A pair of Valentine’s Day babies

There have been 45 quarterbacks in NFL history to throw for at least 30,000 yards. I write about this nearly every year, as not much changes. Three of them — Drew Bledsoe (born February 14, 1972), Jim Kelly (2/14/1960), and Steve McNair (2/14/1973) — were all born on February 14th.

If we drop the cut-off to 16,000 yards, we jump to 141 quarterbacks but get to include David Garrard, another Valentine’s Day baby (1978). But wait, there’s more: If we drop the threshold to 3,500 passing yards, we get to include Patrick Ramsey and Anthony Wright. Those guys may not impress you, but consider that less than 350 players have thrown for 3,500 yards. That means dozens of days have zero quarterbacks with 3,500 yards — including New Year’s Day, another February holiday (Groundhog Day), Cinco De Mayo, Halloween, and Christmas Eve — so slotting in Ramsey and Wright as QB5 and QB6 on your birthday dream team is pretty damn good.

Regular readers will know that I write about this phenomenon every couple of years. In terms of total career passing yards through the entire history of the league, February 14th — with 137,342 passing yards has an enormous lead on the second-best birthday, March 24, which consists entirely of Peyton Manning, Aaron Brooks, and Scott Brunner (the quality QB2 gives 3/24 a big advantage over 1/15, which houses the all-time passing leader). The 3/24 date has produced 98,658 career passing yards, putting it ahead of the third place leader — February 15th — at 85,155. As you can see, Valentine’s Day is for quarterback greatness. .. except when it isn’t.

This must have happened in the preseason.

Because, if I know nothing else, I know that love is complicated. What’s in a name? That which we call a quarterback by any other name would throw as accurately… except when it does not. Because despite all the inherent advantages that come with sharing a birthday with Cupid, Christian Hackenberg went from being the rare highly drafted quarterback to sit as a rookie to being the extremely rare highly-drafted quarterback to never play in an NFL game. Even Cupid’s arrow is off-target from time to time.

So Happy Valentine’s Day to that special quarterback in your life, both accurate and not so much. That includes Hackenberg, who after all, only turns 24 today.