By Evan Cheney
Staff Writer

“I thought it was a historic and disappointing season, with the result of the Super Bowl,” Senior Tyler Gillen said.

This was an amazing NFL season by any standard. Records were broken, the scoring was at an all-time high, and new teams were in the playoffs winning their divisions.

The season started with a record tying performance by Peyton Manning. As he threw for seven touchdowns against the Baltimore Ravens. Albeit after having to wait through a 25 minute lightning delay that made fans like myself, angry and anxious for the new NFL season to start.

“It was a very exciting year. The Denver Broncos were a fun team to watch due to their explosive offense,” Junior Chris Albright said.

It wouldn’t be the last great performance by Manning this season, as he went on to finish the season with 55 touchdowns, 5,477 passing yards, a 115.1 quarterback rating, and only 10 interceptions.

But Manning wasn’t the only quarterback to have a great season this year. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Nick Foles, who only started ten games this season, had a great season himself. Foles had 27 touchdown passes, 2,891 passing yards, a quarterback rating of 119.2, and only threw two interceptions.

Foles had thrown 19 touchdown passes before he threw an interception. This is the second longest streak in NFL history, behind Manning throwing 20 touchdowns this year before throwing an interception. Foles quarterback rating of 119.2 led the NFL this season. And was the third highest mark of any player in NFL history.

This season was also a great season for running backs in the NFL as well. For example, Adrian Peterson becomes just the third running back in NFL history to rush for 10 touchdowns in at least seven different seasons.

Peterson also now ties Tiki Barber for the second most 200 yard rushing games in NFL history. One behind O.J Simpson, Peterson is also now the third fast running back to rush for 10,000 yards behind only Eric Dickerson and Jim Brown. Philadelphia Eagles’ Lesean McCoy became the first Eagles rusher to lead the league since Hall Of Famer Steve Van Buren did it in 1949.

In the NFL this season, tight ends had a breakout year. New Orleans tight end Jimmy Graham led the NFL with 16 touchdown receptions.

Graham is the third player in NFL history to lead the league in touchdown receptions, Rob Gronkowski did it in 2011, and Vernon Davis tied for the league lead in 2009.

Tony Gonzalez, who will be retiring after this season, became the fifth player and the first tight end to reach 15,000 receiving yards with 15,127.

Gonzalez and Jerry Rice are now the only players in NFL history to have 11,000 receptions, 15,000 receiving yards, and 100 touchdown catches.

As previously stated, this season, the NFL scoring record was broken. Meaning, more points were scored this NFL season than any other season in history.

A record 11,985 points were scored during the 2013 season, with games averaging 46.8 points, the highest average in NFL history (46.5 in 1948). In all, 1,338 total touchdowns were scored, surpassing the league-wide record of 1,297, which occurred last season.

The Broncos’ 606 points surpassed the 2007 New England Patriots for the most in NFL history. Denver also had the second-highest scoring average of any NFL team, trailing only the 1950 Los Angeles Rams.

The Carolina Panther and Philadelphia Eagles rebounded to win their respective divisions after finishing in last place or tied for last in 2012.This marked the NFL-record 11th consecutive season that at least one team went from “worst-to-first” in its division.

Junior Kyle Difrank said “It was one of the highest scoring seasons ever, it was amazing. Peyton had a season that has never been matched. The Eagles surprised me greatly as well this year. They have a promising future.”