The large majority of his throws in the offense were short, it's just that the whole field was opened up so there was a ton of YAC. Also, Montana was always completing a high % of his passes, which gives you a higher yards per attempt even if your yards per completion isn't that impressive.
For example, in 1985 Joe Montana was 4th in yards per attempt, but only 23rd in yards per completion.
Roger Craig as a fullback caught 92 passes for 1016 yards in 1985, that's a yards per catch of 11.0 but you know those throws weren't 11 yards downfield, it's just that defenses were so spread out trying to guard the entire field that players would run wild after catching the ball. When you have a fullback who catches more passes than both your starting WRs combined, you ain't telling me that's a downfield system. Montana would occasionally shoot a ball deep to Dwight Clark, but that didn't happen that often and even then only because the defense had been so pulled in trying to cover everyone inside.
Later, getting guys like Jerry Rice and Brent Jones, the routes were so good and the receivers so strong that those guys kept piling up the YAC and making the yards per attempt look high even when the average pass wasn't getting that far downfield.
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). But that's lot of qbs in general.
