Only five quarterbacks in NFL history have thrown for more yards than Matthew Stafford.
The Los Angeles Rams signal-caller entered Monday’s game against the Atlanta Falcons with 63,988 passing yards in his career, which put him seventh on the league’s all-time list and just 100 yards behind Ben Roethlisberger’s 64,088 for a spot in the top six.
Stafford surpassed the Pittsburgh Steelers legend in the third quarter with a completion to Puka Nacua.
Here is a look at where he ranks:
The NFL’s list of the top-10 passing leaders is a testament to the individual greatness of the quarterbacks and the overall changes to the game over the course of different decades.
Dan Marino is the only quarterback in the top 10 to play the majority of his career before the turn of the century, as even Brett Favre made more starts in the 2000s than the 1990s.
Between rule changes and shifts in offensive philosophies, passing became more prevalent at the same time as dominant quarterbacks such as Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were taking over the league.
Stafford certainly benefitted from that from a statistical perspective, but he also had to be durable and consistent enough to make the throws over the course of his incredible 17-year career.
And the 37-year-old has been as good as ever in 2025.
He entered Monday’s game completing 65.7 percent of his passes for 4,179 yards, a league-best 40 touchdowns and five interceptions. He is also battling Drake Maye for the NFL MVP award and has the Rams in playoff position with an 11-4 record.
Regardless of what happens the rest of this season, Stafford will always be a franchise legend for Los Angeles after leading the team to a Super Bowl title in the 2021 season, which was his first with the club after it acquired him from the Detroit Lions via trade.
But more of his passing yards that put him in the top six of this list came during his 12 years with the Lions when he threw for more than 4,000 yards eight different times, including seven seasons in a row from 2011 through 2017.
Stafford even threw for more than 5,000 yards during the 2011 campaign with a career-best 5,038.
Those type of eye-popping numbers and sustained consistency allowed him to climb the all-time leaderboard, and now there is only a handful of all-time greats ahead of him.