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With the evolution of offense in today’s quarterback-friendly and pass-happy NFL, a quarterback passing for 4,000+ yards and 30+ touchdowns is an increasingly common occurrence, and throwing for 3,000+ yards and 20+ touchdowns is almost the bare minimum for a starting signal-caller. However, if you turn the clock back a few decades to when the quarterback was less of a protected species and defensive players were allowed more freedom in how they operated, big passing numbers were more of the exception than the norm. During that era of professional football, two quarterbacks who were ahead of their time in putting up gaudy passing stats were Dan Fouts in the San Diego Chargers’ “Air Coryell” offense and Warren Moon operating the Houston Oilers’ “Run and shoot” attack. As pioneers and trailblazers in paving the way towards today’s style of pro football, both would make their way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame and leave an indelible mark on the game, which begs the question:
Who was better – Dan Fouts or Warren Moon?
The Beginning
Unlike many Hall of Fame quarterbacks who were drafted early with the expectation of immediately becoming franchise saviors, neither Fouts nor Moon came out of college with lofty projections; in Moon’s case, he was not even drafted into the NFL and had to make his mark in Canada before helping to revolutionize the NFL passing game.
Fouts played three years of college football at Oregon and was an All-Pac-8 selection, leaving school with 19 Ducks records including most career passing yards (5,995). Drafted 64th overall in the third round of the 1973 NFL Draft, his first five years were largely unremarkable, as Fouts started 43 games and had an underwhelming 12-30-1 record as a starter from 1973 to 1977. During this period, his best season came in 1976, when under the tutelage of offensive coordinator Bill Walsh (the Hall of Fame coach who was credited with perfecting the West Coast offense as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers), Fouts started 13 games and went 5-8, completing 57.9% of his passes for 2,535 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 15 interceptions, good for a 75.4 QB rating. Don Coryell would become the Chargers’ head coach in 1978, thus bringing the Air Coryell offense that would help Fouts reach new heights.
After starting his collegiate career as a record-setting quarterback at West Los Angeles College (a two-year junior college), Moon went to the University of Washington and played for three years; as a senior in 1977, he led the Huskies to a Pac-8 title and a Rose Bowl upset win over Michigan, garnering game MVP honors in the process. However, despite his success, Moon went undrafted in the then 12-round 1978 NFL Draft (for whatever reasons, possibly due to the belief at the time that African-Americans were not smart enough to play the quarterback position in the NFL). As a result, he would head north to the Canadian Football League (CFL) and join the Edmonton Eskimos, where he would win five straight Grey Cups (the CFL equivalent of the Super Bowl) from 1978 to 1982 and be named Grey Cup MVP in 1980 and 1982. In 1982, Moon was the first professional quarterback to pass for 5,000 yards in a season (exactly 5,000, in fact) and would follow that up in 1983 with 5,648 passing yards and CFL Most Outstanding Player honors. Overall, during his six years in the CFL, Moon completed 57.4% of his passes for 21,228 yards and 144 touchdowns, and was inducted to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2001. Half a decade after being initially shunned by the NFL, a bidding war ensued when Moon announced his intention to join the league – ultimately, he signed with the Houston Oilers, whose head coach Hugh Campbell had actually been Moon’s Eskimos head coach for five seasons.
Career Comparison
From the trials and tribulations of their early professional years, Fouts and Moon would hit their respective strides in their late 20s in their new offensive systems and become two of the most prolific quarterbacks of their day, setting numerous passing records that would stand for many years.
Following Coryell’s arrival, Fouts had a good 1978 season before really blossoming the next year. Throwing to a receiving corps that included future Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow, future Hall of Fame wide receiver Charlie Joiner (who held the career records for receptions and receiving yards upon retirement), and also dynamic wide receivers John Jefferson and Wes Chandler, Fouts would make five straight Pro Bowl appearances from 1979 to 1983, and break the single-season passing yardage record in three consecutive years. In 1979, he completed 62.6% of his passes for a then-record 4,082 yards, 24 touchdowns, and 24 interceptions, good for an 82.6 QB rating, while leading the Chargers to a 12-4 record and receiving All-Pro honors. The next year, Fouts would exceed those numbers, with 4,715 yards on 59.1% passing, 30 touchdowns, 24 interceptions, and an 84.7 QB rating; he was named Second Team All-Pro and the Chargers had another strong season, going 11-5. In the last of his three straight record-breaking seasons, Fouts completed 59.1% of his passes for 4,802 yards, a career-high 33 touchdowns, and 17 interceptions, resulting in a 90.6 QB rating and 10-6 record for his team; the yardage record would be broken by Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino in 1984 (5,084 passing yards), and as of the conclusion of the 2018 regular season, Fouts’ 4,802 yards is “only” 24th on the all-time single-season list.
