Quarterbacks change NFL’s yardstick of greatness

They are the six shooters of the NFL, the half-dozen hot-handed quarterbacks who have already thrown for more than 4,000 yards this season.

They are from all over the country — New Orleans’ Drew Brees, New England’s Tom Brady, the New York Giants’ Eli Manning, Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, Detroit’s Matthew Stafford, and San Diego’s Philip Rivers — and they’re throwing the football all over the map. With two games to go, their numbers could shoot into the stratosphere.

Brees is the leader of the pinpoint-passing pack, averaging 341.4 yards per game. He has 4,780 yards and needs just 305 more to eclipse the single-season record of 5,084, set by Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino in 1984. That could come Monday night against Atlanta.

Three years ago, Brees came oh so close to breaking Marino’s record, falling 16 yards short but becoming just the second quarterback in NFL history to surpass 5,000 yards.

“When I sit back and look at it, that record’s stood for a long time,” Brees said at the time. “One of greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game owns it.” He said he wasn’t sure that breaking the record while his team fell to 8-8 — as the Saints did that season — was “necessarily the way that record deserves to be broken.

“That’s why I’m able to accept the fact it didn’t happen.”

There will be no such capitulation this season. The 11-3 Saints are tied with San Francisco for the second-best record in the league, have locked up a wild-card berth, and have the NFC South title in their cross hairs. Brees is the embodiment of the mobile and deadly accurate quarterback that’s so coveted by teams, and he’s on a historic pace.

Tim Tebow’s ground-bound style notwithstanding, the NFL has evolved into a high-scoring passer’s league, and 4,000-yard seasons have become the new gold standard. A record 10 quarterbacks accomplished that feat in 2009. There easily could be nine by the end of this season — with Indianapolis’ Peyton Manning on the sidelines — as Dallas’ Tony Romo (3,895), Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger (3,856), and Carolina’s Cam Newton (3,722) are within range.

New Orleans Coach Sean Payton was asked this week if he’s surprised Marino’s record has lasted 27 years.

“I don’t know that anything really surprises you,” he said. “Our game has evolved. I think you’re seeing very good quarterback play. . . . Typically, these records in our league all get broken, and some of them just have a longer shelf life than others.”

A glimpse at this season’s 4,000-yard passers:

DREW BREESNew Orleans (4,780 yards)

HE’S NO. 1

Brees is ranked first in the league in attempts, completions, yardage, third-down passer rating and completion percentage, and second in touchdown passes and passer rating.

BY THE NUMBERS

11: 300-yard passing games in 2011, the league’s single-season record.

41: Consecutive games with at least one touchdown pass, the second-longest streak in NFL history. Johnny Unitas holds the record with 47.

18,500: Brees’ passing-yardage total from 2007-10, the league’s highest total over any four-year span.

DID YOU KNOW?

Brees was an outstanding youth tennis player and beat Andy Roddick several times. Roddick, who would go on to become the world’s No. 1 player, once told the San Diego Union-Tribune of Brees: “The most annoying thing was that Drew played about twice a week. I was hard-core; I was playing every day, every weekend. I could never beat the guy.”

QUOTE OF NOTE

Brees on Marino’s record: “I’ve really just tried to kind of numb my senses to the whole thing right now, and just think about winning games . . . knowing the result will just take care of itself.”

TOM BRADYNew England (4,593)

BROTHERS IN ARMS

Brady and Brees are the only players to reach 3,000 yards in the first nine games of the season. Brady had record yardage (3,032) for the first nine games of the year.

BY THE NUMBERS

1: Brady became the first player to follow a 500-yard passing performance with a 400-yarder after consecutive games this season of 517 and 423.

95: Times Brady has thrown two or more touchdown passes in a game. The Patriots are 80-15 when that happens.

1,327: Passing yards Brady had in the first three games this season — 517, 423 and 387 — the most yards in NFL history over a three-game stretch.

DID YOU KNOW?

Quarterbacks selected ahead of Brady in the 2000 draft were Chad Pennington, Giovanni Carmazzi, Chris Redman, Tee Martin, Marc Bulger and Spergon Wynn.

QUOTE OF NOTE

Teammate Danny Woodhead, after Brady threw for four touchdowns and a team-record 517 yards in the opener against Miami: “We’re pleased to have him on our side.”

