In light of Shattenjager’s great post yesterday about Marion Campbell, I thought we should do some NFL head coach trivia today centered around losing.

Let’s start with a tough one. With 165 losses, which coach has lost the most games in NFL history?

Obviously, there’s something to be said for losing a lot of games. That’s kind of like throwing the most interceptions in NFL history, a mark that Brett Favre holds. Let’s move on to a rate-based trivia question.

Which coach has the worst winning percentage in NFL history, minimum 50 games coached? It’s not Campbell or Joe Bugel, who at 30% are tied for the fourth worst record.

What if we move to current coaches? Which of the 32 active head coaches has the most losses? No hints here:
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Sid Luckman did it twice. Two Packers quarterbacks, Arnie Herber and Irv Comp, did it with help from Don Hutson. Sammy Baugh did it as a rookie in 1937.

In five out of eleven seasons from 1936 to 1946, the league leader in passing yards also won the NFL championship. Otto Graham led the AAFC in passing yards in ’47, ’48, and ’49, and the Browns won the championship each of their four seasons in the AAFC. But since then, only two quarterbacks have led the league in passing yards in the same season as winning a title. Can you name them?

Want to take a look at the list of all 95 players to lead their league in passing and their team’s final results? Click the “Show” button below:

Of course, you already knew that passing yards wasn’t strongly correlated with winning. But what about being the league’s most valuable player? This year, the Miami Heat won the NBA title and LeBron James was the MVP (for the second straight year). But in the NFL, it’s much rarer for a player to pull off that feat: Adrian Peterson won MVP, but the Minnesota Vikings weren’t very close to winning the Super Bowl. Can you name the last player to win the MVP and the Super Bowl in the same year?

One more bit of trivia. To really be like LeBron, an NFL player would need to win the MVP, the Super Bowl, and the Super Bowl MVP. That’s happened six times in NFL history, but only once by a non-quarterback. Can you name him?

Two weeks ago, I looked at the longest streaks where a team failed to have a player rush for 100 yards. Richie asked me if I could run the numbers on the longest streaks without a 1,000-yard rusher. The longest active streak in the NFL belongs to the Detroit Lions, who have not boasted a 1,000-yard rusher since Kevin Jones rushed for 1,133 yards as a rookie in 2004. Will Reggie Bush or Mikel Leshoure end that streak in 2013? Probably not.

It’s hard to look at these streaks across NFL history. For example, New York entered the NFL in 1925 and no Giant rushed for 1,000 yards until Ron A. Johnson in 1970. The Lions didn’t have a 1,000-yard rushing in their first 41 years, either. But we can look at the longest streaks that starter after the AFL-NFL merger. The modern Lions are the 12th team to go eight straight years without a 1,000 yard rusher over the last 43 years. As the longest streak? Well now we know why Miami drafted three running backs in consecutive rounds in 1996.

Insert obligatory Dan Marino comment here.

I took this Sporcle quiz the other day on receivers to gain 1,000 yards with multiple teams. I did fine, I suppose, naming 22 of the 30 receivers. As I was going through the list, I kept looking at the rows for “Buccaneers, Panthers” and “Panthers, Cowboys” and my brain operated in this way:

“Steve Smith never played for the Bucs or Cowboys. Neither did Muhsin Muhammad.”
….
“Patrick Jeffers had a big year in 1999, but that was it for his career.”
….
“The Panthers have literally never had anyone resembling a competent wide receiver starting across from Smith in as long as I can remember (other than Muhammad).”
….
“Wesley Walls didn’t play for Dallas or Tampa Bay. And I can’t think of a single other Panthers receiver from before 2000.”
…
“Let me try typing in Smith and Muhammad again.”

After the quiz, I checked the Panthers team page on PFR. The top nine receiving seasons were accomplished by either Smith or Muhammad, but there were in fact two other players to hit the 1,000-yard receiving mark for Carolina. Can you name them? If so, you’re a better man on Panthers wide receiver trivia than me.
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With Anquan Boldin being traded to San Francisco, he’ll have the rare opportunity to win the Super Bowl in consecutive years with different teams. Here’s another bit of trivia: if Boldin makes it back to the Super Bowl, he’ll become just the 11th player to ever make Super Bowls with three different teams. (man, the Anquan Boldin tag at Football Perspective has gotten way more use than I ever expected).

