The NFL growing into a pass heavy league

Looking through the final NFL 2015 stats, I found something stunning.

An amazing 11 players threw for atleast 30 touchdowns this year.  That's phenomenal.  I remember a time when through 30 touchdowns a year was a benchmark of elite play.  Even more amazing, 21 players threw for atleast 20 touchdowns.

As a comparison, in 2001, only 3 players threw for 30 touchdowns.  Throwing for 20 touchdowns ranked you as 10th best in the league.

Here are the number of 30 TD passers the league has had each year since 2000.

2000 - 3
2001 - 3
2002 - 0
2003 - 1
2004 - 4
2005 - 1
2006 - 1
2007 - 4
2008 - 3
2009 - 4
2010 - 5
2011 - 5 (including three players with atleast 40 TDs thrown)
2012 - 5
2013 - 5
2014 - 9
2015 - 11

As you can see, it's been ratcheting up this decade and especially the past few years.  It's hard to believe that in 2002 there wasn't even 1 quarterback that threw for 30 TDs.

Here's the total number of touchdowns thrown in the NFL during that same timeframe.

2000 - 634
2001 - 635
2002 - 694
2003 - 654
2004 - 732
2005 - 644
2006 - 648
2007 - 720
2008 - 646
2009 - 710
2010 - 751
2011 - 745
2012 - 757
2013 - 804
2014 - 807
2015 - 842

Wow, it's really ratcheting up.  It's the third straight year of 800 TDs thrown (another record, beating the one set in 2014, which beat the one set in 2013) and there hasn't been fewer than 745 since 2009.