Minimum Requirements For Football Leaderboards

The NFL requires players to reach certain minimums to qualify as a leader in per-game stats, percentage stats, and passer rating. For instance, using the chart below, you can see that in 1975 a passer would have needed 10 pass attempts per game over 14 games (i.e. at least 140 pass attempts) to qualify as that year's leader in passing yards per attempt. The following are the minimum requirements to appear on our single season and career leaderboards for each stat, in addition to a 64 game minimum for all rate stats on career or active leaderboards:

Stat Minimums

Stat TypeSeason MinimumCareer MinimumPlayoff Minimum
PassingPrior to 1976, 10 pass attempts per team game
1976-1977, 12 pass attempts per team game
1978-now, 14 pass attempts per team game		1,500 attempts150 attempts
Rushing6.25 rushing attempts per team game750 rushing attempts20 rushing attempts
Receiving1.875 receptions per team game200 receptions8 receptions
FG1 field goal attempt per team game100 field goal attempts-
PAT-200 XP attempts-
Punting2.5 punts per team game250 punts-
Punt Returns1.25 punt return per team game75 punt returns-
Kick Returns1.25 kick return per team game75 kick returns-
Note that when a stat has a "per team game" requirement, the following number of team games apply to seasons. Generally a player is required to have played in at least 50% of scheduled season games to be considered a qualifier for a per-game stat:

Yearly Games

YearGamesNotes
2021-17
1978-202016Excludes strike years of 1987 and 1982
198715Strike year
19829Strike year
1961-197714
1947-196012
194611
194510
19449
19438
1937-194211
1935-193612
1925-193411
1920-19248