Rifling through the record book.

With Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record last night (don’t get me started on that one), I thought I’d take a look at the NFL record book, and see which records are within reach, and which ones might be a liiiiiiittle harder to get to.

Passing

Dan Marino holds the NFL records for yards in a season (5,084 - 1984) and career (61,361), and for career touchdowns (420). Brett Favre is in reach of the career yardage and touchdown records, and will break the TD record with his seventh TD toss this season. It doesn’t seem likely that Favre’s hold on the records will stay for long though, because Peyton Manning is on pace to break both. In ten seasons so far, Manning has averaged nearly 3,760 yards and 28 touchdowns a season, and it’s hard to see him slowing down anytime soon.

It will be pretty difficult for anyone to top Marino’s 5,084 yards, however. Kurt Warner and Daunte Culpepper have both threatened the mark but came up short. More balanced offenses mean less chances. Culpepper didn’t have much of a running game when he threw for over 4,700 yards in 2004, but Warner had Marshall Faulk in his backfield when the Rams were the Greatest Show on Turf. And, the current Greatest Show on Turf, the reigning Super Bowl champion Colts, have a quality rushing attack that both helps and hurts Manning’s numbers.

The one record that might be out of reach is the single-game yardage record. Norm Van Brocklin threw for 554 yards in a game against the New York Yankees in 1951 (and hit four home runs as well), and no one has been able to touch his record. Boomer Esiason was the last person to come close to it, throwing for 522 yards in November 1996 against the Redskins. It’s also hard to fathom someone throwing for seven touchdowns in a game anytime soon as well. That hasn’t been done since 1969, when Joe Kapp did it. But, if anyone’s going to do it in the current crop of NFL QBs, it’ll be Manning, who came close with six against Detroit on Thanksgiving Day in 2004. He very well could have gotten a seventh, but he was taken out of the game in the fourth as Tony Dungy called off the dogs.

Rushing

For a time, the most important rushing record, and possibly the most important NFL record, was the career rushing yardage record. Walter Payton held it from the end of his career until Emmitt surpassed him against the Seahawks in 2002. Smith retired with 18,355 yards rushing, 1,629 more than Payton’s 16,726. Barry Sanders could have hit the 20,000 mark had he not abruptly retired before the 2000 season, when he was less than 1,500 yards away from breaking the record.

Curtis Martin (4th at 14,101) recently retired, and so did Jerome Bettis (5th at 13,653), Marshall Faulk (9th at 12,279), and Tiki Barber (17th at 10,449). Martin played for only 11 seasons, and had injuries not forced him to leave the game, would have come close to Emmitt’s mark.

The two players right now that could potentially make a run at the mark are Edgerrin James and LaDainian Tomlinson. James is at 10,385 through eight seasons, and if his body can continue to hold up to 350 carries a season behind an average offensive line in Arizona, has a shot. But, Tomlinson looks like he could obliterate the yardage and touchdown records, after already claiming the single-season touchdown mark. The Chargers star has run for 9,176 yards and 100 touchdowns in only six seasons in the NFL. At his current pace, it might take him only another six seasons to pass Emmitt in yards and only three or four more to pass his mark of 164 touchdowns. And, just like Manning, it doesn’t seem like he’ll be slowing down anytime soon.

Will we see anyone run for more than 300 yards in a game? Jamal Lewis ran for 295 against the team he now plays for, but 300 has thus far been out of reach. Once again, this one goes back to Tomlinson. He owns the NCAA single-game yardage record at 406, so it’s more than possible that he could do it someday.

Long-term durability is the main concern here. When you’ve got next week and next year to think about, unless you have a Madden-esque performance and do it in 25 carries, the risk might not be worth the reward.

Receiving

Jerry Rice holds the records for receptions (1,549), receiving yards (22,895), and for receiving (197) and overall touchdowns (208). Rice rewrote the record book in 20 seasons, which is a number you don’t see often at all. He has quite the foothold on all of those records, with the closest competitors all miles away (literally!).

I don’t know if anyone will break his receiving touchdown record (L.T. has a real shot at breaking the overall TD mark), but Peyton Manning’s main man, Marvin Harrison, might replace him at the top of the heap in receptions and yards by the time he’s done. Harrison has quietly made his way up the record books, and has put together totals of 1,022 catches, 13,697 yards, and 122 touchdowns in twelve seasons. The only thing that could hurt him is that he’s already going to be 35 two weeks before the season starts, and also that Reggie Wayne is going to prevent him from getting 143 catches again. But, like Rice, I can see him being productive even as he gets older, so he has a chance.

Anquan Boldin of the Cardinals has 342 receptions through his first four seasons, so he’s got a good chance to at least hit Cris Carter (currently #2) at 1,101. Randy Moss has slowed down in the last three seasons, but he was on a blistering pace in his first several seasons. Now that he’s going to have Tom Brady throwing it to him, he might be able to return to his old form and at least get over 1,000 catches and 150+ TDs

Breaking receiving records is a lot more difficult when you have a team with multiple guys that you have to get the ball to. That’s the case with Boldin and Larry Fitzgerald, Harrison with Wayne, and others.

Defense and Team

The current season sack record is held by Michael Strahan, at 22.5*. Whether or not Brett Favre took a dive so that Strahan could get the record in 2001 may always be debated, but the record is Strahan’s until someone else breaks it.

The career record belongs to Bruce Smith, who is the only player to reach the 200 sack mark.

If anyone could reach either of those records, it would likely be San Diego’s Shawne Merriman. Merriman has 28.5 sacks in his first two seasons, and had 17 last season despite missing four games. Had he played all 16 games, he would have at least equaled Strahan’s mark, if he kept up his average of nearly a sack and a half a game.

The career interception record is held by Paul Krause at 81. That record looks like it’ll stand for a good while longer. Rod Woodson came within 10 of tying the mark before he retired. Ed Reed of the Ravens has 27 picks in five seasons, but he might have to start getting seven picks or more regularly to have a real chance.

Eighteen players have had four inteceptions in a game, but only three have done it since 1978, with Deltha O’Neal (then with Denver) being the most recent to accomplish the feat, against K.C. in 2001. It’d be hard to imagine someone getting five interceptions in a game, but that’s what Madden is for.

As far as team records go, the one that stands out is the one that’s going to be hardest to get to. The ‘72 Miami Dolphins are still the only team in the current era to go through their regular season and playoffs undefeated. Four teams (the ‘84 49ers, ‘85 Bears, ‘98 Vikings, and ‘04 Steelers) have all gone 15-1, but that’s the closest anyone has come. Seventeen teams have gone 14-2 since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule, the most recent being San Diego last season. Denver in 1998 and Indianapolis in 2005 both started 13-0 before finishing 14-2, but that’s the closest someone has come to threatening the Dolphins’ 17-0 mark in recent years.

Out of all of the records in the book, that one might stand the longest. But, watch and see, now that I said that, someone’s going to go undefeated this season. And, if it does happen, let’s hope it’s the boys in Big D.