A fun trivia question from Scott Kacsmar this week:

The most TD passes a QB threw in one season in games he LOST is 25. Name the QB, and if you can, the year.

Here’s the answer:

Who is the career leader in touchdown passes in losses?



Who is the single-season leader in rushing touchdowns in losses?



What about the career leader in rushing touchdowns in losses?



How about the single-season leader in receiving touchdowns in losses?



Finally, what about the career leader? There’s a three-way tie in this category, with 46 touchdown receptions in losses.



The trivia run ends tomorrow, as Andrew Healy has another fun post.

The past couple of days, we looked at the players with the most receiving yards and rushing yards in their final 16 regular season games. Today, we get to the quarterbacks.

Only one non-active player threw for 4,000 yards in his final 16 games.

Three other players threw for 3900+ yards. That doesn’t include Dan Fouts (3,805) or Dan Marino (3,869), but it does include quarterbacks from the great, the good, and the ugly category.

I’m still short on time, so let’s keep the trivia train rolling.  Yesterday, I looked at the players with the most receiving yards in their last 16 regular season games. Today, the players with the most rushing yards in their last 16 games.

Excluding LeSean McCoy, Adrian Peterson, and Doug Martin, only five players have rushed for over 1,500 yards in their final sixteen games.  The record-holder rushed for 1,702 yards in his final sixteen games.  Do you know who it is?

One other player rushed for at least 1,600 yards in his last 16 games  Can you name him?

What about the other three players who rushed for 1,500 yards in their careers? All three retired early.

I’m very short on time this week, so here’s a fun trivia question. Last week, I noted that Justin Blackmon gained 1,201 receiving yards in his last 16 games. As it turns out, if Blackmon never plays in another NFL game, that would set the record for most receiving yards in a player’s final sixteen games (this excludes all active players, of course).

Who holds that record now? Two players gained just over 1,100 yards in their final sixteen games. Can you name them?

Rounding out the top five: Hart Lee Dykes caught 71 passes for 1,098 yards in his final sixteen games, as an off-the-field incident (which has nothing on this off-the-field incident) and repeated knee injuries ended his career. Finally, Terrell Owens gained 80 receptions, 1,087 yards, and 10 touchdowns in his last sixteen games.

Can you name the two quarterbacks with the most losses in a single season?

What about the quarterback with the most losses during his rookie year?





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The 1998 season was one of my favorite years in NFL history. It was also a pretty weird one. We had Terrell Davis rushing for 2,000 yards, rookies Randy Moss and Fred Taylor making defenses look silly, and a quartet of old quarterbacks stun the football world. Doug Flutie came out of nowhere Canada to lead the Bills to a 7-3 record after being out of the NFL for nine years. Randall Cunningham, who had retired after the ’96 season, came off the bench in ’98 to produce one of the best backup seasons in NFL history. The other two quarterbacks are the stars of this post.

Vinny Testaverde had a very up-and-down career, although he was almost certainly a much better quarterback than you remember. Okay, Testaverde has lost more games than any other quarterback, but he played on some really bad teams throughout his career. Testaverde retired with a career winning percentage of 0.423. In 1998, he started 13 games for the Jets; based on that career winning percentage, we would have expected him to win 5.5 games in 1998. Instead, Testaverde went 12-1 in the regular season, giving him 6.5 more wins than we would expect. If that sounds remarkable to you, it should: that’s the 2nd largest discrepancy of any quarterback in NFL history in a single season (minimum 40 career wins). [continue reading…]

Last week, I looked at the top receivers and the quarterbacks who threw it to them. Today, we flip that question around and look at which receivers the top quarterbacks threw to. I used the exact same methodology from the previous post, so please read that for the fine details.

For Peyton Manning, 20% of his career passing yards came via Marvin Harrison, and another 16% came from Reggie Wayne.  Both of those numbers will decline the longer Manning plays, of course, but for now, those players dominate his list (Dallas Clark is third at seven percent). That’s a pretty stark departure from other quarterbacks such as say, I dunno, Tom Brady.  For the Patriots signal caller, Wes Welker is his top man (13%), followed by Deion Branch (9%), Troy Brown (7%), Rob Gronkowski (7%), and then Randy Moss (5%).

The table below lists the top 7 receivers for each of the 200 quarterbacks with the most passing yards since 1960. The list is sorted by the quarterback’s career passing yards, and I have removed the percentage sign from the table to enable proper sorting.  For example, here’s how to read Brett Favre’s line.  He’s the career leader in passing yards, and played from 1992 to 2010.  His top receiver was Donald Driver (9%), followed by Antonio Freeman (9%), Robert Brooks (6%), Sterling Sharpe (5%), Bill Schroeder (5%), Ahman Green (4%), and William Henderson. [continue reading…]

Last weekend, we looked at the team with the most Pro Bowlers to win a championship. Today, we look at the reverse: the team with the fewest Pro Bowlers to win it all.

