Peyton Manning is currently 7th on the Career Passing Yards list for NFL quarterbacks. This year he will likely move into fourth All-Time behind John Elway, Dan Marino, and Brett Favre. I have calculated his projected passing yards by looking at the statistics of the Top 3 aforementioned QB's. The average age of those QB's at retirement (considering Favre's current age) is 38. I averaged the last five (5) years of passing yards for each QB and compared that with the average of all seasons prior (dropping the two lowest to account for injury and/or rookie seasons), to collect a dropoff percentage. I will refer to the earlier career average as "prime" despite the fact that some seasons after "prime" exceeded averages.
Brett Favre-
Total: 65,127
Prime Avg: 3911
Last 5 Avg: 3869
Dropoff: 1%
Dan Marino-
Total: 61,361
Prime Avg: 4174
Last 5 Avg: 3267
Dropoff: 22.5%
John Elway-
Total: 51,475
Prime Avg: 3792
Last 5 Avg: 3446
Dropoff: 9%
Avg. Dropoff: 10.8%
If Peyton Manning plays his final season at the age of 38, he will have six (6) seasons remaining. If we drop his lowest season to date, and assume he throws for his average (4189) this season, his prime average will be:
Prime average: 4189
If, in the final five (5) seasons of his career he averages a 10.8% dropoff from his Prime numbers, he will average 3736 yards per.
Peyton Manning would finish his career at the age of 38 with the following:
Yards to date: 45,628
2009 est: 4,189
Final 5 proj: 18,680
Total: 68,497
This would currently put him atop the All-time list, however, Brett Favre could possibly exceed this number. What an impressive career we are witnessing.
