Joe Burrow is one big game away from the NFL’s fifth 5,000-yard, 45-TD season

Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is leading the NFL in both passing yards and passing touchdowns, and if he has a big game against the Steelers on Saturday, he could join a very exclusive club in league history.

Burrow has 4,641 passing yards and 42 passing touchdowns, which means with 359 yards and three touchdowns against the Steelers, he’d finish the season with 5,000 yards and 45 touchdowns. That has only happened four other times before: Dan Marino in 1984, Drew Brees in 2011, Peyton Manning in 2013 and Patrick Mahomes in 2018.

It’s worth noting that Burrow would be reaching the 5,000-yard, 45-touchdown milestone in his 17th game of the season, and the other four quarterbacks did it in 16 games. And Burrow has also benefited from the NFL’s evolving passing environment, which makes life easier than it was for quarterbacks of the past, especially Marino, whose 1984 season is one of the great statistical outliers in the history of sports.

Burrow also has three or more touchdown passes in eight straight games, and if he does it again he’ll join Tom Brady as the only quarterbacks in NFL history who have thrown at least three touchdown passes in nine games in a row.

Despite Burrow’s MVP numbers, the Bengals need to beat the Steelers on Saturday, and then get some help on Sunday, to make the playoffs.