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Kurt Warner will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2 years, making him a potential member of the Class of 2015. Warner is an interesting candidate, and while I suspect he does get in on the first ballot, it’s certainly not a given. Warner won more than 8 games just four times in his career, and he had a relatively nondescript six-year stretch from 2002 to 2007.

But I suspect Warner makes it on his first try because he was a two-time AP MVP choice, he appeared in three Super Bowls, revived two franchises, and he used to bag groceries. Few have a story as incredible as Warner’s, and sportswriters seem to love the guy, so I don’t expect there to be too many hurdles. If he doesn’t get in on the first ballot, he’ll certainly get in eventually.

And that would be a pretty rare feat. Can you name the last quarterback to be selected to the Hall of Fame who was not as a first-ballot choice?

Eight teams in NFL history have rostered five players who — at some point in their career — gained at least 1,000 receiving yards in a season. The most recent three teams were the 2003-2005 Rams, who had Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce, Marshall Faulk, Kevin Curtis, and Mike Furrey. Furrey wouldn’t record 1,000 yards until he joined the Lions in 2006, while Curtis’ only 1,000-yard season came in 2007 with the Eagles. But they qualify, as the question doesn’t concern itself with when that 1,000-yard season occurred.

From 1995 to 1997, the Denver Broncos also pulled off this feat. You could probably guess Shannon Sharpe, Rod Smith, and Ed McCaffrey, but they were joined by Vance Johnson and Anthony Miller in ’95, Miller and Patrick Jeffers (!) the following season, and Jeffers and Flipper Anderson (!!) in 1997.

That leaves just two teams. Bill Belichick’s Cleveland Browns are one of them, as Eric Metcalf, Derrick Alexander, Mark Carrier, Michael Jackson, and Keenan McCardell were all on the 1994 team. Today’s trivia question focuses on the first team to roster five players who, before or after, had a 1,000-yard receiving season.

As this question is, well, impossible, I’ll simply list the players from “least useful” to “most useful” in terms of guessing the team and year. Post in the comments after which player you figured it out!

Last year, Stanford’s David DeCastro was considered one of the safest picks in the draft. But despite being a dominant player that nearly every scout loved, because he was a guard, DeCastro fell to the Steelers with the 24th pick. This year, Alabama guard Chance Warmack projects to be an even better player, and some think he’ll crack the top ten.

Guards generally don’t get drafted so early. It’s not always easy to typecast a player as a guard (as opposed to a center or tackle), but according to Pro-Football-Reference, Chris Naeole (Colorado) is the last guard to be selected in the top 10, when the Saints took him at 10 in 1997. Before that, you have to go back to 1988, when Dave Cadigan (USC) and Eric Moore (Indiana) went to the Jets and Giants. The last guard selected in the top five was Bill Fralic of Pittsburgh, who was taken by the Falcons with the second pick in the 1985 draft.

But when it comes to guards, there’s an even rarer feat than landing in the top five of the draft. The last time any rookie made the Pro Bowl at guard – regardless of draft position – came in 1983. Can you name him?

We all know that Tom Brady set the single-season passing touchdowns record in 2007, when he threw 50 touchdowns as the New England Patriots went 16-0. That broke Peyton Manning‘s mark of 49 touchdowns in 2004. And I think most of us know that prior to Manning, Dan Marino had set the NFL record with 48 touchdowns in 1984.

Marino’s touchdown record stood for 20 years, but do you know who held the record before Marino? Believe it or not, the previous record stood for even longer. Before we get to the hints, here are two freebies.

The quarterback still holds his franchise’s record for passing touchdowns in a season. And he is the last quarterback to set the single-season passing touchdowns record twice in his career.

It’s hard not to be amazed by the seasons that Colin Kaepernick, Robert Griffin III and Russell Wilson had as first-year starters in 2012. It’s playing around with the cut-offs to an absurd degree, but prior to 2012, only six men in NFL history had ever:

• Averaged 7.9 yards per attempt on at least 200 passes
• Average at least 5.0 yards per carry on at least 50 rushes

You probably wouldn’t be surprised to know that Fran Tarkenton, Steve Young, Daunte Culpepper, Michael Vick, and Aaron Rodgers were five of the players to accomplish this feat. Then, in 2012, Kaepernick, Griffin, and Wilson joined the list, as did Cam Newton.

