With Matthew Stafford throwing for 245 yards in a win over the Texans on Sunday, he became the 10th quarterback in NFL history to surpass 60,000 career passing yards. Stafford now has 60,054 yards career passing yards, which ranks 10th all-time behind Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan and Dan Marino.
Welcome to the club Matthew Stafford 👏 pic.twitter.com/NVH7lCIcHa
— NFL GameDay (@NFLGameDay) September 7, 2025
“It brings back a lot of memories," Stafford said of reaching 60,000 passing yards. "I’ve been blessed to play this game for a long time with a bunch of great players. The cool thing about quarterback, and my thought about it is, I can’t throw for any of those yards without 10 other guys that are doing their job.
LIVE: Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford address the media following Week 1 opener against the Texans. https://t.co/f3UufeSXrI
— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) September 7, 2025
Stafford continued, "It’s really cool. I share it with so many people and so many teammates and a bunch of coaches. And my family and everybody that’s helped me get there. You get into those longevity type places where you’re breaking those kinds of things, it’s not, ‘Oh that was a cool year, a cool two years.’ It’s been a long time and a lot of people have sacrificed a lot along the way and I appreciate each and every single one of them. But it’s cool, it’s an amazing thing and sure as hell glad we did it in a win too.”
While impressive, It's not very surprising to see Stafford reach this point. During his time with the Lions, he was often without a strong run game, leaving Detroit reliant on him to throw the ball, which he did often and well. Stafford has already set records as the fastest player to reach 40,000 and 50,000 passing yards. It's only fitting for him to join the 60,000 passing yards club.
It's unclear how much longer Stafford wants to play, but he realistically could climb to at least top-six on the all-time passing yards leaderboard. He is now 3,386 yards from Rivers, who is sixth on the list and 4,034 yards from Roethlisberger, who is fifth. Stafford would likely need at least two more seasons to reach either Favre or Manning, who each have over 71,000 career passing yards. Brees and Brady, who both have over 80,000 passing yards, are likely unreachable unless Stafford plays significantly longer than anticipated.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Matthew Stafford Reflects on Career After Becoming 10th QB to Reach Impressive Milestone.