Sorry Drew Brees, your record for the most passing yards in a single NFL season is officially Peyton Manning‘s.
Manning set the new mark of 5,477 yards in the Denver Broncos’ 34-14 victory over the Oakland Raiders in Week 17, but the league launched a review of the record because of a potential lateral to Eric Decker that was ruled on the field as a seven-yard pass.
Here’s the play in question, courtesy of @chcameron.
If this completion from Manning to Decker was ruled as a lateral, the Broncos quarterback would have finished six yards behind Brees’ previous record of 5,476 yards set in 2011. But after a formal review, the NFL decided the ruling of a forward pass will stand.
“The stats crew at the game scored this play as a forward pass,” NFL spokesman Michael Signora told Mike Klis of the Denver Post. “During the course of a season, there are many similar plays which could be reviewed by the Elias Sports Bureau, the league’s official statistician. In this case, the determination of the determination of Elias is that the fairest resolution is for the ruling of the on-site stats crew to stand.”
In addition to breaking the single-season passing yards record, Manning also threw a record 55 touchdown passes.