Fouts’ best year actually may have come in the strike-shortened 1982 season – over the course of only nine games played, he led the Chargers to a 6-3 record while amassing 2,883 yards on 61.8% passing with 17 touchdowns and 11 interceptions for a 93.3 QB rating; his average of 320.3 passing yards per game was an NFL record until New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees threw for 342.3 yards per game and 5,476 yards total in 2011. For his efforts, Fouts was named an All-Pro, AP Offensive Player of the Year, and finished second in the MVP voting behind Mark Moseley of the Washington Redskins (the only time a kicker or special teams player has ever won the MVP award). Following another Pro Bowl season in 1983, Fouts’ last great season was 1985, when he completed 59.1% of his passes for 3,638 yards, 27 touchdows, 20 interceptions, and an 88.1 QB rating, leading the Chargers to a 7-5 record and garnering Second Team All-Pro honors once again. He retired in 1987 at age 36 after spending his entire 15-year career with the Chargers.
As for Moon, upon his arrival in Houston, he would have a couple of middling seasons adjusting to the NFL with the Oilers, including an ugly 13 touchdown, league-leading 26 interception year in 1986, before beginning to turn things around in 1987. While he made the first of eight straight Pro Bowl appearances starting in 1988, the run and shoot offense really took off in 1990. That year, with a talented group of wide receivers that included Drew Hill, Ernest Givins, Haywood Jeffires, and Curtis Duncan, Moon would complete 62.0% of his passes for 4,689 yards, a career-high 33 touchdowns, 13 interceptions, and a 96.8 QB rating while leading the Oilers to an 8-7 record and being named a First Team All-Pro and AP Offensive Player of the Year; in a game vs. the Kansas City Chiefs on December 16, 1990, he would rack up an incredible 527 yards, which is still second-most in a game all-time behind only Norm Van Brocklin’s 554 yards in 1951. As an encore, Moon would then throw for 4,690 yards (one more yard than the previous year!), 23 touchdowns, and 21 interceptions on 61.7% passing, good for an 81.7 QB rating and an 11-5 record under center; both his 404 completions and 655 attempts were single-season records at the time, and he joined Fouts and Marino as only the third player in NFL history with consecutive 4,000-yard passing seasons. After the 1993 season, owner Bud Adams dismantled the run and shoot Oilers and traded Moon to the Minnesota Vikings for the relatively paltry haul of a 4th round pick in the 1994 NFL draft and a 3rd round pick in 1995.
In his first two years with the Vikings, Moon would once again post consecutive 4,000-yard passing seasons. Of particular note, at the age of 39 in 1995, he completed 62.2% of his passes for 4,228 yards, 33 touchdowns (tied for his career-high), 14 interceptions, and a 91.5 QB rating, though the Vikings only finished 8-8. After getting injured in 1996 and ceding the Vikings’ starting quarterback job to Brad Johnson, Moon signed with the Seattle Seahawks and would have one last Pro Bowl season in 1997 (and winning Pro Bowl MVP honors), throwing for 3,678 yards, 25 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions on 59.3% passing for an 83.7 QB rating. He spent his last two seasons as a sparsely-used backup with the Kansas City Chiefs before retiring at age 44 after the 2000 season.
Over the course of two additional seasons and 27 additional games, Moon outpaced Fouts in most accumulation categories, including completions, attempts, passing yards, touchdown passes, and fewer interceptions, as well as QB rating by a hair, though Fouts has the slightly better completion percentage. Moreover, Moon had more 3,000-yard and 4,000-yard passing seasons (9 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 3, respectively) with the same amount of 30+ touchdown seasons (2x each), and was named to more Pro Bowls (9 vs. 6), but Fouts was a 2x All-Pro (a higher honor than Pro Bowler) vs. none for Moon; of course, if you add in his CFL numbers, Moon’s career statistics look incredible: 70,553 passing yards and 435 touchdowns. On a per game basis, their numbers are quite similar – 238 passing yards, 1.40 touchdowns vs. 1.34 interceptions in 181 regular season games for Fouts vs. 238 passing yards, 1.40 touchdowns vs. 1.12 interceptions in 208 regular season games for Moon. Interestingly, both quarterbacks essentially have .500 career win-loss records (two games above for Fouts and one game above for Moon).
Regular Season Statistics
| Dan Fouts | Player | Warren Moon |
| 15 (1973-1987) | Seasons | 17 (1984-2000) |
| 181 | Games Played | 208 |
| 3,297 | Completions | 3,988 |
| 5,604 | Attempts | 6,823 |
| 43,040 | Passing Yards | 49,325 |
| 58.8% | Completion % | 58.4% |
| 254 | Passing Touchdowns | 291 |
| 242 | Interceptions | 233 |
| 80.2 | QB Rating | 80.9 |
| 86-84-1 (50.6%) | Starting QB Record | 102-101 (50.2%) |
| 6x | Pro Bowls | 9x |
| 2x | All-Pro | 1x |
| – | MVP | – |
| – | Super Bowls | – |
| 1x Offensive POY | Other Awards | 1x Offensive POY |
| 1993 | Hall of Fame Induction | 2006 |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Despite their gaudy regular season numbers, neither Fouts nor Moon experienced significant postseason success, posting sub-.500 records and falling short of the Super Bowl with decent, but not great individual numbers.