But can you name the remaining member of the 7.9/200/5.0/50 club?

A week before the Super Bowl, I asked if you could name the seven wide receivers to start for two different teams that reached the Super Bowl. In the comments to that post, JWL alerted me to a pretty cool piece of Super bowl trivia.

Eight different men have been the leading rusher in multiple Super Bowls. Seven of these men (Ahmad Bradshaw, New York Giants; Antowain Smith, New England Patriots; Terrell Davis, Denver Broncos; Emmitt Smith, Dallas Cowboys; Tony Dorsett, Dallas Cowboys; Franco Harris, Pittsburgh Steelers; and Larry Csonka, Miami Dolphins) pulled off this feat while playing for the same team.

However, one running has been the leading rusher in two Super Bowls for two different teams. He’s the subject of today’s trivia question. Can you name him?

In 2011, San Francisco made it to the NFC Championship Game with Alex Smith at quarterback; today, the 49ers will face the Falcons with Colin Kaepernick as their starter. This makes them the 9th team since 1970 to make the conference championship game in consecutive years but to start different quarterbacks in that game. Can you name the last team?

What do you give to the man who already has everything? How about a Comeback Player of the Year Award?

Right now, the choice for AP Comeback Player of the Year is a two-horse race between Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson. If Manning wins the award, it will put him in pretty rare territory: he’d be just the fourth player to, over the course of a career, be named by the Associated Press as the Most Valuable Player of the Year, Comeback Player of the Year, and Super Bowl MVP. Can you name the first three?

Below is one hint for each of the three players who have won all three awards.

In case you haven’t noticed, Detroit’s Matt Stafford is throwing the ball a lot this year. He’s thrown the second most passes of any quarterback through 11 games in league history.

In 2011, Stafford led the NFL with 663 pass attempts, the third most in NFL history. In my preview of the 2012 Lions, I threw some cold water on Stafford’s outlook, noting that while he threw for 5,000 yards, his 13th-place finish in Y/A was more telling. This season Stafford is throwing even more frequently — he’s up three pass attempts per game — and is on pace to break the record for pass attempts in a season. And while Stafford may again hit the 5,000-yard mark, he currently ranks just 21st in yards per attempt, which is less forgivable in connection with a 4-7 record than a 10-6 mark.

I suspect that most fans of Football Perspective are pretty good at trivia, so I’m not going to let you off easy. You probably know which quarterback holds the record for pass attempts in a season:

The more challenging question is this: which team holds the record for most team pass attempts in a season? Right now, Detroit is on pace for 729 pass attempts this season (Shaun Hill threw 13 passes), which would break the record.

On Sunday, Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger will meet for the first time since Manning picked up his second Super Bowl ring. The game will be the 9th such matchup between two teams whose starting quarterbacks have each won multiple Super Bowls as starters.

This is the third straight year where we have such a game on the heels of a 25-year drought. In each of the last two seasons, the Steelers and Patriots have played, with Roethlisberger and Tom Brady starting both games. But prior to 2010, the last NFL matchup between two starting quarterbacks with multiple rings was in 1985, featuring the San Francisco 49ers (Joe Montana) and the Los Angeles Raiders (Jim Plunkett).

But today’s trivia question wants to know: which two quarterbacks starred in the first NFL game between two quarterbacks with multiple Super Bowl rings?

Hat tip to The Jerk from the Footballguys message boards for pointing this out to me.

Last week, I noted that Calvin Johnson was trying to become just the third player since 1970 to lead the NFL in receiving yards in consecutive seasons. The rushing crown is much more likely to go to the same player; in fact, ten rushing champions since 1973 also led the league in rushing yards in the prior season.

Maurice Jones-Drew led the league in rushing in 2011, but isn’t going to repeat in 2012. Who was the last player to win the rushing crown in consecutive years?

Calvin Johnson led the league in receiving last season with 1,681 yards. Johnson is fourth in receiving yards this season behind A.J. Green, Wes Welker, and Reggie Wayne, but Johnson is 2nd in yards per game as the Lions have had their bye week while the Bengals and Patriots have not.

If Johnson can lead the league in receiving yards again, he’d become just the third person since the merger to accomplish that feat. Which brings us to today’s trivia question.