ELI MANNINGNew York Giants (4,362)

COMEBACK KID

Five times this season Manning’s team has overcome fourth-quarter deficits to win, tying a franchise record for comebacks.

BY THE NUMBERS

2: Manning’s spot on the Giants’ list for all-time touchdown passes. With 181, he’s 18 shy of leader Phil Simms.

22: Quarterbacks who have started for the other three NFC East teams since Manning took over on Nov. 21, 2004. That’s eight for Philadelphia, and seven each for Washington and Dallas.

117: Consecutive starts by Manning, the third-longest streak by a quarterback behind Brett Favre (297) and Peyton Manning (208).

DID YOU KNOW?

Under Peyton’s picture in his senior yearbook at Isidore Newman High in New Orleans, he mentioned Eli: “Watch out world, he’s the best one.”

QUOTE OF NOTE

Duke Coach David Cutcliffe, who coached Eli at Mississippi: “Who else has played in New York, won a Super Bowl — in spectacular fashion, I might add — and consistently been better than anybody gives him credit for? If you even just look good in a uniform in New York, you’re a national star. And Eli just doesn’t get talked about, which is fine with Eli.”

AARON RODGERS Green Bay (4,360)

TWO-TIMING

Rodgers threw at least two touchdown passes in each of the first 13 games this season, a streak that ties him for the longest in NFL history with Peyton Manning and Brady.

BY THE NUMBERS

1: Number of quarterbacks who have started a season with at least 11 consecutive games with a passer rating of 110 or more. Rodgers accomplished that this season.

40: Touchdown passes for Rodgers this season, eclipsing the previous franchise record of Brett Favre, who threw 39 in 1996.

114.5: Rodgers’ passer rating against the blitz since 2009, best in the league over that span.

DID YOU KNOW?

When Rodgers moved to Green Bay in 2005, among the first things he did was tack up college football rejection letters from Illinois and Purdue for inspiration.

QUOTE OF NOTE

Rodgers: “I think a weight comes off your shoulders after you win a Super Bowl, and you realize that all those doubts and worries and successes and failures you had before then, a lot of those get wiped away and the slate almost goes clean.”

MATTHEW STAFFORDDetroit (4,145)

THE ERASERS

Stafford joins Hall of Famer Bobby Layne as the only quarterbacks in club history to lead the Lions to victory from 24-point deficits. Unlike Layne, Stafford did it on the road.

BY THE NUMBERS

5: Times Stafford has thrown for at least four touchdowns in a game, a Lions record.

23: Stafford’s age. He’s the second-youngest quarterback (behind Marino) to throw for 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns in a season.

98: Yards in the scoring drive that Stafford led down the stretch against the Raiders last Sunday in a pivotal 28-27 road victory.

DID YOU KNOW?

Stafford went to Highland Park High in Dallas — the same alma mater as Lions stars Layne and Doak Walker.

QUOTE OF NOTE

Stafford on Layne’s prophetic prediction in 1958 that the Lions, after trading him, “would not win” for 50 years: “I don’t really think too much about it. It’s part of football folklore or whatever, but it’s a new time, a new age.”

PHILIP RIVERSSan Diego (4,015)

FOUR BY FOUR

Rivers needs two touchdown passes to reach 25 for the fourth consecutive season. Only five other quarterbacks have done that: Peyton Manning, Favre, Marino, Brees and Rodgers.

BY THE NUMBERS

8: Touchdowns with no interceptions over the last four games, after being intercepted a career-high 17 times in his first 10 games.

68.3: Rivers’ completion percentage over the last four games.

102.8: Rivers’ passer rating in December, best in NFL history. The Chargers are 23-2 in December games that he has started.

DID YOU KNOW?

The Rivers brood grew by one this season, as Philip’s wife, Tiffany, gave birth to their sixth child.

QUOTE OF NOTE

Rivers this week: “When you’ve lost six in a row, it’s hard to make everyone believe that you’re playing well at times. What happened in those losses hurt, but it didn’t strip my confidence. I watched the game tape, and I saw a lot of good and some really bad. We were losing close games and I knew we could get it right again.”

sam.farmer@latimes.com

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