During his prime, Fouts led the Chargers to four consecutive playoff appearances from 1979 to 1982 and twice made the AFC Championship Game (1980 and 1981), but lost to the Oakland Raiders and Cincinnati Bengals, respectively. Perhaps Fouts’ most memorable playoff game was the 1981 AFC Divisional Championship game vs. the Miami Dolphins – dubbed the “Epic in Miami”, he completed 33 of 53 passes for 433 yards (all NFL postseason records at the time) and 3 touchdowns in leading the Chargers to a thrilling 41-38 overtime victory.
Likewise, in seven playoff appearances (six with the Oilers and one with the Vikings), Moon was not quite able to get his teams over the hump; in fact, he is arguably better remembered for being on the losing end of some of the most memorable playoff games ever. In the 1992 AFC Divisional Round, despite Moon completing 27 of 36 passes for 325 yards and 3 touchdowns (all in the first half) vs. 1 interception, the Oilers would lose 26-24 to the Denver Broncos on a John Elway-led game-winning field goal drive at the end of regulation known as the Drive II. The next season, in the 1993 AFC Wildcard Game vs. the defending AFC Champion Buffalo Bills, Houston had a 35-3 lead in the third quarter, but would lose in overtime 41-38 in what is the largest comeback in NFL history; again, Moon put up strong individual numbers, going 36 of 50 for 371 yards and 4 touchdowns (again all in the first half) vs. 2 interceptions, but wilted in the second half and could not prevent the Bills from making the third of four straight losing Super Bowl appearances. Many pundits saw this as Houston’s best chance to make the Super Bowl, and the meltdown led to the team overhaul that would see Moon traded to Minnesota.
Playoff Statistics
| Dan Fouts | Player | Warren Moon |
| 7 | Games Played | 10 |
| 159 | Completions | 259 |
| 286 | Attempts | 403 |
| 2,125 | Passing Yards | 2,870 |
| 55.6% | Completion % | 64.3% |
| 12 | Passing Touchdowns | 17 |
| 16 | Interceptions | 14 |
| 70.0 | QB Rating | 84.9 |
| 3-4 (42.9%) | Starting QB Record | 3-7 (30.0%) |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; Fouts and Moon both had their primes relatively later due to a combination of coaching (Fouts) or opportunity (Moon), but firmly seized upon those opportunities. For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.” The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete (this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams, of which Fouts is on for the 1980s as part of the Second Team), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years.
Decade of Dominance
| Dan Fouts | Player | Warren Moon |
| 1978-1987 | Decade of Dominance | 1987-1995, 1997 |
| 132 | Games Played | 142 |
| 2,712 | Completions | 2,978 |
| 4,510 | Attempts | 4,966 |
| 35,382 | Passing Yards | 36,319 |
| 60.1% | Completion % | 60.0% |
| 220 | Passing Touchdowns | 232 |
| 185 | Interceptions | 156 |
| 84.1 | QB Rating | 85.0 |
| 74-54 (57.8%) | Starting QB Record | 82-57 (59.0%) |
Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com
If you look at their decades of dominance (and essentially strip out their subpar seasons), both Fouts and Moon can be viewed in a much more favorable light with regards to most of their career numbers, especially in terms of completion percentage, touchdown-to-interception ratio, QB rating, and won-loss record. Furthermore, despite still playing in 10 fewer games, most of Fouts’ passing numbers are much closer to Moon’s stats and one could argue that in the context of passing in their respective eras, actually better. As a testament to his impact on the game, Fouts was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1993; likewise, Moon was immortalized into Canton in 2006, his first year eligible, and became the first CFL player, the first African-American quarterback, and the first undrafted quarterback to achieve the honors.
My Thoughts
In today’s NFL, the stats that Fouts and Moon put up on an annual basis seem almost pedestrian, but during their respective eras, they were truly remarkable. Even more remarkable, each quarterback’s career is filled with “what-if’s” that could have made their respective career numbers even better (what if Coryell had joined the Chargers earlier in Fouts’ career, what if there had been no strike in 1982, what if a team had selected Moon straight out of college, what if the Oilers had not been on the wrong end of two of the most famous postseason comebacks ever, etc. etc.?). In a vacuum, Moon’s career numbers look far more impressive, but I think you need to really take into account context when it comes to these two quarterbacks. Despite his great passing stats and numerous Pro Bowl nods, Moon was never really considered the best quarterback in the league and only had one All-Pro season, whereas Fouts had a four-year stretch (1979-1982) where he was arguably the premier quarterback and was thus recognized as part of the 1980s All-Decade Team. Furthermore, Fouts was instrumental as a pioneer in the NFL’s move towards the passing game, whereas by Moon’s time, guys like Fouts and Dan Marino had already put up gaudy passing numbers in different offensive systems.
Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:
Dan Fouts
As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.
Further Reading
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