Andrew Luck holds the NFL record for most passing yards in a season by a rookie quarterback with 4,374 yards in 2012. That record is in danger of being broken, not just once but twice.
Both Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow are on pace to break the record held by Luck.
In 7 games as a starter Justin has passed for 2,146 yards. He is on pace to pass for 4,598 yards this season. In order to break the record held by Luck, he only needs to average 279 yards a game the rest of the way. As an FYI, in his 7 starts, he has surpassed that in 5 starts. Two starts he did not eclipse 279. one start he passed for 264 and the other 278.
The remaining games he plays are against Miami, Jets, Bills. Pats, Falcons, Raiders, Denver and Chiefs.With that schedule, I think he has a shot. These teams average giving up 253.65 yards a game. If he averages the same amount of yards those defenses gives up, he will have about 2,030 more passing yards. That added to the stats he has already done and he would have 4,175 yards. While that is still 198 yards short of the record of 4,374 yards passing, I think he can average a little more than the yards these teams are giving up. In order to break the record he only needs to pass for 25 more yards per game then those teams are giving up. Very very likely he breaks the record.
One other thing to keep in mind, he has put nearly all these stats up with out the help of Austin Ekeler, who is slated to return in week 11. His presence and pass catching ability will help the offense. One could argue that with Austin in the backfield the Chargers may run more, which may be true but I think having Austin back there will open up things in the passing game. I mean teams are already biting on play action pass now against the Chargers, imagine what they would do with a threat like Austin in the backfield.
Joe Burrow has passed for 2,272 yards thus far. He only needs to average 263 yards a game to break the record. While he has had two games where his yards passing were under 200 (193 vs the Chargers and 183 vs the Ravens) he has still averaged 284 yards passing a game. His remaining schedule consists of the Steelers, Washington, Giants, Dolphins, Cowboys, Steelers, Texans, and Ravens. If he averages the same amount of yards these teams are giving up he will have 1,837 more yards, making his total passing yards 4,109 yards, about 265 yards short of the record. So he would need to average 34 more yards against those teams than what they average giving up. While it may seem doable, he plays the Steelers twice and they give up 214.6 per game and they play the Ravens in which he passed for a paltry 183 yards. Oh and by the way he plays against Washington which gives up the least amount of passing yards a game at 185.6.
Not an easy road ahead for him.
I think Justin will break the record and Burrow will come very close but not quite make it. Either way both have improved their teams (despite the Chargers record) and added some energy into their fan bases. The impressive thing is, if Justin breaks the record he will do it in 15 games since he did not play in the 1st game of the season.
I do think regardless of where they end up, that they both will break the record for most 300-yard passing games in a season by rookie quarterback. Andrew Luck has 6. Burrow has 5 and Herbert has 4.
Sources
NFL Defensive Passing Yards
https://www.footballdb.com/stats/teamstat.html?group=D&cat=T&sort=passypg
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