Most Passing Yards in a Single Game

The most passing yards in a single NFL game is 554, thrown by Norm Van Brocklin for the Los Angeles Rams against the New York Yanks on September 28, 1951. More than 70 years later, no quarterback has come within 25 yards of the mark, making it the oldest of the NFL’s major single-game records.

Single-game passing records reward one perfect afternoon rather than a whole career, and in a modern league built around the forward pass you might expect the top of this list to be crowded with recent names. Instead it is led by a performance from the leather-helmet era. Here is the full leaderboard of the most passing yards in a game, the quarterbacks who came closest, and why Van Brocklin’s number has proved so untouchable. All figures are as of the 2025 season.

The record holder: Norm Van Brocklin and 554 yards

On the opening day of the 1951 season, Rams quarterback Norm Van Brocklin lit up the New York Yanks for 554 yards through the air in a 54-14 rout. He did it efficiently, completing 27 of 41 passes with five touchdowns, in an era when 300-yard games were a rarity. Van Brocklin went on to win an NFL title and later a coaching career, but this one game remains his most remarkable legacy. That it still stands atop the list, decades into the pass-happy modern game, is a testament to just how complete his afternoon was.

The full leaderboard of single-game passing yards

The table below ranks the most passing yards thrown in a single NFL game.

Rank	Passing yards	Player	Team	Date
1	554	Norm Van Brocklin	Los Angeles Rams	Sep 28, 1951
2	527	Warren Moon	Houston Oilers	Dec 16, 1990
2	527	Matt Schaub	Houston Texans	Nov 18, 2012
4	525	Joe Burrow	Cincinnati Bengals	2024
5	522	Boomer Esiason	Arizona Cardinals	Nov 10, 1996
5	522	Ben Roethlisberger	Pittsburgh Steelers	Oct 26, 2014
7	521	Dan Marino	Miami Dolphins	Oct 23, 1988
8	520	Matthew Stafford	Detroit Lions	Jan 1, 2012
9	513	Y.A. Tittle	New York Giants	Oct 28, 1962

The list mixes eras in a way few records do. Two Houston quarterbacks, Warren Moon and Matt Schaub, share second at 527, and Y.A. Tittle’s 513-yard, seven-touchdown day in 1962 remains one of the greatest passing performances ever. Yet every one of them still sits at least 27 yards short of 1951.

The modern challengers

If any group was going to break the record, it would be today’s quarterbacks. Joe Burrow’s 525-yard game in 2024 and Ben Roethlisberger’s 522 in 2014 show how close the modern passing game can get, and shootouts producing 400-plus yards now happen several times a season. Even so, reaching 554 in a single afternoon requires a rare mix of volume, efficiency and a game script that keeps a quarterback throwing deep into the fourth quarter. The great single-game passers also tend to rank on our most passing yards of all time and most passing touchdowns leaderboards.

Why the record has held

Modern offenses throw more often, but they also protect leads by running the ball and managing the clock, which caps blowout passing totals. Van Brocklin threw in an era with fewer such constraints and a defense willing to keep firing. Big passing days are usually born from wild, high-scoring games, the same kind that produce our biggest comebacks in NFL history. A single quarterback pushing past 554, though, has proved to be one of football’s hardest feats.

Why the record matters

The single-game passing record captures the ceiling of the sport’s most important position, the absolute most a quarterback has ever produced in one game. That the mark belongs to a 1951 performance, and has survived every rule change designed to boost passing since, gives it a mythic quality. Great passers feed great receivers, and the biggest days often show up on our most receiving yards in a game list too.

The short version: Norm Van Brocklin holds the single-game passing record with 554 yards, set in 1951 and unbroken for over 70 years, ahead of Warren Moon and Matt Schaub (527) and Joe Burrow (525), as of the 2025 season.