How Dan Marino broke NFL records in the modern era

Dan Marino is in Las Vegas for the big game and he’s out doing the car wash for a multitude of networks, NFL analysts, podcasts, and anyone with any type of recording device. He went on Pat McAfee’s very funny and definitely not cringeworthy show and said that he could throw for 6,000 yards in today’s NFL.

Now this isn’t the first time Dan Marino has been asked this question. In fact, I myself asked Dan the very same question when I was able to interview him courtesy of Pepsi.

But I honestly think you can tell in his tone that he 100% believes he would throw close to 6,000 yards at a bare minimum meaning going over that 6,000-yard threshold would happen a few times. He’s not wrong to feel that way.

Just thinking about Marino throwing for over 5,000 yards in 1984 is madness. You were allowed to smoke on airplanes and Ronald Reagon was running the country.

And the NFL was a game where guys were annihilated for even thinking about going over the middle of the field.

Not only that but there was no protection for quarterbacks just because they were quarterbacks. If defenders wanted to hoist a quarterback onto their shoulders and give them a Doomsday Device ala the Legion of Doom, it was very much allowed.

So the idea that someone came along and casually threw for over 5,000 yards in an era where running backs were the premier players on offense is like thinking about Nikola Tesla coming up with wireless communication in 1895.

But that’s exactly what Dan Marino did and it was a record that held up for 27 years until Drew Brees broke it in 2011.

Now, there have been 14 seasons where a quarterback has thrown for over 5,000 yards. It’s not hard to figure out why.

The rules have been tipped in favor of the offense and by tipped I mean the rules have been flipped completely upside down in favor of offenses getting every advantage.

I’m not going to go on a diatribe about how soft the NFL is today compared to when Marino played but we all can plainly see, every week we watch, how a defender isn’t allowed to have an unpure thought about an offensive player without being flagged and suspended.

So yes, if Dan Marino were playing today he’d be throwing at a minimum of 5,500 yards a season with some of them getting over 6,000.

I don’t think this is any kind of brag or anything like that because of how obvious this proclamation is.

In fact, getting to 6,500 or 7,000, especially with the extra game would be well in reach if Dan Marino were playing today. That’s not even a controversial statement. Think about that.