We all know that Tom Brady set the single-season passing touchdowns record in 2007, when he threw 50 touchdowns as the New England Patriots went 16-0. That broke Peyton Manning‘s mark of 49 touchdowns in 2004. And I think most of us know that prior to Manning, Dan Marino had set the NFL record with 48 touchdowns in 1984.
Marino’s touchdown record stood for 20 years, but do you know who held the record before Marino? Believe it or not, the previous record stood for even longer. Before we get to the hints, here are two freebies.
The quarterback still holds his franchise’s record for passing touchdowns in a season. And he is the last quarterback to set the single-season passing touchdowns record twice in his career.
The quarterback in question threw 36 touchdowns. It’s worth pointing out that George Blanda threw 36 touchdowns in 1961 in the AFL, but I am excluding him for the purposes of this trivia question.
In 1963 Y.A. Tittle threw 36 touchdown passes, breaking the NFL record of 33 set by… Tittle in 1962. Prior to that, Sonny Jurgensen (32, 1961) and Johnny Unitas (32) had been the only quarterbacks in NFL history to throw for 30 touchdowns in a season (and only Unitas did it before the NFL expanded to a 14-game schedule.)
I knew it right off the bat given I grew up down the street from his boyhood home in Marshall Texas. Everyone who grew up there and loved football read his auto-bio, “I, Pass.” Old Y.A. had a remarkable career. Too bad his playoff experience was so terrible. I wish he had stayed on the bench in the 63 title game and let Glynn Griffing play. The way the Bears offense was struggling against the Giants D, Griffing could have maybe eaked out one score or two to make the difference. Anyway, I really enjoy the trivia. Most of the time I can’t get them right before at least one hint, though.
A fun project might be to look up some of the biggest record-breaking performances of all time.
For instance, Marino’s 48 TD’s broke the record by 12 TD’s, or a 33% increase! (Only 17% if we adjust for 14/16-game schedule.)
When Namath broke the passing yardage record (4,007) in 1967, he did it by only 8% over Jurgensen. (Though I never noticed before that Jurgensen also broke his own record in 1967.)
Jerry Rice (22,895) broke James Lofton’s (14,004) career receiving yardage record by 63%.
PFR lists Tittle with 33 touchdowns in 1962, not 35. Not sure what the disconnect is but those two seasons are pretty far out. He had a completion percentage over 60% in 1963 (!).
The amazing thing about the old school NFL is how much things changed from year to year. Scheme and competition being much more varied (I think) at the time meant that you could be the best quarterback in the history of the NFL in 1963, and put up sub-Sanchez numbers in an (obviously injury ravaged) 1964.
Yards per Attempt is the basic statistic around which the passing game should be measured. It forms the base of my favorite predictive statistic (Net Yards per Attempt) and my favorite explanatory statistic (Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt). But it’s not perfect. In theory, Yards per Attempt is a system-neutral metric. If you play in […]
Consider the following example. The Colts gain possession at the 20-yard line. Andrew Luck is in shotgun and throws a strike to Reggie Wayne, who catches it at the 30, runs 15 yards, and gets tackled at the 45-yard line. Luck gets credited with 25 passing yards and Wayne records 25 receiving yards. Wayne is […]
Over at Footballguys.com, I look at a different method to project receiving yards. The number of receiving yards a player produces is the result of a large number of variables. Some of them, like the receiver’s ability, are pretty consistent from year to year. But other factors are less reliable, or less “sticky” from year […]
On June 15, 2012, I launched Football Perspective. Since that day, Football Perspective has posted a new article every single day. This the site’s 445th post, so I won’t blame you if you’ve missed an article here or there. At the top of every page is a link to the Historical Archive, a page that […]
Football Perspective turns one tomorrow. To celebrate, Doug Drinen has come up with a contest centered around the following picture. Question 1: Explain what this is a picture of. Question 2: Make a case to your real or hypothetical significant other that this is worthy of being printed, framed, and hung on your wall. GRAND […]
#10: Tie: Mike Williams – linebacker, 1986 (Pittsburgh); Michael Williams – tight end, 2013-current (Detroit) Nine Mike Williamses have played in the NFL. A Tulsa linebacker of the same name was drafted by the Steelers in the 12th round of the 1986 Draft but never appeared in a game. In April, the Lions selected Alabama […]
Back in 2006, Doug Drinen came up with the Dungy Index, a way to measure a coach’s performance in the regular season relative to expectations. Because Doug understands regression to the mean, he was impressed by Tony Dungy’s ability to continue to string together 12-win seasons year after year.1 But Doug didn’t want to just […]
Entire books have been written about the West Coast Offense. Friend of the program Chris Brown has an excellent primer on some of the principles of the system. Due to time constraints, this post is not going to dissect a voluminous playbook, translate Spider 3 Y Banana into English, or discuss the role of motions […]
The Simple Rating System is a set of computer rankings focused on only two variables: strength of schedule and margin of victory. I published weekly college football SRS ratings each week last season, and you can read more about the SRS there. Last month, Jason Lisk of the Big Lead took the Las Vegas point […]
When I ask a question in the title of a post, I usually have an answer. But not this time. From 2000 to 2012, 163 different quarterbacks started 16 games. I thought it might be interesting to check out their splits based on the Game Script of each game. I grouped each quarterback’s statistics in […]
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
At age 37 no less! After breaking it the first time at age 36!
If he weren’t a former Niner, I’d make a deer antler joke right now.
49ers all the way
I knew it right off the bat given I grew up down the street from his boyhood home in Marshall Texas. Everyone who grew up there and loved football read his auto-bio, “I, Pass.” Old Y.A. had a remarkable career. Too bad his playoff experience was so terrible. I wish he had stayed on the bench in the 63 title game and let Glynn Griffing play. The way the Bears offense was struggling against the Giants D, Griffing could have maybe eaked out one score or two to make the difference. Anyway, I really enjoy the trivia. Most of the time I can’t get them right before at least one hint, though.
A fun project might be to look up some of the biggest record-breaking performances of all time.
For instance, Marino’s 48 TD’s broke the record by 12 TD’s, or a 33% increase! (Only 17% if we adjust for 14/16-game schedule.)
When Namath broke the passing yardage record (4,007) in 1967, he did it by only 8% over Jurgensen. (Though I never noticed before that Jurgensen also broke his own record in 1967.)
Jerry Rice (22,895) broke James Lofton’s (14,004) career receiving yardage record by 63%.
PFR lists Tittle with 33 touchdowns in 1962, not 35. Not sure what the disconnect is but those two seasons are pretty far out. He had a completion percentage over 60% in 1963 (!).
The amazing thing about the old school NFL is how much things changed from year to year. Scheme and competition being much more varied (I think) at the time meant that you could be the best quarterback in the history of the NFL in 1963, and put up sub-Sanchez numbers in an (obviously injury ravaged) 1964.
Thanks GMC. The 35 was a typo, the record-breaking number was indeed 33. I fixed the post.
Injuries played a big part, but the first quarterbacks that come to mind along that vein are Steve Young in ’98-’99 and Gannon in ’02-’03.