50,000 yards passing

Hamilton Tiger-Cats
#1

As Ricky Ray gets set to pass the 50,000 passing yards milestone on Labour Day, and Henry Burris has just surpassed McManus' 53,325 yards, I thought I'd post a few thoughts on the subject.

  1. I hope they don't stop play to commemorate this. It's not a new record, and 5 other guys beat him there. An announcement over the PA would suffice. Plus we know that TSN will mention it about 35 times during the game.

  2. Everyone in the top 5 (Calvillo, Allen, Burris, McManus, Lancaster) has a connection to the Tiger-Cats, either playing or coaching here for part of their careers. Ray will be the only member of the 50k club who does not.

  3. After Ray, membership in the club may be stagnant for some time. Glenn is at 41,000, but it's hard to imagine that his string of subbing in for injured starters for full seasons will continue much longer. Durant is next among active QBs with 24,000, so he would have to turn in 5-6 more solid seasons, playing until age 38.

  4. I've always thought the Lancaster's passing record was one of the most impressive in all of football. When he reached 50,535 yards in 1978, the next highest on the list was Sam Etcheverry with 30,435. (In my memory it was double, but 66% higher than the next guy is still pretty impressive.) And it took over two decades for Allen to catch up, despite the game shifting decidedly towards passing-focused offences compared to when Ronnie started out.
    http://www.cfl.ca/uploads/assets/CFL/PDF_Docs/2011/Individual_Record_Book_2011.pdf

  5. Why is it so hard to find decent historical stats on the CFL website? You'd think it would be easy enough to set up. The lack of depth on this page is disappointing: http://cfl.ca/page/stats_indrec_passing

#2

I remember Hank hitting the 50,000 marks during one of the Ticats games last season - seems that we were on the road out west - possibly Calgary since it was a loss. I think it was announced somehow on TV but there was no stoppage of play (a la Calvillo when he posted the most passing yds ever) and Hank wasn't even aware he had hit the mark until at least a few plays later or even after the game. Seems to me he remarked that it was nice but he would have preferred the W - or something to that effect. Doubt that there will be a big fuss over Ray`s land mark yardage. Today when Hank passed Danny Mac as the QB with the third highest passing yds, I believe it was announced in the stadium and TSN did a quick graphic.

#3

They were all excellent QBs. So is Ray. I agree that Lancaster's performance is especially impressive, for the reasons ExPat mentioned. An added factor is that he played 14 (in Ottawa) and 16 (in Regina) game seasons. The others on the list played all or mostly 18 game schedules.

#4

Game notes are your friend. Best kept secret in the CFL, they are chalked full of information you'd never even imagine keeping track of. Not sure how many people actually look at these but I know it took me a few years to finally click on one and to my surprise I found a gold mine.

[url=http://www.ticats.ca/page/2014-depth-charts-game-notes-stats]http://www.ticats.ca/page/2014-depth-ch ... otes-stats[/url]
#5

I think my estimate was a little low. Anyone who was playing a drinking game - taking a shot every time the 50,000 yard stat was mentioned on TSN - will not have survived to tell the tale.

#6
:lol: :lol: :lol: The joys of having Rod Black announcing!!
#7

The number of passing yards Ray needed to reach 50k got mentioned many times. However, that’s partly because our defence made it so that the rate at which Ray added to his passing yard totals was rather slow. :slight_smile:

I think Black did mention that Ray reached that mark later than he thought he would. And I’m sure he was surprised that he had to wait until the 4th quarter to say that “50k, Ricky Ray!” line he was saving. And yes, it did seem like that milestone was mentioned over 35 times today.

Ray may be headed to the HoF, but not because of games like the one he had today. :slight_smile:

#8

Ricky Ray was a pleasure to watch until Eric Tillman made, you know, that trade.... :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Seriously, props to him. The Canadian game is no picnic and any man who can throw for that many yards must be saluted.

Oski Wee Wee,

Russ