Who was the last player to lead the league in receiving yards in consecutive seasons?

Three teams have started 0-2 and won the Super Bowl. In 1993, the Dallas Cowboys started 0-2 in part because Emmitt Smith was holding out for a new contract. In 2001, the New England Patriots — with Drew Bledsoe as starting quarterback — began the year 0-2, before Tom Brady got his first professional start in week three. In 2007, the Gianst allowed 80 points in the first two weeks of the regular season, months before shutting down the highest scoring offense in NFL history in Super Bowl XLII.

There have been 68 teams to win a championship since 1950, including the six AFL champions in the pre-Super Bowl era. 41 of those teams started the season 2-0, and the group as a whole had a 0.790 winning percentage after two weeks. That shouldn’t be too surprising, as the best teams are likely to win most weeks. The last six Super Bowl champions not named the Giants have started the year 2-0.

But which Super Bowl champ had the greatest points differential after two weeks? One team started the year with wins of 34-3 and 39-13 (and won 42-10 in week three).

Note: Tomorrow, in lieu of Sunday trivia, I’ll present the first edition of the SRS for college football teams.

Welcome back, NFL. The first of 17 great Sundays is upon us, and this is always one of my favorite days of the year. I’ll even put up with the garbage that is pre-game and post-game shows to watch football from 9 in the morning until after midnight. I’m sure many of you will do the same, so good luck to whomever you’re rooting for today.

In Friday’s post, I noted that Anquan Boldin gained 217 receiving yards in week 1 of the 2003 season, trailing only Frank Clarke (1962) for most receiving yards on opening weekend.

But as you get ready for today’s actions, chew on this trivia question. Which player gained the most rushing yards in week 1 of an NFL season? Like yesterday, I’ve given you a special hint with this mystery photo.

Yesterday, I wrote about the interesting career of Anquan Boldin. If I had written that article a year ago, I would have noted that Boldin was the all-time leader in receptions per game in NFL history. At the time, Boldin had 650 receptions in 111 games, an average of 5.86 receptions per game. But after just 3.6 catches per game with the Ravens in 2011, Boldin’s rate dropped to 5.66 for his career, good enough for only third place in NFL history.

But who is number one? Jerry Rice is one of 10 players to average at least five receptions per game for their career, but he’s number 10. With 303 career games, there’s a limit to what we could have expected from him. The career leader in receptions per game averaged exactly 5.80 receptions per game. To help you out, I broke out my MS paint skills to give you a photo of this man. Can you guess who it is?

Coming up with trivia questions every weekend isn’t as easy as you might think. Or, if you think it’s easy, submit them to chase [at] footballperspective [dot] com. Otherwise, you’ll get oddball questions like this one today.

Daunte Culpepper’s 2004 season was one of the most incredible in football history. He gained 5,123 combined passing and rushing yards, which stood as an NFL record until 2011. He also threw for 39 touchdown passes and ran for two more, making it one of the most impressive statistical seasons in history.

It’s tempting to give all the credit to Randy Moss, but that was actually Moss’ worst season in Minnesota. Due to a hamstring injury, he was inactive or ineffective for five games, and ended the year with only 767 yards. That brings us to Sunday’s trivia question. Can you name the player who led the ’04 Vikings in receptions?

The past three days, Football Perspective has looked at the best quarterbacks in NFL history. On Wednesday, I explained the methodology for grading each quarterback in each season. Thursday, I came up with an all-time career list of the best quarterbacks based on their regular season play. Yesterday, I presented the data on playoff performances.

Which leads us into today’s trivia question. Only two quarterbacks have ever led two different teams to championships. Can you name either of them? No quarterback has ever won Super Bowls with different teams, although a certain Mile High quarterback will attempt to do that this year.

Yesterday’s trivia question centered on which team has won the most regular season games since 1970. Today we’ll shift to post-season results.

Every NFL team has now won a playoff game, as the Houston Texans joined the club in January with a win over the Bengals in the wildcard round of the playoffs. That puts them tied with the Detroit Lions for fewest playoff wins since 1970; and unlike the Texans, the Lions have been around for far too long to have mustered just one playoff win in the last 43 years. Detroit defeated the young Dallas Cowboys in the division round of the 1991 playoffs — just before the Cowboys would put it all together and win the next two Super Bowls.

