List of NFL quarterbacks who have passed for 400 or more yards in a game

In the National Football League, 115 quarterbacks have passed for at least 400 yards in a single game ("400-yard game") 225 times in the regular season and 15 more in the postseason.

Dan Marino has recorded the most 400-yard games, with 15, including two postseason games. Peyton Manning is the only other quarterback with two postseason 400-yard games, and has the second most overall, with 10. Three rookies have thrown for 400 yards in a game, with Cam Newton the only one to have done so twice in that season, as well as the only one to do so in his first career start. Ken O'Brien is the only quarterback to have earned a perfect passer rating in a 400-yard game. Don Strock is the only quarterback to have thrown for 400 yards in a game he did not start. Kurt Warner is the only quarterback to have thrown a 400 yard game in the Super Bowl. Only seven times have two quarterbacks collected 400 passing yards in the same game, and only seven times has one quarterback had two consecutive 400-yard games in the regular season.

More facts about 400-yard games
1943 was the first year a quarterback passed for at least 400 yards. In that season, only 40 regular-season games were played, plus one tiebreaker playoff game and the championship game. Since 2002, each NFL season has 267 games (including postseason play), giving 534 chances for a quarterback to try and achieve this milestone every year.

Of the 240 times a quarterback has earned 400 passing yards, 131 resulted in wins, 105 in losses, and 4 in ties. Since 2006, only 15 out of 46 400-yard games have resulted in a win (33%). Prior to 2006, 116 out of 194 resulted in wins (60%). The number of 400-yard games has varied dramatically, from a high of 14 times each in 1986 and 2004 to just one in 2005, and none at all in some years (most recently 1979).

A quarterback with 400 yards has earned a passer rating of 100 or more 137 times, resulting in 96 wins and 1 tie; every quarterback whose rating has exceeded 131.2 (24 total) won that game. Only 12 times has a quarterback earned a rating of 140 or more: Peyton Manning did it twice, and has the highest-rated game in the postseason, with a 145.7, while Ken O'Brien threw for over 400 yards and a perfect passer rating of 158.3. Randall Cunningham has the two lowest-rated 400-yard games (50.5 and 52.0, both were losses).

500-yard games
Quarterbacks have thrown for at least 500 yards passing eleven times; most recently, Tom Brady threw for 517 yards against the Miami Dolphins in 2011. Norm Van Brocklin holds the NFL record with 554 yards passing in 1951.


 * Norm Van Brocklin 554 yards
 * Warren Moon 527 yards
 * Boomer Esiason 522 yards
 * Dan Marino 521 yards
 * Tom Brady 517 yards
 * Phil Simms 513 yards
 * Drew Brees 510 yards
 * Vince Ferragamo 509 yards
 * Y.A. Tittle 505 yards
 * Elvis Grbac 504 yards
 * Ben Roethlisberger 503 yards

None of these games ranks in the top ten for yards per attempt in a game with 400 or more passing yards. The teams with the 500 yard passer have won six of the eleven games. Y.A. Tittle (NY Giants) had perhaps the most prolific yardage and passing touchdown game in NFL history, when on October 28th, 1962, he passed for 505 yards and 7 touchdowns against the Washington Redskins in a 49-34 victory. Boomer Esiason is the only left handed passer to have thrown for 500 yards.

Every 400-yard game in date order
''Att = Attempts; Comp. = Completions; Yds. = Yards; TDs = Touchdowns; INTs = Interceptions; Rtg = Rating''

Quarterbacks with consecutive games of 400 or more yards
Only seven quarterbacks have, by NFL standards, had 400 or more passing yards in back-to-back games. Cam Newton accomplished this feat in his first two professional games, and Tom Brady achieved the same feat in the same two weeks of the NFL season as Newton. (Two quarterbacks, Kurt Warner and Drew Brees, have thrown for 400 or more yards in their final post-season games and then passed for 400 or more yards in the first game of the following regular season: Kurt Warner did so in Super Bowl XXXIV and then in Week 1 vs. Denver on Sept. 4, 2000. Drew Brees, did so in the New Orleans Saints' loss in the Wild Card round of the 2010 NFC playoffs and the Saints' Week 1 loss in the 2011 Kickoff Game. Note that the NFL does not recognize these cases as "consecutive games".)


 * Dan Fouts, San Diego Chargers, 1982
 * Dan Marino, Miami Dolphins, 1984
 * Phil Simms, New York Giants, 1985
 * *Kurt Warner, St. Louis Rams, 1999-2000 (see above)
 * Billy Volek, Tennessee Titans, 2004
 * Matt Cassel, New England Patriots, 2008
 * *Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints, 2010–11 (see above)
 * Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, 2011
 * Tom Brady, New England Patriots, 2011

400 yards passing with no touchdowns

 * 1986 Bernie Kosar
 * 1986 Joe Montana
 * 1987 Boomer Esiason
 * 1988 Randall Cunningham
 * 1991 Warren Moon
 * 1996 Mark Brunell