Drew Brees sits alone atop the NFC South’s all-time passing yards list, the benchmark for a division that has spent most of its history chasing consistency at quarterback. The ranking covers only yards thrown from 2002 through 2025 while each player was with an NFC South team, and it already shows one sharp divide: only one of the 10 quarterbacks listed is still active with his team.
That active quarterback is Baker Mayfield, who is entering a contract year and could move from ninth to sixth if he throws for 2,406 yards this season. He could also pass Tom Brady with that total, a reminder that the list is as much about timing as talent, because only production in the NFC South counts and anything a quarterback did elsewhere does not.
The division itself did not exist before 2002, when the NFL’s last wave of realignment created the NFC South and grouped the New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers under one banner. That narrow window matters here. It means the numbers are not a career-wide race, but a division-specific snapshot built from what each passer did in these uniforms, over these seasons, and nowhere else.
That is also what gives the list its edge. The top 10 passing leaders are a history lesson, but they are not all living in the same football moment. Brees is long retired. Brady is done, too. Mayfield is the one active name still attached to his team, carrying the possibility of moving up a list shaped by players who have already finished their runs in the division.
What comes next is simple enough to track and hard enough to do: Mayfield has a clear yardage target in front of him, and if he gets there, the list will change again. Until then, Brees remains the standard in the NFC South, and the ranking stays a snapshot of how much quarterback play has shifted since 2002.
