The NFC South's all-time passing-yard leaderboard, measured only for work done in the division from 2002 through 2025, is led by Drew Brees, and Baker Mayfield can move from ninth to sixth on that list if he throws for 2,406 yards this year.
The ranking the piece examines is tightly scoped: it counts only statistics compiled while players were on NFC South teams between 2002 — the division's founding during the last wave of NFL realignment — and 2025. That frame excludes any seasons or yards accrued before 2002 or with teams outside the Saints, Falcons, Buccaneers and Panthers.
Numbers give the headline its weight. Brees sits first on the division's passing-yard chart. Mayfield, currently ninth on that list, faces a clear threshold: 2,406 passing yards in the current season would lift him ahead of Tom Brady and into sixth place. The leaderboard underlines how a single season's performance can meaningfully reshuffle career rankings compiled across more than two decades.
Context matters here. The list covers only time players spent inside the NFC South; performances for other franchises do not count. That means legacy and standing on this particular leaderboard are a product of where a quarterback played as much as how well he played. The division itself was created in 2002 when realignment grouped the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers, and every entry on the top-10 reflects only that division-era tenure.
There is a friction point beneath the arithmetic. Of the ten quarterbacks who populate the NFC South top-10 passing list, only one remains active with the same team that put him on that chart. Baker Mayfield is the lone active quarterback still with his team among those ten, and he enters a contract year — a practical pressure that makes this season's yardage total more than a historical footnote. At the same time, the division's quarterback history has been shaped by inconsistent play from several teams, a structural reason why the roster of career leaders looks patchwork compared with more stable quarterbacking divisions.
The practical consequence is simple: Mayfield's 2025 passing-yard total will determine whether he climbs into the middle of the top half of the leaderboard and overtakes a name like Brady on this division-specific list. That outcome would alter how his NFC South tenure is recorded, even though it would not change his league-wide totals or the careers of other listed quarterbacks.
What remains unresolved is the full order beyond the specific names highlighted here. The overview singles out Brees, Brady and Mayfield because their relative positions and the precise 2,406-yard threshold create an immediate storyline, but the complete top-10 — who else fills the middle places and how close they sit to one another — is the open gap readers interested in the division's passing history will want filled after this season concludes.
Short and direct: Drew Brees leads the NFC South passing yards from 2002–2025; Baker Mayfield needs 2,406 yards this year to jump from ninth to sixth and leap ahead of Tom Brady on a leaderboard that counts only the yards quarterbacks compiled while they were in the division, and Mayfield will finish the season either altering that list or leaving it unchanged.
