Getty Images

Peyton Manning knows he’s not going to own the career passing yards record for long.

Manning said last month that he expects Brees to break his career records, and it’s a matter of when and not if.

So how soon will that happen? It should be around the sixth game of the season that Brees will break Manning’s record for career passing yards. Manning’s all-time record is 71,940 yards. Brees has 70,445 yards. That’s a difference of 1,495 yards, so if Brees averages about 270 yards a game this year like he did last year, he’ll break the record in Week Seven, after the Saints’ Week Six bye.

Brees should break the career record for completions even sooner: Brees has completed 6,222 passes in his career, while Brett Favre owns the record at 6,300. Brees is 78 completions away, which at last year’s pace of about 24 completions a game would get Brees the record in Week Four. Brees is 875 attempts away from Favre’s record, so it will probably be 2019 before he can break that record.

And in the final of the big career passing records, Brees and Tom Brady are exactly tied: They’re both at 488 career touchdown passes, 51 away from Manning’s career record of 539.