Falcons: Peter King says 5,000 passing yards for Matt Ryan is "very realistic."

[RockHoward]

(08-14-2012 02:10 AM)Radical Wrote:  I'm thinking the lock-out provided the right circumstances to make that happen. Last season was too far out of an outlier to expect that again.

I was expecting someone to make that argument, but I can make the argument that the lockout hurt new passing combinations (i.e., Ryan-Jones) more than it hurt defenses. If so, then a non-lockout year may actually see the trend expand.

Furthermore there are more and more teams that recognize the trend towards relying primarily on a passing offense. Sure defenses are adjusting, but, in addition, more teams are doing what they can to be part of it. (In other words, the more that passing succeeds, the more that teams will try to pass.) When more passes are attempted by both teams, the number of plays run during a typical game goes up. This further helps expand passing yard statistics.