Dan Marino’s 1984 Season
In recent years, multiple quarterbacks have eclipsed 5,000 yards passing in a season. Some of those include Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Patrick Mahomes. It’s an impressive number achieved by an impressive group of quarterbacks, no matter how you slice it. But what’s even more impressive is that one quarterback achieved it ALMOST 25 YEARS before anybody else did it.
Ladies and gentleman, Dan Marino.
1984 was only Marino’s 2nd season in the league. He had been inserted as the starting quarterback midway through his rookie season in 1983, and lit the league on fire. Most people expected big things coming into 1984, but not this BIG.
5,084 PASSING YARDS
Dan Marino threw for 5,084 yards in 1984, then an NFL record. To put that into perspective, only two other quarterbacks went over 4,000 yards that year, those being Neil Lomax and Phil Simms. In fact, the only quarterback to even come close to that number prior to that was Dan Fouts, who in the early 80’s eclipsed 4,700 and 4,800 yards in consecutive seasons. Roughly half the league’s quarterbacks in 1984 did not even eclipse 3,000 yards passing.
48 TOUCHDOWN PASSES
The previous record? 36. A little more perspective.. that is adding another 33% to the existing record. So if the current record is 55(Peyton Manning, 2013), somebody would have to throw for roughly 73 touchdown passes to achieve the level of dominance Marino put on display in 1984. That’s not going to happen any time soon.
To me, records that span generations and eras should be treated like currency. A million dollars in 1923 was a much greater number than a million dollars in 2023. Same applies to this subject… Dan Marino’s 5,000-yard season is far more impressive than any of the more recent 5,000-yard seasons. It’s simply a different game now. Back in the 70’s and 80’s a defensive back was allowed far more contact and physicality than in today’s game. If 1984 Dan Marino hopped into an early-80’s DeLorean (for the youngsters reading this, go watch BACK TO THE FUTURE, then keep reading), got it up to 88 miles per hour, did some time travelling, and landed in the 2020’s, he’d throw for 7,000 yards and 70 touchdowns. Book it.