As KC Chiefs prepare to face Houston Texans, here’s how to decipher passing yards
Whether you’ve been cheering on the Kansas City Chiefs for years or recently joined Chiefs Kingdom, individual player statistics can provide an indication of who to watch more closely during hotly contested playoff games.
And when it comes to offensive strategy, passing yardage is a particularly informative stat.
Passing yardage refers to the total number of yards downfield — from the line of scrimmage, or where the play originated — that a quarterback throws the ball during a passing play ... plus the total number of yards the receiver is able to run with the ball after the catch (sometimes referred to as “yards after the catch”) before being tackled or running out of bounds.
The player who catches the pass is credited with the same number of yards, but those are known as “receiving yards.”
Only forward passes count toward passing yards. No passing yardage is accumulated when a quarterback hands off the ball to another player.
A quarterback’s passing yards can offer a general glimpse of his skill as a player, and/or provide a hint to a team’s overall offensive strategy. A high passing-yards total can indicate that a quarterback is consistently able to complete passes to various receivers, and that a team’s passing plays have perhaps been generally successful.
Passing yards also factor into a quarterback’s QBR, or quarterback rating. Created by ESPN in 2011, QBR is a composite metric used to give a quick snapshot of each quarterback’s general performance on a scale of 1 to 100.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes logged 3,928 passing yards this season. That was second most among the four quarterbacks left standing on the AFC side of the NFL playoffs. Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was tops in the regular season with 4,172 passing yards.
Mahomes has 32,352 total passing yards in his career.
The last time the Chiefs played the Houston Texans, in Week 16 of the 2024 regular season, Mahomes was credited with 260 passing yards. Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud netted 244.
Stroud logged 3,727 passing yards during the 17-game regular season. He passed for 282 yards in the Texans’ AFC Wild Card victory over the Los Angeles Chargers.
The fourth quarterback remaining in the AFC playoffs, Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills, piled up 3,731 passing yards during the regular season.
The Chiefs’ backup quarterback, Carson Wentz, logged just 118 passing yards this season. But he has thrown for a lot of passing yards in his career: 22,410. Wentz, who is playing on a one-year contract with the Chiefs, started in the team’s Jan. 5 regular-season finale against Denver; the Broncos won 38-0.
During the 2024 regular season, Mahomes had the seventh-most passing yards in the NFL. Jackson had the sixth most. Allen was 14th, Stroud was 15th and Wentz was 65th.
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow led the league with 4,918 passing yards.
This story was originally published January 17, 2025 at 5:56 PM.
