There have been just 9 quarterbacks in NFL history who have thrown for 5,000 yards in a single season.
It’s a group that includes 3 players already in the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Dan Marino, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees.
Four more of those quarterbacks are locks to join them in Canton in the future: Tom Brady, Patrick Mahomes, Matthew Stafford, and Ben Roethlisberger.
ESPN’s Ben Solak predicts the 10th man to join that group will be Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott in 2026. Solak makes a pretty convincing case for how and why that will happen.
“To clear 5,000 passing yards in a 17-game season, a quarterback must average 294.1 passing yards per contest,” Solak wrote on July 1. “In Prescott’s best season (2019), he averaged 306.4 yards per contest and fell just 100 yards short of the 5,000-yard mark since there were 16 games. Interestingly, the Cowboys weren’t particularly pass-happy that season, with a 60.7% dropback rate that was below the league average … in (2025) Prescott had a career-high 600 total pass attempts. The volume will be there for Prescott to not just lead the league in passing in 2026 but to once again challenge for the 5,000-yard milestone.”
The other 2 quarterbacks to throw for 5,000 yards in a single season are Justin Herbert and Jameis Winston.
What History Tells Us About 5,000-Yard Seasons
Prescott re-established himself as 1 of the NFL’s elite quarterbacks in 2025 with 4,552 passing yards, 30 touchdowns and 10 interceptions — the 4th time in his career he’s thrown for over 4,400 yards but the 1st time the Cowboys came away with a losing record.
We can use history as our guide, to some extent, to see what goes into a 5,000-yard passing season.
First off, you’ll need somebody to hit 1,000 receiving yards. Maybe 2 somebodys.
Out of the 15 total 5,000-yard passing seasons from the 9 quarterbacks, only once was it done without a 1,000-yard receiver, which Brees did for the New Orleans Saints in 2008 with 5,069 yards.
In almost all other cases, you’re going to need at least 2 players to hit 1,000 receiving yards, which happened in 11 out of the 15 seasons.
Balance is also key. In 12 of the 15 seasons, the top 5 leaders in receiving yards were some combination of 3 wide receivers, 1 tight end, and 1 running back.
How 5,000 Passing Yards Computes for Cowboys
Prescott is set up perfectly to hit 5,000 yards with the talent surrounding him, including 1 of the NFL’s very best offensive lines.
To start with, Prescott has a pair of NFL All-Pro wide receivers in George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb, who should take up the lion’s share of his targets.
If those 2 just hit their 17-game averages, that would account for approximately half of the 5,000 yards, although it’s a safe bet 1 of them will go off this year and exceed those numbers.
There’s another capable pass-catcher in WR3 Ryan Flournoy, who had a career-high 475 receiving yards in 2025, and running back Javonte Williams is a capable receiver, but not as important to the quest. Just 7 out of 15 times did a 5,000-yard passer have a running back with over 500 yards. It can be done without them.
What might end up being the most important thing for Prescott is that he has an excellent tight end in Jake Ferguson.
In 13 of the 15 seasons when quarterbacks hit 5,000 passing yards, the tight end had at least 500 receiving yards, which Ferguson has done twice in his 1st 4 NFL seasons.
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