Most Yards in an NFL Game: Dolphins' 726, Van Brocklin's 554

The most total yards by a team in a single NFL game is 726, gained by the Miami Dolphins in their 70-20 win over the Denver Broncos on September 24, 2023, breaking the Los Angeles Rams’ 722-yard mark from 1951. Split by category, three different records from three different eras have stood the longest: Norm Van Brocklin’s 554 passing yards (1951), Adrian Peterson’s 296 rushing yards (2007) and Flipper Anderson’s 336 receiving yards (1989).

“Most yards in a game” isn’t one record, it’s four - a team total mark and three individual position marks, each with its own leaderboard and its own story. Below is every category ranked, with the full context behind each number, all figures verified through the 2025 season.

The team record: Dolphins’ 726, Rams’ 722

Miami’s rout of Denver on September 24, 2023 is one of the most lopsided offensive shows in modern NFL history. The Dolphins scored 70 points, the most by any team since 1966, and racked up 726 total yards behind a fast, explosive attack under coach Mike McDaniel. They knelt near the goal line late rather than chase the all-time scoring record, yet still broke the team-yardage mark that had stood since 1951.

For 72 years, that record belonged to the Los Angeles Rams. In a 54-14 win over the New York Yanks on September 28, 1951, Los Angeles gained 722 yards, powered by Van Brocklin’s 554 passing yards - a mark that has now outlasted the team record it helped set by three years and counting.

Rank	Team	Total yards	Opponent	Date
1	Miami Dolphins	726	Denver Broncos	Sept 24, 2023
2	Los Angeles Rams	722	New York Yanks	Sept 28, 1951
3	Pittsburgh Steelers	683	Chicago Cardinals	Dec 13, 1958
4	Washington Redskins	676	Detroit Lions	Nov 4, 1990
5	San Diego Chargers	661	Cincinnati Bengals	Dec 20, 1982

Only two teams in NFL history have ever cracked 700 yards in a single game. Everything below that, back to the Steelers’ 683-yard day in 1958, sits in a second tier that has been reached a handful of times per era but never seriously threatened the top two.

Most passing yards in a game: Van Brocklin’s 554

Norm Van Brocklin threw for 554 yards for the Rams against the Yanks on that same September 1951 afternoon, needing just 27 completions on 41 attempts to do it. He hit Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch for four touchdowns, including gains of 41, 47 and 26 yards, and added a 67-yard score to Vitamin Smith. It remains the oldest of the NFL’s major single-game records and the only one from before 1970 still standing outright.

Rank	Player	Passing yards	Team	Date
1	Norm Van Brocklin	554	LA Rams vs NY Yanks	Sept 28, 1951
2	Warren Moon	527	Houston Oilers at Kansas City	Dec 16, 1990
2	Matt Schaub	527	Houston Texans vs Jacksonville	Nov 18, 2012
4	Joe Burrow	525	Cincinnati vs Baltimore	Dec 26, 2021
5	Ben Roethlisberger	522	Pittsburgh vs Indianapolis	Oct 26, 2014

No quarterback has come within 25 yards of Van Brocklin’s total despite a modern game built around 35-plus pass attempts a week. That gap alone is why it is treated as the most secure record in the sport: today’s game throws more often but faces defenses built specifically to prevent exactly this kind of day. See the full breakdown in most passing yards in a single game.

Most rushing yards in a game: Adrian Peterson’s 296

Adrian Peterson ran for 296 yards as a rookie for the Minnesota Vikings against the San Diego Chargers on November 4, 2007, the only player in league history to reach the 290s. Jamal Lewis sits one yard back at 295, set for the Baltimore Ravens against Cleveland in 2003. No player has ever rushed for 300 yards in a single game.

Rank	Player	Rushing yards	Team	Date
1	Adrian Peterson	296	Minnesota vs San Diego	Nov 4, 2007
2	Jamal Lewis	295	Baltimore vs Cleveland	Sept 14, 2003
3	Jerome Harrison	286	Cleveland at Kansas City	Dec 20, 2009
4	Corey Dillon	278	Cincinnati vs Denver	Oct 22, 2000
5	Walter Payton	275	Chicago vs Minnesota	Nov 20, 1977

The next-closest modern performance came in 2024, when Saquon Barkley ran for 255 yards for Philadelphia, still 41 yards shy of Peterson’s total. Full context on the category is in most rushing yards in a single game, including how the single-game mark differs from career and season records.

Most receiving yards in a game: Flipper Anderson’s 336

Willie “Flipper” Anderson caught 15 passes for 336 yards for the Los Angeles Rams against the New Orleans Saints on November 26, 1989, in an overtime win, still the only 330-plus receiving game in NFL history. Calvin Johnson’s 329-yard performance for Detroit against Dallas in 2013 is the only game within ten yards of it.

Rank	Player	Receiving yards	Team	Date
1	Flipper Anderson	336	LA Rams vs New Orleans	Nov 26, 1989
2	Calvin Johnson	329	Detroit vs Dallas	Oct 27, 2013
3	Stephone Paige	309	Kansas City vs San Diego	Dec 22, 1985
4	Jim Benton	303	Cleveland Rams at Detroit	Nov 22, 1945
5	Cloyce Box	302	Detroit at Baltimore	Dec 3, 1950

More than half of the top 10 receiving performances of all time came before 2000, which is notable given how much passing volume has grown since. See most receiving yards in a single game for the full top 10 and how it compares to career and season marks.

How this list is ranked

Each table above ranks the official statistical leaders in a single category, verified against Pro-Football-Reference’s single-game leaderboards and cross-checked with league and outlet reporting on the individual games. The team total-yardage figure combines a team’s net passing and net rushing yards for the game, the same method the NFL has used since box scores were standardized. Older games, particularly from the 1940s and 1950s, can carry small discrepancies depending on how sack yardage was counted at the time, which is why the four record-holders above are treated as the firm, sourced benchmarks rather than every close historical claim.

2026 current status: all four records still stand

As of the 2025 season, none of the four marks above has been broken or seriously threatened. The closest active challenges came from Joe Flacco’s 470-yard passing game in November 2025, Jonathan Taylor’s 244-yard rushing day that same month, and Puka Nacua’s 225-yard receiving game in December 2025 - all well short of the all-time standards. The Dolphins’ 726-yard team total from 2023 also remains untouched, with no team since reaching even 650 yards in a game. Between them, these four records span 1945 to 2023 and cut across nine decades of rule changes, meaning a genuine break in any one of them would be one of the sport’s bigger single-day headlines whenever it happens.

Why these records matter together

A team’s yardage total is the sum of its rushing and passing output, so a huge team day usually rides on one huge individual performance somewhere in the box score - which is exactly what happened in 1951, when Van Brocklin’s passing record and the Rams’ team record were set in the same game. The most touchdowns in a game record and the highest-scoring NFL game tell a related story: pure yardage and pure scoring do not always move together, since a team can pile up yards without capitalizing in the end zone, or score heavily off short fields and turnovers with modest yardage.

Together, these four marks bracket the entire modern history of the position-specific NFL box score, from a 1945 receiving day and Van Brocklin’s 1951 aerial show to Peterson’s 2007 rookie burst and the Dolphins’ 2023 spread offense. No era owns all four, which is part of why none of them has fallen in years.

The short version: the 2023 Dolphins hold the team record with 726 total yards, Van Brocklin’s 554 passing yards from 1951 is the oldest surviving mark in the sport, Adrian Peterson’s 296 rushing yards from 2007 remains the closest anyone has come to 300, and Flipper Anderson’s 336 receiving yards from 1989 has stood for more than three decades - all four current through the 2025 season.