The 2018 season is the greatest season in passing history. In week 10, prior to Monday Night Football, NFL passers have thrown 855 passes and completed 584 of them for 6,706 yards with 46 TDs and 16 INTs. That translates to an average passer rating of 101.8, which would make this in the running for the greatest single week for passing in history. A whopping 18 of the 26 starting quarterbacks this week had a passer rating of over 100!

But it’s not just the name brand quarterbacks that are doing well. Let’s exclude Carson Wentz and Jameis Winston, who began the season as backups in name only (Wentz was injured; Winston was suspended). And let’s not include Ryan Fitzpatrick, who is obviously having a very strong season for a “backup” quarterback.

And let’s ignore the first round rookie quarterbacks, who aren’t true backups in the way we think of the term. That leaves seven quarterbacks who by any definition qualify as backup quarterbacks: Brock Osweiler, C.J. Beathard, Derek Anderson, Blaine Gabbert, Josh McCown, Matt Barkley, and Nick Mullens. And so far this season, they have thrown more TDs than INTs and have completed over 60% of their passes:

In fact, backup quarterbacks now have a stat line that is roughly equal to league average from the early ’00s: a passer rating of 80.6 and an ANY/A average of 5.20. Four of these quarterbacks — in particular Barkley (on a salary of $790K for 2018), Mullens ($1.05M), Osweiler ($880K), Anderson ($1.1M) — are arguably replacement level (shockingly, the Jets are paying McCown $10M this season). And those four quarterbacks have an ANY/A average of 6.00 and a passer rating of 86.9!

2018 is truly a case of a rising tide lifting all ships.