As a technical matter, the Pro Bowl hasn’t always been around, so some pre-1950 teams and the 1960 Oilers (there was no Pro Bowl in the AFL’s first season) had zero Pro Bowlers. But only one team has had exactly one Pro Bowler and won the title. Here are some hints:

[continue reading…]

Okay, some fun trivia to kick off the week. Do you know which team last year had the worst points differential in games they lost? I’ll put the answer in spoiler tags.

Where does that rank historically? I thought it would be fun to look at the teams since 1950 with the worst average margin of defeat looking exclusively at performance in losses. This was a bit of a tricky one, but Scott Kacsmar was able to guess it on twitter. The answer?



The table below shows the 100 teams with the worst average points differential in losses since 1950. As always, the tables in this post are fully sortable and searchable. For viewing purposes, I’m displaying only the top 20, but you can change that in the dropdown box on the left. [continue reading…]

Yesterday, we looked at the team with the most Hall of Famers in a single season in NFL history. That team, which won the NFL championship, had 8 of its players make the Pro Bowl. That’s a very high number, of course, but over 30 teams have won it all and had eight or more players make the Pro Bowl.

Three teams have had twelve players make the Pro Bowl in a championship season. Two of them came in the AFL. In 1961, QB George Blanda, HB Billy Cannon, FB Charley Tolar, WR Charley Hennigan, TE Bob McLeod, LT Al Jamison, C Bob Schmidt, DE Don Floyd, DT Ed Husmann, MLB Dennit Morris, and cornerbacks Tony Banfield and Mark Johnston, all made the Pro Bowl for the Houston Oilers.  Somehow, Bill Groman, who led the league with 17 touchdowns and was a first-team All-Pro selection, was not a Pro Bowler.

A year later, another Texas team won the AFL championship and sent a dozen players to the Pro Bowl. Lamar Hunt’s Dallas Texans fielded QB Len Dawson, HB Abner Haynes, FB Curtis McClinton, TE Fred Arbanas, LT Jim Tyrer, LG Marvin Terrell, RT Jerry Cornelison, DE Mel Branch, DT Jerry Mays, LLB E.J. Holub, MLB Sherrill Headrick, and CB Dave Grayson en route to an 11-3 record.

But only one NFL champion has sent 12 players to the Pro Bowl.  Can you guess who?

[continue reading…]

Today’s trivia is a straightforward one: only one team in NFL history has fielded 11 players who are currently members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Can you name that team?

[continue reading…]

At the end of my Seahawks-Saints playoff preview, I came up with (what I thought was) a pretty neat bit of trivia:

New Orleans gained 4918 passing yards and allowed only 3105 passing yards. That 1813 yard difference is largest by any NFL team in history. The 1961 Oilers, led by George Blanda, Bill Groman, and Charley Hennigan, actually gained 2,001 more passing yards than they allowed, but Houston of course was an AFL team. And there’s a bit of an asterisk here because of the games played: the 1943 Bears, 1951 Rams, and 1967 Jets also had a larger passing yards differential on a per-game basis. But regardless, that puts the Saints in some pretty impressive company. The Oilers, Bears, and Rams all won their league’s championships that season, and Joe Namath’s Jets won the Super Bowl the next season. The team with the fifth largest passing yards differential on a per-game basis, prior to the Saints, was the 2006 Colts, also a Super Bowl champion.

I never ran the same numbers but for rushing yards, because I just assumed it would be dominated by the ’72 Dolphins and other similar teams.  But as it turns out, the undefeated Dolphins rank only third in net rushing yards in a single season since 1950, even on a per-game basis.  In 1972, Miami rushed for an amazing 2,960 yards, but allowed 1,548 yards on the ground to opposing teams. That comes out to a 1,412 yard difference, or a +100.9 rushing yards per game differential.

The 2001 Steelers, with Kordell Stewart, Jerome Bettis, and a suffocating defense, finished with a +98.7 differential, the fifth best differential since 1950.  The ’84 Bears, behind Walter Payton and their own dominant defense, checks in at #4 at +99.8.  The second best performance is owned by the ’76 Steelers, who finished with a +108.1 differential.  That was the year Pittsburgh allowed just 28 points over the team’s final 9 games, and Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier both hit the 1,000-yard mark (they were the second duo to do so, behind Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris on the ’72 Dolphins).

