There have been some ripples in the waters caused by a statement from a Hall of Fame running back with regards to the current day 5,000 passers in the NFL.
When I first read it I thought to myself why did he not stop himself from continuing his sentence?
Thinking about how many Quarterbacks have played this game just over the last four decades in this league and to have only four accomplish a feat like this. I tried to say it and couldn’t; It was like the ‘Fonz’ trying to say sorry, Fletcher Reede trying to lie in court while defending his promiscuous gold digging client Samantha Cole the day after his son’s birthday.
Five-Thousand yards passing is nothing in the NFL!
Then I went back and read it again, slowly. I was able to put into context what he was trying to say. ‘Throwing for 5,000 yards ‘RIGHT NOW’ in the NFL is nothing’. I keyed in on the ‘right now’ as I reflected on some analysis I had performed in preparation for my upcoming fantasy football drafts. I was noticing an upward trend in passing yards over these last few years and even wrote a few blogs to that effect. What was most notable was the increase in the 4,000 yards passers going into the 2011 NFL season. There was an upward trend in passing stats as we have seen more 4000 yards passers each year which we can attribute to the league trying to create more scoring via rule changes and placing more emphasis on becoming a more quarter-back friendly league and allowing more freedom to receivers running in the open field, with that notion and the numbers in black and white I could not imagine a decline, in fact I would go on to say that in 2011 I would expect to see more 4000 yard passers not imaging there were going to be three 5,000 in that same season. So at first it was easy to say his comment was less than intelligent but once put into perspective I can understand what he is trying to say.
