For the first time in the Super Bowl era of the NFL, dating all the way back to 1966, the regular season Passing Yards leader has won the Super Bowl.

The most common reason the passing yards leader never makes the Super Bowl, let alone the playoffs, is because their teams either had bad run games and overly relied on their passing attacks, and/or had bad defences & played from behind most of the time, forcing them to pass more, hence more yards per game, which is part of the reason why Drew Brees won 7 passing titles, yet only won 1 Super Bowl in his career, same for Dan Marino, who won 5 passing titles and was the best passer of his generation, yet never had a run game or defence good enough to win a title.

However, the great outlier in 57 years of passing statistics is now Patrick Mahomes, who led the league this season with 5,250 passing yards, and prior to Mahomes, there were only 6 passing leaders to actually play in the Super Bowl, all of whom suffered gruesome endings.

Dan Marino 1984 (lost 16-38 to the 49ers, Marino never got back to the Super Bowl)

Kurt Warner 2001 (Lost 17-20 to the Patriots on a last-second field goal)

Rich Gannon 2002 (Lost 21-49 to the Buccaneers and threw 5 interceptions)

Tom Brady 2007 (Lost 14-17 to the Giants, losing the perfect season)

Peyton Manning 2013 (Lost 8-43 to the Seahawks and the Legion of Boom)

Tom Brady 2017 (Lost 32-40 to the Eagles, despite throwing for a record 505 yards)

But Mahomes has ended the greatest anomaly in NFL statistics, and he’s the first league MVP of the 21st Century to win the Super Bowl in the same season, a drought dating back to Kurt Warner with the 1999 Rams, which also makes Mahomes the only quarterback in history to:

– Lead the league in passing touchdowns

– Lead the league in passing yards

– Claim the League MVP

– Win the Super Bowl

– Claim the Super Bowl MVP

IN THE SAME SEASON.

And the most ironic part about the whole passing yards scenario….

Mahomes’ 182 passing yards in the Super Bowl were the fewest he threw in a game all season.