The NFL's Mount Passmore

While all eyes are trained on Denver and the magic feet of quarterback Tim Tebow, the NFL is quietly having an historic season through the air. It's not that there's one quarterback threatening to smoke Dan Marino's 17-year-old single-season passing record. There are three.
Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, who's averaging 336 passing yards per game, and Tom Brady of New England, who's at 329, are both on pace to surpass Marino's mark of 5,084 yards. Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers, who's arguably having the best season by a quarterback in NFL history, is projected to come within eight yards.
This flowering of passing carries the residue of design: Starting in 1978, the NFL tried to open up the skies by enacting a rule that prohibited defensive players from making contact with receivers more than five yards downfield. The rule sent passing totals soaring over the next five seasons, culminating in 1982 when San Diego's Dan Fouts averaged 321 yards passing per game—another record that's in jeopardy. Defenses have caught up at various points, but later rules tweaks (many of them designed to protect quarterbacks and wide receivers) continue to make passing better. The way the rules are, says Fouts, now a CBS analyst, defense may never regain the advantage.
Still, the performances of this season's three virtuosos can also be traced to something many NFL coaches and players are too haughty to mention: the powerful shaping influence of the college game.
Associated Press
Tom Brady
Brees, Brady and Rodgers—who are all between 28 and 34 years old—are products of a time in college football when offense was being reshaped by the spread: a scheme that features the quarterback taking shotgun snaps with as many as five receivers and an empty backfield. The 1990s—after decades of buttoned-up militarism—were college football's version of the psychedelic '60s. Free-thinking coaches finally stepped away from the bedrock values of the power-running game to fully embrace the pass.
Former Purdue coach Joe Tiller, who coached Brees in college, grew up in Ohio as a disciple of Woody Hayes, the legendary Ohio State coach who championed the idea that the top teams in college football were the toughest teams. That meant grinding out yards behind a punishing offensive line.