[Alberta's Child]

My favorite Joe Namath statistic was his 4,007 passing yards in 1967. It doesn't seem exceptional by today's standards, but nobody passed for 4,000 yards in a season before that -- and he was more than 600 yards ahead of the #2 passer that year.

It wasn't until 1979 that another QB passed for 4,000 yards in a season (Dan Fouts).

[rlmorel]

My respect for him increased as time went on...yes, back then, 2,500-3,200+ passing yards was top of the line.

LOL...I had to go look to see if my recollections are correct, and here were the top NFL passers that year:

Player Team Att Cmp Pct Yds YPA TD TD% Int Int% Lg Sack Loss Rate
Sonny Jurgensen WAS 508 288 56.7 3,747 7.4 31 6.1 16 3.1 86t 19 157 87.3
Fran Tarkenton NYG 377 204 54.1 3,088 8.2 29 7.7 19 5.0 70t 29 283 85.9
Roman Gabriel LA 371 196 52.8 2,779 7.5 25 6.7 13 3.5 80t 24 201 85.2
Johnny Unitas BAL 436 255 58.5 3,428 7.9 20 4.6 16 3.7 88t 25 198 83.6
Norm Snead PHI 434 240 55.3 3,399 7.8 29 6.7 24 5.5 87t 48 351 80.0
Frank Ryan CLE 280 136 48.6 2,026 7.2 20 7.1 16 5.7 49t 38 318 72.7
Don Meredith DAL 255 128 50.2 1,834 7.2 16 6.3 16 6.3 60t 21 143 68.7
Bart Starr GB 210 115 54.8 1,823 8.7 9 4.3 17 8.1 84 34 322 64.4
Gary Cuozzo NO 260 134 51.5 1,562 6.0 7 2.7 12 4.6 49t 33 236 59.8
Jim Hart STL 397 192 48.4 3,008 7.6 19 4.8 30 7.6 76t 22 219 58.4
John Brodie SF 349 168 48.1 2,013 5.8 11 3.1 16 4.6 63t 18 129 57.6
Billy Kilmer NO 204 97 47.5 1,341 6.6 6 2.9 11 5.4 96 18 147 56.4
Kent Nix PIT 268 136 50.8 1,587 5.9 8 3.0 19 7.1 66t 8 84 49.5
Joe Kapp MIN 214 102 47.7 1,386 6.5 8 3.7 17 7.9 85t 23 200 48.2

The AFL looked like this:
Player Team Att Cmp Pct Yds YPA TD TD% Int Int% Lg Sack Loss Rate
Len Dawson KC 357 206 57.7 2,651 7.4 24 6.7 17 4.8 71t 31 287 83.7
Daryle Lamonica OAK 425 220 51.8 3,228 7.6 30 7.1 20 4.7 72 37 334 80.8
John Hadl SD 427 217 50.8 3,365 7.9 24 5.6 22 5.2 72t 9 91 74.5
Joe Namath NYJ 491 258 52.5 4,007 8.2 26 5.3 28 5.7 75t 26 261 73.8
Bob Griese MIA 331 166 50.1 2,005 6.1 15 4.5 18 5.4 68t 25 240 61.6
Babe Parilli BOS 344 161 46.8 2,317 6.7 19 5.5 24 7.0 79t 29 250 58.5
Steve Tensi DEN 325 131 40.3 1,915 5.9 16 4.9 17 5.2 76t 39 350 54.8
Jack Kemp BUF 369 161 43.6 2,503 6.8 14 3.8 26 7.0 63t 38 380 50.0
Pete Beathard KC/HOU 231 94 40.7 1,114 4.8 9 3.9 14 6.1 43t 15 125 43.8

So my memory wasn’t far off.

Sonny Jurgensen was my favorite player back when I began watching...:)