Super Bowl LII. Nine seconds left, New England down by eight. Tom Brady had already thrown for 505 yards, but the Patriots still needed another 51 yards from him to have a chance to extend the game. Brady launches a prayer to Rob Gronkowski, who …

… nearly comes down with it in the end zone. Had the Hail Mary been completed, Brady would have thrown for 556 yards, setting a new single-game passing yardage record. The current record, as trivia experts know, is 554 passing yards, set by Norm Van Brocklin way back in 1951.

Eight years ago, I first wrote about how Van Brocklin held the record for most passing yards in a single game. I’ll be reprinting and updating that post today.

Let’s begin with the obvious: Van Brocklin is a Hall of Famer and all-time great quarterback who, at his very best, produced some of the most efficient and valuable seasons in NFL history. He should be on most top-20 quarterback lists, and his net yards per pass attempt — one of the most basic but important measures of quarterback play — is the best of all time.

On the other hand, he set the record in 1951.  How the heck did that happen?  Below, I have plotted all games where a team has passed for at least 450 gross yards (that is, without deduction for sacks).  As you can see, the dot at (1951, 554) is a pretty large outlier: [continue reading…]