Brees’ Achievement Impressive Regardless of Era

As everyone knows, Drew Brees surpassed Dan Marino’s single season record of 5,084 yards on Monday night against the Atlanta Falcons. A great achievement when you consider the record was set 27 years ago. It was one of the few marks in the NFL that had any lasting meaning. In fact, it was probably just about the only league record any fans could recite when asked.

Not unexpectedly there were the immediate detractors stating that the record was set essentially because of rule changes that have been made in recent years, making defensive coverage more difficult and passing seemingly easier to do.

The five-yard contact rule was more strictly enforced starting in the mid 1990s; stricter penalties were levied against defenders using their helmets against offensive players or making any contact to the heads of opponents, particularly the quarterback; protecting the passer penalties were further emphasized in 2001; defenders were no longer able to hit a quarterback at or below the knees unless they were blocked into him as of 2006; and, 3 years later, a defender already on the ground was no longer able to lunge or dive at the QB’s lower legs.

Knowing most rule changes have been made in recent decades with the ideas of both player safety (indirectly creating a more offensive friendly environment) and promoting more offence in mind, I’ve just assumed that teams were all moving the ball, particularly via the pass, a great deal more than they did certainly 50 but even 25 or 15 years earlier.

Watching Brees set the record on Monday Night Football I was surprised when they gave some statistics that supported the quality of his feat. The broadcast showed that in 1984, the year Marino set the record, an NFL team passed for 228 yards on average. The average per team this year was 243 yards, a 6.5% increase but certainly less than I would have thought, given the way broadcasters refer to the current ‘pass-happy’ era. As well, Marino’s totals for the year averaged out to 318 yards passing per game, whereas Brees has averaged 339 yards or about 6.6 % higher per game that Marino averaged. Brees had actually averaged 343 prior to Monday night’s game, meaning the amount he passed per game over the average would have been a few percentage points higher than the Miami Dolphin great managed back in the 80s.

I’ve had the impression that passing had increased enormously and that any breaking of the coveted passing record was mostly a product of the state of the game. Obviously the record setting performance is a little more about Brees and little less about rule changes than most people, myself included, had been led to believe.