Why has the NFL record for passing yards in a game (554) remained intact since 1951?

The Game Room
1

The NFL is a far more pass-happy league today than 70 years ago, but somehow all the Bradys/Mannings/Rodgers/Mahomes/Romos since then have not managed to get 555 passing yards in a game. Is this just one of those things that’s just waiting to be cracked but requires some unusual circumstances?

2

One big part of that record was that the 1951 Yanks were an epically bad team with barely a home and basically went defunct at the end of the season. They kind of managed one more season as the Dallas Texans in 1952.

Noticed some of the other Yards allowed that season. They stunk.

Week Day Date OT Rec Opp Tm Opp 1stD TotYd PassY RushY TO 1stD TotYd PassY RushY TO
1 Fri September 28 boxscore L 0-1 @ Los Angeles Rams 14 54 13 111 8 103 34 722 541 181 5
2 Mon October 8 boxscore L 0-2 @ Detroit Lions 10 37 18 258 151 107 3 16 307 148 159 1
3 Sun October 14 boxscore L 0-3 @ Chicago Bears 21 24 17 321 130 191 2 21 452 141 311 3
4 Sun October 21 boxscore T 0-3-1 @ Detroit Lions 24 24 19 242 178 64 1 24 407 326 81 2
5 Sun October 28 boxscore L 0-4-1 Green Bay Packers 27 29 17 418 319 99 3 18 340 276 64 3
6 Sun November 4 boxscore L 0-5-1 @ New York Giants 31 37 24 286 215 71 3 12 289 235 54 3
7 Sun November 11 boxscore L 0-6-1 @ San Francisco 49ers 14 19 12 245 139 106 2 23 468 223 245 3
8 Sun November 18 boxscore L 0-7-1 @ Los Angeles Rams 21 48 24 479 255 224 3 24 574 203 371 1
9 Sun November 25 boxscore T 0-7-2 San Francisco 49ers 10 10 14 283 149 134 5 22 337 103 234 2
10 Sun December 2 boxscore W 1-7-2 @ Green Bay Packers 31 28 18 371 288 83 3 23 437 242 195 7
11 Sun December 9 boxscore L 1-8-2 Chicago Bears 21 45 20 360 248 112 2 30 485 149 336 2
12 Sun December 16 boxscore L 1-9-2 New York Giants 17 27 15 374 331 43 9 10 237 71 166 2
3

My guess is that the 2 deep zones common anymore have more or less eliminated the long bombs which would likely be necessary to pull that off. Better maintained fields help the defense more than the pass receiver/ball carrier too. I was watching some Gale Sayers highlights last week, and yeah he was an amazing athlete with insane body control, but they were constantly missing him because they couldn’t react quickly enough to his moves on the muddy fields in a lot of the clips.

The Michigan/OSU game yest. was very illustrative (yeah college but making a point). OSU’s safeties and their pathetic play basically were the difference, but safeties that hopeless would never get near an NFL starting job.

Plus records typically are set in fluky circumstances-3 QBs have made runs at Van Brocklin’s record in the last 10 years but came up 30 or so yards short.

4

Good lord. They played the Rams twice: in the first game, the Yanks gave up the 554 passing yards; in the second game, they gave up 371 rushing yards to the Rams.

5

Just for grins, I Googled ‘500 yards passing in a game’ and found this site. Some of the qbs who have achieved 500 yards in a game are really not who you might expect to find on this list. Such as Derek Carr, Elvis Grbac, Matt Schaub, and Vince Ferragamo.

6

Cool list. If I read it right, Brees and Roethlisberger are the only ones to have 2
two 500 yd games, and no one has 3.

7

Upon further review, here’s an updated list. Brady has two such games, and Big Ben actually has three! One in a playoff game…that the Steelers lost to the Browns.

8

Part of the issue is that teams tend to pass more when they’re losing, or at least when the game is close. Teams that are ahead will use a conservative running attack, to avoid mistakes and run out the clock. So to break this record, you kind of need to have a QB who’s being ultra successful, but also somehow not winning at the same time.

