Peyton Manning’s 2013 Records Chase (after 14 games)

Peyton Manning is on pace to break the single-season records for touchdown passes and passing yards this year (2013). Let’s take a look at Peyton Manning’s 2013 stats compared to those of other QBs after 14 games in their own record-setting seasons. I’ll probably post updates to this after each of the next 2 games as Manning inches closer to these achievements. As always with this football statistics stuff, I never claim expertise, I just do it for fun. I’m late on this week’s update, so there isn’t much analysis and there’s still some stuff from last week’s look.

Quarterback (14 games played)	cmp	att	cmp%	Yds	TD	INT	rate	record
Peyton Manning (2013)	393	580	67.8	4811	47	10	112.9	11-3
Drew Brees (2011)	417	583	71.5	4780	37	11	109.1	11-3
Aaron Rodgers (2011)*	322	473	68.1	4360	40	6	120.1	13-1
Tom Brady (2007)	348	503	69.2	4235	45	6	119.7	14-0
Peyton Manning (2004)*	308	451	68.3	4168	47	9	112.9	11-3
Dan Marino (1984)**	310	483	64.2	4340	40	14	108.5	12-2

*Rodgers sat out the entire 16th game of the 2011 season and Manning played just one series of the 2004 finale, going 1/2 for 6 yards, no TDs. Also, Rodgers threw his final INT of the 2011 season in game 13.

**Marino set the single season record for TDs and passing yards before the NFL started calling more illegal contact penalties in 2004.

Manning is now leading history in both yards and TDs (well, he’s tied with himself in 2004 for TDs, but that’s a share of the lead, right?). The big development is that the Broncos lost game 14 and Manning had his second-worst game of the season, statistically. This means that the team will almost certainly have to play the next two games without resting starters, meaning we should see some production out of Manning. Unfortunately, Wes Welker, who sat last week with a concussion, is probably out until the playoffs. Defenses won’t have to worry about covering him and they’ll force Manning to look elsewhere for a security blanket.

Manning finished last week’s game vs. the Chargers going 27/41 for 289 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT. If he matches that output for each of the next two games, he’ll break the TD record, but fall 87 yards short of the yardage record (still good for #2 all time though, and he’s already surpassed his career high for single season yards). Considering his opponents, Houston, then Oakland, I expect Manning will somehow manage to break both records. Of course, I also thought the Broncos would beat the Chargers and they didn’t. The next two are both away games with presumably better weather conditions than Denver. Manning could even break the TD record today in Houston. Whenever he does it, I hope I’m able to see it.

Manning’s 2013 pace says he’ll finish with 6 TDs and 687 yards over the final two games.

As usual, most everything above was calculated using numbers found at Pro-Football-Reference.