Three years ago, I posted a list of Approximate Times of Knockout in the NFL: I defined the time of a knockout as how much time was remaining in every game when the winning team first scored more points than the losing team ultimately scored by the end of the game.

I want to revisit the issue but use a slightly different formula. Since we have robust play-by-play data going back to 2000, I thought we could get more precise. In this post, I am defining the time of knockout as the last time the eventual losing team had the ball within one score of the eventual winning team. This seems to fit the definition of knockout a little bit better, I think, although it’s certainly not perfect. I went through every game of the 2012 season and recorded the time of knockout for the victor in each game. If you lost a game and last had the ball trailing within one score with 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, that goes down as a knockout with 20 minutes remaining. For the winning team, they get +20, while the loser gets -20. If you do that for every game, you can get season ratings.

Let’s take a look at the Patriots. They went 12-4 last year, and had an average net time of knockout of 19.4 minutes. The “net” means this includes losses in there as well. In their 12 wins, the Pats had an average time of knockout of 26.3 minutes, while in their four losses, they were knocked out with just over one minute remaining, on average. The Patriots had the highest average net time of knockout, but you might be surprised to see who had the highest average time of knockout in victories:

That’s right, the 7-9 Chargers were downright dominant in their wins. In three different games — against the Raiders, Titans, and Chiefs — San Diego recorded a knockout within the game’s first eight minutes. This definition of knockout can be a double-edged sword: take a look at the week 17 game against Oakland. On the surface, it was a close game, as the Chargers won 24-21. But San Diego took a 10-0 lead early, and the Raiders cut it to a one-score game only twice. The first time, the Chargers immediately responded with a touchdown, and the second time, San Diego ran out the clock to end the game. In general, I think looking at points differential underestimates how dominant of a win it was for San Diego, although calling it a 55-minute knockout probably goes too far the other way.

The table below shows every regular season game for 2012. The boxscore cell is linked to the boxscore at Pro-Football-Reference for each game, and the far right column shows the time of knockout.

Here’s another quirk: the earliest knockout all season came against Peyton Manning the Broncos! In that game, Manning threw an interception on the third play of the game, and the Falcons went up 7-0 with 13:27 remaining. Manning threw another interception with 11:56 to go, and Matt Ryan then led the Falcons on a short drive for a field goal. That means just over three minutes to game was the last play in which the Broncos had the ball on offense within one score of the Falcons. You might recall that the Broncos nearly won this game — Willis McGahee scored a touchdown to cut it to 27-21 with just over 3 minutes remaining, but the Falcons were able to run out the clock.