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Dan Fouts led the NFL’s modern passing 'charge'

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11 Jan 2022
5 min read
Question: bearded, burly and bolted, he led the nfl in passing yards each season from 1980-83...

In the decades before National Football League quarterbacks were regularly tossing for four and 5-K yard seasons, San Diego Chargers’ QB Dan Fouts was setting new aerial trends for the increasingly-popular league.

A native of San Francisco, Fouts was basically a prep unknown heading to the University of Oregon.  That would soon change.  Across three seasons for the Ducks, Fouts tossed for a school record 5,995 yards to earn All-Pac-8 honors along the way, followed by being selected in the third round of the NFL Draft (64th overall) by the Chargers.

Initially a backup behind luminary Johnny Unitas, playing what was ultimately the final year of his storied, 18-year NFL career, the 6-foot-3, 204-pound Fouts soon took over for the injured legend, albeit with lacking results, as Fouts (himself oft-injured) authored just a 12-30-1 cumulative starting record over his first four seasons with the inept ‘Bolts between 1973-77.

However, San Diego showed improvement with a 9-5 record in ’78 with new head coach Don Coryell (and his “Air Coryell” system), which saw Fouts truly finding his stride under center.

Big, burly, bolted and revered for an atypical QB toughness, Fouts tossed for a league-best 4,082 yards in 1979, finishing runner-up in the league’s MVP race as San Diego won the AFC West with a 12-4 mark and reached the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.

The year ensuing, Fouts got the 1980’s underway with huge air, throwing for a new NFL record 4,715 yards; the record stood for a mere year, as Fouts bested himself in ’81, tossing for 4,802 yards.

As the league was becoming more-and-more passing oriented, budding Miami star Dan Marino would soon usurp Fouts’ single-season record, though no other NFL quarterback, before or since, has ever achieved what Fouts did amid his superb run – lead the league in passing for four consecutive years (1979-82).

While the Chargers may not have made the Super Bowl with Fouts and the QB didn’t have an MVP on his mantle (though he finished in the top-6 of the voting on four occasions), Fouts retired after the 1987 season as just the third man to ever author more than 40,000 passing yards.  Playing all 15 of his NFL donning a Chargers’ jersey, Fouts was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993, his first eligible for the honor.  In 2009, fans selected him as the “Greatest Charger Of All Time.”

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