None of those teams caused me any surprise, which I guess is why I never ran the numbers until today.  But it would have taken me quite a few more guesses to come up with the number one team on the list.  That’s why I’ll give you guys some hints. [continue reading…]

Last year, the Denver Broncos led the NFL in sack differential — that is, sacks recorded by the defense minus sacks allowed by the offense. Having Peyton Manning really helps, as the Broncos had essentially an average number of defensive sacks (41) but ranked first in offensive sacks (20). So Denver ranked 1st in 2013 at +21, with the Panthers and Rams tying for second at +17 each. The worst team was the Jaguars at -19, with the Dolphins (-16) and Bucs/Falcons (-12) not too far behind.

A few years ago, Mike Tanier wrote a great column on the 1986 Eagles, the team that obliterated the record for sacks allowed with 104. But since Philadelphia had 53 sacks of their own (having Reggie White tends to help), Philadelphia was able to pull into a tie for worst sack differential of all time. That honor of -51 is shared with the 1961 Minnesota Vikings, an expansion team led by our good pal Fran Tarkenton. Minnesota’s defense recorded an absurdly low 16 sacks that season (the 14-team league average, including Minnesota, was 38), and led the league by a substantial margin with 67 sacks, most of them attributed to Tarkenton. Back then, expansion teams were not very good, although the team would turn things around soon.

What about the teams with the best sack differential? Four teams have recorded 40 or more sacks than they’ve allowed. [continue reading…]

Colin Kaepernick won’t be hurting for weapons this year, which may be why San Francisco decided to give him a massive contract extension prior to the season. So will this be a career year for the young quarterback? Even if he plays well, he may not throw for 4,000 yards due to game script; after all, the 49ers held an average lead 5.9 points last year, and as a result, the team ranked 31st in pass attempts. San Francisco figures to be excellent again, but Kaepernick should produce very strong efficiency numbers in 2014. Assuming they all stay healthy and make the roster, check out the quintet of weapons Kaepernick will have at his disposal:

• Anquan Boldin was dominant for San Francisco last year, and 2013 marked the sixth time in his career he’s topped the 1,000-yard mark. He maxed out with a 1,402-yard season with Arizona in 2005.
• Michael Crabtree was limited to just five games after recoving from a torn Achilles, but he recorded 1,105 yards on a run-heavy 49ers team in 2012.
• Steve Johnson had 1,000-yard seasons in 2010, 2011, and 2012 (with a high of 1,073 in ’10) with the Bills, but will be a 49er in 2014.
• Tight end Vernon Davis has actually never had a 1,000-yard year, but he did gain 965 yards and score 13 touchdowns in 2009.
• Brandon Lloyd may not even make the roster, but the man drafted by San Francisco 11 years ago has seen some success in between his stops with the 49ers.  Two years ago, he gained 911 yards for the Patriots, and in 2010, he led the league with 1,448 receiving yards while playing in Denver.

As of a year ago, only eight teams in NFL history had ever fielded a roster with five players who gained 1,000 receiving yards in a season at some point in their careers. But none of those teams entered a season with five former 1,000-yard receivers: for each of those teams, at least one of the five players had a 1,000-yard season at some point in the future.

But the 2014 49ers would only become the second team to enter a season with five players who had previously gained at least 965 receiving yards in a season. Can you guess the first? [continue reading…]

Only two players in NFL history have ever rushed for 5,000 yards with two teams. Can you name either of them?

Here’s a couple of hints for the only player to rush for 5,300+ yards with two different teams.

Here’s a couple of hints for the other player:

One other player was really, really close.

Here’s a couple of hints for that player:

[continue reading…]

The St. Louis Rams may have had the best defensive line in football in 2013. At defensive end, the Rams had two stars in Robert Quinn (the Defensive Player of the Year) and Chris Long (who has recorded 33 sacks over the past three years). As part of the RG3 trade, St. Louis traded down in the first round of the 2012 draft and wound up selecting defensive tackle Michael Brockers, who had a breakout sophomore season. The other defensive tackle spot was manned by Kendall Langford, a solid if unremarkable 28-year-old player. That defensive line helped St. Louis record a sack on 9.2% of all pass plays in 2013, the second highest rate in the NFL (behind Carolina).

Then, the Rams drafted a defensive tackle in the first round of the 2014 Draft. And not just any defensive tackle, but Pittsburgh’s Aaron Donald, the combine superstar who led the nation in tackles for losses last year. Assuming Donald replaces Langford in the lineup, that gives the Rams for first round picks on the defensive line, which brings us to the first trivia question of the day.

