QB Q&A: The legend of Johnny Unitas

At a certain point in every legendary athlete’s career, something shifts in their perception. At this point, a very small number of living people can say that they have seen Jesse Owens at the Olympics, Babe Ruth at bat or Dolph Schayes on the court. These athletes have become folklore. Their epics are discounted in the modern era. Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game seems just as much of a tall tale as Paul Bunyan’s legendary tall tales, yet these legendary feats are legitimate.

Football has its own urban legends. The most famous is the greatest Baltimore Colt Johnny Unitas. Although widely heralded as a pioneer of the modern passing attack, Unitas’ greatest season is not recognized for the utter brilliance that it was. But how good was it really? I believe it is one of the greatest seasons of all time, one whose raw statistics still hold up more than 60 years later.

In 1959, Unitas threw 32 touchdown passes and 14 interceptions with 2,899 yards through the air. Almost all of these stats would hold up today. The yardage may seem a little low, but Unitas actually threw all of his passes in a 12-game season. If he threw his average of about 240 yards per game during the 2024–25 season, he would rank seventh, above Jordan Love, Pro-Bowler Justin Herbert and 2025 league MVP Josh Allen, in total passing yards. His 32 passing touchdowns would place him fifth in the league, which still ranks above the aforementioned players.  

The one smear on Unitas’s historic season was his 14 interceptions. However, unlike today’s game, the rules in 1959 were much tougher on quarterbacks. Unitas’ 1959 season was played 17 years before the Mel Blount rule was enacted, limiting physical contact by defensive backs to within five yards. Quarterbacks back then were also treated like any position player by the referees. There were no roughing the passer calls, meaning quarterbacks knew that they were almost certainly going to get hit even after they had thrown the ball. In this context, it makes sense why, besides Unitas, no quarterback in 1959 had thrown more than 20 touchdowns.

To have one of the greatest seasons of all time, it needs to be compared to the best all-time performance. So, let’s compare Unitas to Peyton Manning’s record breaking 2013 campaign. In 2013, Manning threw 55 touchdowns and 10 interceptions while throwing 5,477 yards. Clearly, he had far more touchdowns and yards than Unitas, all while throwing four fewer interceptions in four more games. Although the comparison is impossible to truly make due to rule changes and talent inflation, there are some shocking similarities between Unitas and Manning. For fun, let’s take Tom Brady and Joe Montana's last MVP seasons and compare them as well.  

(A = League Average, TD = Touchdowns, INT = Interceptions, YDS = Yards)

So Unitas’ season wasn’t as good as Manning’s 2013 campaign, but it was certainly better than Brady’s and Montana’s last MVP seasons. Although Unitas’ season wasn’t the best ever, it was still a dominant season, one that beats the peak seasons of other legendary quarterbacks’ MVP seasons.