow	15,784
2014	Blake Bortles, Johnny Manziel, Teddy Bridgewater	11,126
2007	JaMarcus Russell, Brady Quinn	7,126
2015	Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota	3,954
2013	EJ Manuel	3,371

Sure, this comparison is totally unfair, dependent on how many quarterbacks came out each year and how much time they’ve spent in the league. But it’s still amazing that in the 17 draft classes since Manning entered the league, only two have surpassed his total passing yardage. And 1999 only did it because five quarterbacks were picked in the first round. In other words—couldn’t have done it without you, Cade McNown!

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It looks like both 2005 and 2008 are locks to eventually pass Manning, as is 2003 if Palmer has a few more healthy seasons. Plus the 2001 class gets cheated a bit because Drew Brees was the 32nd pick back when the first round only had 31 picks. He and Michael Vick together would have vaulted the 2001 class above Manning and all the way to second on this list.

And other classes will come along, depending on how good guys like Luck, Newton, Winston, Mariota and quarterbacks we haven’t even heard of yet can become.

In fact, many of Manning’s records will surely fall, as the passing game continues to take over the NFL and QBs are able to play longer careers.

But for now, the stats show Manning is on top of the football world, and even finding a fair comparison can sometimes take a bit of a stretch.