For example, Josh Allen had 348 passing yards in the first half against the Steelers earlier this year, on pace to destroy the record. But he only ended up with 424 at the end of the game, because Buffalo was way ahead for the whole second half.

9

Nearly everyone on the list, other than Norm Van Brocklin (the record holder) and Y.A. Tittle, is from the last 40 years, and most of them in the last 20 years, reflecting the increasing emphasis of the passing game. But, it still begs the question of, why does Van Brocklin and the Rams still hold the record, 71 years later?

As @What_Exit showed, the '51 Yanks were a really bad team; they finished 1-9-2, had the worst defense in the NFL that year, and folded at the end of the season.

But, the Rams, on the other hand, were one of the league’s best teams, and had the #1 ranked offense, thanks to what was likely the NFL’s best passing offense. They had Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield at quarterback, and end Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch was the best receiver in the league.

Looking at the game stats (link below), the Rams attempted 42 passes, while rushing 29 times; that kind of pass-first balance is common today, but would have been unusual in 1951. They also ran for 181 yards, so they had over 700 yards of total offense (which is just a ridiculous total). Given that Hirsch caught two TD passes in the second half, my guess is that they just kept throwing all game long, against an outmatched defense, which was unable to stop them, either on the ground or in the air.

As to why the hasn’t been broken yet – part of it is probably luck, given that nearly two dozen other quarterbacks have thrown for 500+ in the past 40 years (so, guys have come close a number of times). But, part may also be a general tendency of coaches to throttle back a bit once they are comfortably ahead – pass less, and certainly not pass deep very often (as in the example that @borschevsky just shared, of Josh Allen, earlier this year). The stats suggest that the Rams might not have done so in that game.

10

The second list that I linked shows 26 500-yard games. 12 of those came in a losing effort, and 3 of the winners happened in overtime.

One of the more amazing stats (to me, anyway) is the game in which Phil Simms threw for 513 yards…but only one touchdown.

I’m going to speculate that if/when the record is broken, it will be in a shootout, similar to the 54-51 game between the Rams and Chiefs in 2018. Both quarterbacks threw for over 400 yards in that game.

11

Interesting to compare to CFL stats. Of the top 10 passing games, 8 are for more than 554 yards. The top all time is 713 yards. All of the records are from the 90s or earlier, but after the Yanks game.

12

Good lord, I’ve never heard of Dunigan, but he grew up and played high school ball just down the road from me.

That’s a lot of passing yards.

13

Did you notice how the so called “Pro Football Hall of Fame” missed all of those?

14

I obviously cannot read and/or comprehend. Big Ben has four 500+ yards passing games.

15

Welcome to three-down football! Passing is a much bigger part of the game.

Dunnigan is an interesting cat. After his QB career was done, he’s been the head coach for the Calgary Stampeders (did not do very well), he was a CFL official for a season, wearing the stripes, and he’s had a long-standing gig as a commentator on TSN (“The Sports Network”), which has exclusive coverage of all CFL games. Also had a food show on “Grilling with Matt” and various endorsements. I think he’s generally well-liked.

Interestingly, he suffers from post-concussion trauma and has come public with it; has various short-term memory issues, speech issues, and other problems. When all the stories started breaking about the consequences of concussion, he pulled his teenage son from football. Said it was a very hard decision, given how much he loved football and how good it had been for him, but he could not take a chance of the same thing happening to his son, once the research came out.

16

I am curious why 6 of those top CFL records were in the 90s, and none since. I can’t think of a rule change that could have led to the 90s being so pass-happy, and not since. Maybe defence tightened up?

17

WAG: since the CFL has 12 players per side, and a wider field, they likely play more 3 deep zones now.

18

It shows 541 yards passing here.

Some references say 554 yards; others say 541. Why the discrepancy?

19

Looking at the boxscore for the game (which I linked to above), it appears that there were 13 yards in losses via quarterback sacks (though the term “sack” hadn’t been coined yet in 1951). So, Van Brocklin passed for 554 yards (individual passing stats don’t deduct sack yardage), but the Rams’ total passing yards were calculated to be 541 (because team passing stats do take sacks into account).

20

I thought sacks counted against rushing yards.