But what about the most playoff wins? Like yesterday, take a second to think about it, or click on the multiple choice answers below for some hints:

The Chicago Bears have won 712 regular season games, most in NFL history. Of course, the Bears even predate the “NFL”, having had their inaugural season as the Decatur Staleys in 1920. At the time, the Staleys, the Cardinals (playing in Chicago), and several since defunct franchises were playing in the American Professional Football Association. The next year, the Green Bay Packers joined, and in 1922, the APFA was renamed the National Football League.

The easiest trivia question of all time is which team has the most losses in NFL history. That would be the Cardinals, whose 699 regular season losses outpace the Detroit Lions by exactly 100. The Eagles have the third most losses, with 549.

But what if we examine performance in relatively modern times? Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, which team has the most regular season victories?

Take a second to think about it, or click on the multiple choice answers if you would like some hints:

Pro Bowls aren’t a great measure of NFL ability, but they’re one of the few statistics that enable comparisons across positions. Ray Lewis has made 13 Pro Bowls in his 16-year career, and he can tie the NFL record if he makes another trip to Hawaii this season. Only two players in NFL history have ever made 14 Pro Bowls in their career.

As you would suspect, both are in the Hall of Fame. Among eligible players, Will Shields is the only non-Hall of Famer with 10 or more Pro Bowls on his resume, and Shields will surely be inducted within the next couple of years.

But can you name either of the two men who have made 14 Pro Bowls?

Today’s trivia is Jeopardy-style, where you need to guess the question. The answer is: LaDainian Tomlinson (2006), Shaun Alexander (2005), Priest Holmes (2002), Marshall Faulk (2000 and 2001), Emmitt Smith (1995), Jerry Rice (1987), Marcus Allen (1982) and O.J. Simpson (1975).

It may not be much help, but I’ve at least given you the years to let you know it’s a single-season record. Leave your guesses in the comments, and as always, the honor system will be strictly enforced.

A few hints as you try to guess the trivia question:

In 1983, the Washington Redskins set an NFL record by scoring 541 points. Fifteen years later, the Minnesota Vikings broke that mark by going 15-1 and scoring 556 points. Then, in 2007, the New England Patriots topped Minnesota by going undefeated and scoring 589 points, the most in NFL history.

Last year’s Green Bay Packers scored 560 points, preventing Randy Moss from being a star on the two highest scoring teams in NFL history. But it’s not the Patriots, Vikings or Redskins that hold the mark for most points scored per game in NFL history. New England averaged 36.8 points per game in 2007, but one NFL team in the pre-modern era scored 38.83 points per game.

They’re the subject of today’s trivia question. Can you name the highest scoring team in NFL history?

There’s only one team in NFL history that had a full lineup’s worth of Hall of Famers on the offensive line. In 1971, the Oakland Raiders incredibly rostered five offensive lineman who would one day wind up in Canton.

Four were starters; the fifth was a reserve on the team who played one year with the Raiders before retiring. The fifth starter was right guard George Buehler, who probably didn’t get much recognition during his playing days. But hey, his card is here on Football Perspective today!

I’ll switch up the trivia today, with one hint for each of the five starters. How many can you name?

There have been 105 teams to have at least two players gain 1,000 receiving yards in a season. It first happened in 1960 in the AFL, where wide receivers benefited by playing against lower quality of defensive backs and also a fourteen-game schedule (the NFL schedule switched from a 12 to 14 games the following year). New York’s Don Maynard led the team with 1,265 yards, while Art Powell finished with 1,167. Maynard and Powell repeated the feat in 1962, and then Maynard and the Jets’ George Sauer also joined the club in ’67 and ’68. In total, seven different AFL teams fielded a pair of 1,000 yard receivers, with Bill Groman and Charley Hennigan (1961, Houston), Warren Wells and Fred Biletnikoff (1968, Oakland) and Lance Alworth and Gary Garrison (1968, San Diego) rounding out the list.

But in the NFL, no team fielded a pair of 1,000 yard receivers in the ’60s, even with the 14-game schedule. And as professional football entered the dead ball era in the 1970s, it wasn’t until the passing rules changes and the advent of the 16-game schedule that an NFL team — in fact, three NFL teams — first fielded multiple 1,000-yard receivers.