This weekend could mark the end of an era when Drew Brees goes head-to-head with Tom Brady in an NFL playoff matchup of golden oldies. Brees is 41, Brady 43, and there were times this year when they looked it, but both have returned to form in time to contend for another championship.
Brady is determined to return next season and the season after that; Brees appears to be less certain about the future.
If he retires, Brees will leave the game as the all-time career leader in passing yards. He won’t get to enjoy that claim long. Brady is only 1,154 yards behind him.
Passing records have an increasingly short lifespan in the golden age of passing, when the top-25 lists for passing and receiving — career and single-season — are dominated by players who have played in the last dozen years or so.
In 1978, Fran Tarkenton retired with the career passing yardage record of 47,003 yards. That mark endured 17 years.
In 1995, Dan Marino broke Tarkenton’s record. It endured 12 years.
In 2007, Brett Favre broke Marino’s mark. It endured eight years.
In 2015, Peyton Manning broke Favre’s mark. It endured three years.
In 2018, Brees broke Manning’s record. It will likely endure less than one year.
In 2021, if Brees retires this offseason, Brady will break the record some time next season.
They have each passed for about 80,000 yards (Brees 80,358, Brady 79,204) — or a combined total of about 90 miles. By comparison, Tarkenton’s old long-standing record now seems quaint.
If Brady does break Brees’ record next season it probably won’t endure long either, even if he does play until 45, as he has stated, which would mean a 23-year NFL career.
In 2019, The Wall Street Journal ran a story under the headline: “The NFL’s passing records are becoming almost meaningless.”
Meaningless, because they are short-lived and because they underscore how ridiculous it is to compare players from different generations or attempt to name the greatest players of all time (the GOAT). Today’s NFL players play an entirely different game than the one they played even 20 years ago and it’s hardly even the same sport that was played in the ’60s.
The rules are different — for one thing, quarterbacks and receivers are protected like fine china (please, do not touch), making it nearly impossible to stop them. They also play more games — seasons once consisted of 12 games, then 14, now 16. And the style of play is dramatically different. It wasn’t that long ago that throwing the football was done grudgingly and offenses were run-dominated and conservative. The Packers of the ’60s, for example, didn’t run exotic formations — trips, empty, shot gun — putting five receivers at the line of scrimmage and the quarterback five yards deep in the backfield.
Brees and Brady have both thrown for twice as many yards as the great Joe Montana. For that matter, Montana has been surpassed by Matt Stafford, Carson Palmer, Vinny Testaverde, Joe Flacco and Kerry Collins.
Bart Starr, Johnny Unitas and Montana are three of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play, but their statistics are much inferior to today’s players, which shouldn’t be surprising. Starr averaged just 16 pass attempts per game, Unitas 24, Joe Montana 28. Tom Brady averages 35 attempts, Stafford 37.7. They throw more passes in the first half than Starr did in an entire game.
This season Stafford became the fastest to reach 40,000 yards.
Patrick Mahomes, who averages almost 37 passes per game, became the fastest to reach 10,000 yards. We haven’t seen anything yet. Ignoring Mahomes’ rookie year, when he played just one game, if he continues to play at this current pace and plays 20 years (Brees has played 20 and Brady 21) he will finish with 760 TD passes (179 more than Brady’s career record) and 92,453 passing yards (12,095 yards more than Brees’ career record). To put it another way, at his current pace Mahomes, who has played three complete seasons, will need just 2.3 more seasons to surpass what Starr produced in 16 seasons.
Unitas had 5,186 pass attempts during a 17-year career; Brady, Brees and Favre more than 10,000.
Not only are quarterbacks throwing many more passes than their predecessors, they also throw more efficiently because they are better trained and play in more creative schemes that open up the game. The top eight career pass efficiency marks are held by players who are still playing the game. Except for two marks by Peyton Manning, who retired only five years ago, 10 of the top 12 single-season pass efficiency marks are also held by active players.
The top nine players in career passing yards played the game within the last five seasons. Ditto for the single-season marks.
The great quarterbacks (and, for that matter, receivers) can only be compared to their contemporaries. Every once in a while, a couple of them actually meet on the field. That’s what will happen Sunday when Brady and Brees meet again, perhaps for the last time.