Adjusting Receiving Yards for 'Inflation'—Equitable Footing For Past Era Receivers

 By John Turney 

Don Hutson

The NFL's passing game has exploded over the last forty-five years and it means receiving yards are easier to get than in previous generations, relatively speaking.

There are, of course, counterarguments to everything but rule changes allow for linemen to block in ways they could not prior to 1978, and defensive backs cannot defend like they could prior to 1978.

The passing game is much more sophisticated, but so have defensive coverages. Players now get far more reps and are much better athletes than in previous generations. 

But now, they throw a much higher percentage of passes, giving many more opportunities to pile up yardage so it really comes down to how much to adjust for the era. 

One thing is for certain, players of the 1950s played twelve games, from 1978 through 2020 they played sixteen, and in between they played fourteen, so that is one factor that is easy to adjust for.

Greater minds than ours can do a much better job someday but we used 1950-69 as the baseline, an average of passing yards per game from that time, and then made adjustments pre-1950, the 1970s, and then from 1980-2022.

Pre-1950, players (and the only one in the top twenty-five is Don Hutson) gets a fifteen percent increase. It should be a little higher but he was such an outlier it is hard to get a fix.

The dead ball era of the 1970s gets a ten percent bump. Yes, the rule changes took place in 1978 but the yards passing per game began to rise more sharply in 1980. 

From 1980, to adjust for the "inflation" yards are reduced by fifteen percent. Is this about right? Too much? Too little? It is a little too generous strictly going by the numbers but perhaps makes up for the defenders being better, but they are as equal to the task, relatively speaking, as the defenders of the past.

So, if someone wants to debate the inflation rate, we'd gladly concede, tell us the number, use a rolling average, and we'd be all for it. 

However, this is how it shakes out given the parameters we've set out—

Don Hutson played, generally, ten games a season. So the big jump was prorating his yards over fourteen-game seasons. Then the fifteen percent era adjustment was added in. It takes him to fourth all-time.

And of course, Jerry Rice stays at number one. Don Maynard and Charlie Joiner make big jumps and Terrell Owens and Randy Moss drop to six and seven followed by Isaac Bruce.

Essentially, players whose entire careers were played after 1979 keep 74.4 percent of their years which is about equal parts adjusting from sixteen games to fourteen and era adjustment.

Others had to be adjusted differently because they played part of their careers in the 1970s and/or part of their careers in the 1950s with a twelve-game schedule.

Don Hutson got a 49.4 percent increase and 80.2 percent of that is just the conversion from a nine and ten-game schedule to fourteen games. 

So, as a back-of-the-envelope calculation, it does give players from previous generations more equitable footing to be compared to modern players.