Crazy statistic is that Tom Brady is only roughly 2,500 yards away from 100,000 total career passing yards (regular & playoffs). For a comparison, the next closest active quarterback is Aaron Rodgers with 61,000.
Given how much modern QB’s rely on their legs, I wonder if this becomes a John Stockton like (unbreakable) record.
Almost all of Brady's records will be like Wilt Chamberlain rebounding and scoring records. No one is coming near them ever.
That is probably true, but given how much the game has changed, I don't know that will necessarily be true. It will take a guy to play a lot of years, but they won't need as many as Brady as they will have bigger per game numbers.
It would take someone 20 years of 5000 total yards (playoffs included) to reach 100k. Not sure that's possible
It's a bad take by Mo.
The numbers are so overwhelmingly high that, like you said, we're talking 20 completely healthy years of elite performance and elite playoff performance. Brady has almost 14,000 yards thrown in the playoffs. That's not easy, especially if the team isn't making the playoffs while the player is putting up huge regular season numbers.
Just look at Manning or Brees. HUGE passing numbers in the regular season. 18 years and 20 years respectively. Manning with just 7400 yards and Brees just 5400 yards in the playoffs.
Brady's numbers will never be seen again.
You’re probably right, but one thing that will help a future QB: an extra regular season game, and an extra team qualifying for the playoffs. The path is easier to put up stats now. It’s still incredibly unlikely anybody passes Brady.
I was thinking of someone like Mahomes who currently averages 301.4 yards a game. Brady's at 265.8. That is a lot of extra yards per game, and Mahomes has played in 11 playoff games in his 4 years as a starter (he played 1 game as a rookie), so he gets a lot of those (and he is at 307.4 yards per game in the playoffs). Mahomes in 4 years + 1 game as a rookie has 22,372 total yards or 5,593 a year, so that is just under 18 years (total) at that rate to hit 100k, and as you've said they recently added a game (and he had another 360 today which aren't in those numbers). I don't know if Mahomes will play long enough, but someone might and they are putting up huge numbers and most of the top guys plays immediately as rookies. I mean Herbert had 4336 as a 22 year old rookie and 5014 in his second year. The passing numbers are just insane these days.
The other thing we have to consider is we don't know how high Brady's numbers will be.
We thought last year was it but it wasn't. So we might see him tack on another 5000 yards and 40 TDs this year.
And what about next year? This could very well not be his last year. Dude could conceivably put up another 20,000 yards if he plays until he is 50. We all might scoff at that but people were scoffing at him playing until 40. And then again that he was going to play until 45. Still playing at 50? I'm not ruling it out.
That is fair, I was always assuming this would be his last year, but you are right, he may very well play longer. If this is his last year, he will end up around 102k combined. That is obviously a huge number, but it just doesn't strike me that it will never be matched given just how much prolific passing has become even in the 20 years since Brady entered the league. I mean Justin Herbert is already 211th all time in career regular season passing yards, after his 2nd season. He is just going to continue to bomb the ball all over the field. He obviously has to stay healthy, but I see no reason why someone won't eventually stay healthy for 15+ years that averages over 5.5k yards a year (combined). Mahomes and Herbert seem like solid candidates of the active players, but if not them, someone certainly could. Again, I didn't say it would happen, just that I don't think 100k combined will be totally unattainable.
no one is going to score like Wilt did in the 62 season because the game is just different. No one is going to play 48.5 mpg over 82 games. No one will even come close to that, which is why Wilt's single season records won't be touched. That said, if you account for assists, other players have contributed a similar amount of points than Wilt did that season (Wilt was 50.2 ppg and 2.4 apg for a combined total of 55.2). Harden (29.1 ppg, 11.2 apg) and Westbrook (31.6 ppg, 10.4 apg) both have had seasons in that general total point range and they did it with far less points scored overall accounting for a much greater percentage of total offense than Wilt.
The reason Wilt's individual records won't be matched is because no one will play anywhere close to the amount of minutes Wilt played. That is what makes his season records untouchable. The opposite is happening in football with respect to passing. The numbers are getting more and more prolific. The NFL records that seem like they won't be matched are things like Emmitt Smith's rushing yards (18,355). I just can't see a RB getting anywhere near him. Frankly, I'm not sure we will see another RB even hit Adrian Peterson's 14,918 which is good enough for 5th all time. The closest active player to Peterson is Mark Ingram at 7900. For as good as Derrick Henry has been, he has just 6879, which is actually less than Ezekiel Elliott and his 7438. Melvin Gordon is the only other active RB with at least 5,000 yards (he has 6144). Russell Wilson is actually 166th all time with 4689 rushing yards.