Most Total Yards in a Single NFL Game

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. That total broke a record that had stood for 72 years, since the 1951 Los Angeles Rams gained 722 yards against the New York Yanks in a game defined by Norm Van Brocklin’s still-standing 554-yard passing performance.

A single-game yardage record is about total offensive domination, a day when one team moves the ball almost at will. Because how net yards are tallied has shifted over the decades, the Rams and Dolphins stand as the two clear benchmarks at the top. Here is the record, the games behind it and the context, all figures through the 2025 season.

The record: the Dolphins’ 726 yards

Miami’s September 2023 rout of Denver was 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. They even took a knee near the goal line late rather than chase the all-time scoring record, yet still set the team-yardage mark.

That 726 edged past the Rams’ long-standing total and gave the modern game its benchmark. It showed how today’s spread offenses can produce numbers that even the highest-scoring teams of the past rarely approached.

The leaderboard of biggest yardage games

The table below shows the top team total-yardage games in NFL history. Older figures can vary slightly by source depending on how net passing yardage is counted, so the two record holders are the firmest entries.

Team	Total yards	Opponent	Date
Miami Dolphins	726	Denver Broncos	Sept 24, 2023
Los Angeles Rams	722	New York Yanks	Sept 28, 1951
Historic 1940s-50s games	~660-690	Various	1943-1958

The Dolphins and Rams sit clearly on top. Below them, a handful of games from the 1940s and 1950s reached the high 600s, though their exact totals depend on the counting method of the era.

The Rams’ 1951 masterpiece

For 72 years the record belonged to the 1951 Rams. In a 54-14 win over the New York Yanks, Los Angeles gained 722 yards, powered by Van Brocklin’s 554 passing yards, a single-game passing record that has never been broken. That the team mark fell in 2023 while the passing mark still stands says a lot about how unusual Van Brocklin’s day was.

The Rams’ offense of that era, nicknamed for its firepower, was decades ahead of its time. Its 722-yard game remained the standard until the modern passing game finally overtook it.

Total offense versus the piece parts

A team yardage record is the sum of rushing and passing, so it usually coincides with a monster day in one or both. The single-game marks for the components tell their own stories, from the most passing yards in a game to the most rushing yards in a game, and a 700-yard team total almost always means one of those was near record levels too.

That is what separates these games from a normal blowout. Scoring 70 points, as the Dolphins did, is rare enough, but doing it with 726 yards reflects sustained, complete offensive control from the first drive to the last.

Why the record matters

Team yardage in a game is the purest measure of offensive dominance on a given day, cutting across style and era. The Dolphins’ 726 and the Rams’ 722 bracket 72 years of football, from Van Brocklin’s aerial show to a modern spread offense, and together they mark the ceiling for what a team can do in 60 minutes.

The short version: the 2023 Miami Dolphins hold the record with 726 total yards against Denver, breaking the 1951 Rams’ 722-yard mark, while Van Brocklin’s 554 passing yards from that same Rams game still stands, all through the 2025 season.