By Blaidd Drwg
An interesting stat was mentioned in the Giants-Falcons playoff game – Eli Manning’s 4,900 yard season was the 6th highest single season total in NFL history. That is impressive, until I realized that Eli Manning’s 4,900 yard season was the 4th highest total in the NFL THIS SEASON. Heck, the NFL went so pass happy this year that Manning only had the 3rd highest total in the NFC this season. Three of the five 5,000 yard seasons in NFL history occurred this year and 2 QB’s (Brees and Brady) both Broke Dan Marino’s NFL mark for a season.
Granted, a lot of this had to do with the length of the NFL season (the 16 game schedule is only 35 years old) and changes to the rules that make it easier on the QB’s and WR’s, as well as a shift to the short passes of West Coast offense, which is all about high percentage short passes, but it got out of control this season.
Strangely, with all of the passing that happened this year, the NFL single game record still stands – set by Hall of Famer Norm Van Brocklin with 554 yards way back in 1954. Matthew Stafford was the only QB this season to throw for at least 500 yards in a game this season and he still ended up 34 yards short of the record.
FlatbreadGarden 
1954 was still sort of the Precambrian era for pro football — almost like the movie leatherheads. No combine. Little scouting. I don’t think the level of competition was fully formed at that point, similar to the 1930’s era in baseball before the advent of the minor leagues.
No 554 yard passing games, and no .400 hitters lately either.
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I really think that someone will break 554 yards before hitting .400 again. If you look at the 400+ yard passers from that era, there are a surprising large number of them. Why I say surprising is that most QB’s averaged less than 200 yards passing a game. Heck, VanBrocklin had something like 2500 yards for the season when he threw for 554 in the game. I wish I could find game logs for that season, since I think his passing numbers would have been all over the place.
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According to pro-football reference, the 554 yard game was in 1951. It was the opening game of the season against the New York Yanks. The Yanks finished that game with 111 total yards, on their way to a 1-9-2 season.
Van Brocklin also benefited from having HoF wide receiver Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch. The I put a link to that season’s box scores in the sig.
The Rams had two other games that they exceeded 300 yards, but just barely.
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