Can you name the last team to have four different defensive linemen who were drafted in the first round start 8+ games in a season? [continue reading…]

Yesterday, I looked at team turnover in the passing game for every team in 2013. You can review the pretty complicated ^[1]While I admit to it being complicated, I think the added value in accuracy is worth the added layer of complexity; frankly, I can’t think of a simple way to calculate turnover that really … Continue reading formula in that post, but the short version is to give each player credit for the lower of two values: his percentage of team receiving yards in Year N and his percentage of team yards in Year N-1. Today, I use that same concept to analyze team passing for every year since the merger.

And the team with the greatest receiving turnover in NFL history (even including pre-1970 teams) is the 1989 Detroit Lions. Take a look at the players who caught passes for Detroit in 1988:

[continue reading…]

The Carolina Panthers have experienced a lot of turnover this offseason. Steve Smith (Baltimore), Ted Ginn (Arizona), Domenik Hixon (Chicago), and Brandon LaFell (New England) are all gone. Those four players were the only wide receivers to catch a pass for Carolina in 2013, and they accounted for 59% of the Panthers receiving yards. last year. What does this mean for Cam Newton? Last August, a couple of star quarterbacks appeared to be going through some similarly significant turnover among their targets.

Tom Brady lost four of his top five targets from 2012 and the fifth was Rob Gronkowski; in retrospect, most people underestimated how big of an impact this would have on Brady’s numbers. Meanwhile, Ben Roethlisberger’s receivers were a big question mark entering the season, but a monster year from Antonio Brown prevented Roethlisberger’s numbers from tanking. As it turned out, Roethlisberger didn’t wind up having much turnover, but the quarterback who experienced the second-most turnover wound up winning the Comeback Player of the Year award.

For Carolina, I think some of the departures have been overblown. The defense should again be one of the best in the NFL, and it’s not as though the passing game was outstanding last year. Greg Olsen led the team in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns last year, and he’ll be back in 2014. In addition, the Panthers averaged 7.4 yards per attempt on passes to Greg Olsen last year and 7.1 yards per attempt (the league average) on passes to all other players. Carolina signed Jerricho Cotchery, Jason Avant, Tiquan Underwood, and Joe Webb, should draft a receiver or two in May, and has a potential sleeper in Marvin McNutt. I think they’ll be just fine, mostly because that’s all the passing game was last year.

Since it’s still a bit early to figure out exactly how the Panthers passing game will look in 2014, I thought we could use some time this weekend to review some history. Which teams have experienced the most turnover among their targets? And how do we even measure such a thing? [continue reading…]

Interesting stat about LeBron James courtesy of Tim Reynolds: The Heat superstar has increased his field goal percentage in seven straight seasons. Take a look at his field goal percentage by season:

Now as you guys can probably figure out, I’m not terribly invested in the career of LeBron James or basketball stats. But one thing I know is that improving on any metric in seven straight years is really freakin’ rare.

How rare? Only one quarterback in NFL history has increased his passing yards output in six straight years. That quarterback actually increased his passing yards per game in eight straight seasons, but no other quarterback can come close to matching that feat, either. Can you guess who our mystery quarterback is?

Here, take a look at his career stats:

So while 1) my interest in basketball is limited, and 2) as Neil would tell me, field goal percentage is meaningless, simply increasing your performance in any stat for seven straight years is remarkable. No running back has ever increased their rushing output in seven straight years, although Earl Ferrell (if you count his rookie year of zero rushing yards per game, 1982-1988) and Pete Johnson (1977-1983) both increased their rushing yards per game in six straight years.

No receiver has seen a seven-year increase in any stat, either.  However, three players have increased their number of receptions in six straight years: Jason Avant (2006-2012), Raymond Berry (1955-1961), and Reggie Wayne (2001-2007). However, none of them managed to pull off that feat in receiving yards.

But two other players did: Tim Brown (1989-1995) and Marcus Pollard (if you count his rookie year of zero receiving yards, 1995-2001) increased their receiving yards in six straight seasons. And Leonard Thompson (1977-1983), Brown, and Pollard were the only players to increase their receiving yards per game in six straight years.

So whatever you think of LeBron, just know that here’s one more reason a stats geek could find his career fascinating.

If you play with enough filters of the “my dad can beat up your sister” variety, you can get some pretty counter-intuitive results. For example, Jerry Rice and DeSean Jackson are the only two players in NFL history to catch 350 passes, gain 6,000 receiving yards, and average 17.1 yards per reception through their first six seasons. Here’s proof.

Here’s another one: Jerry Rice and Brett Favre are the only two players to ever catch a pass after turning 40 years old.

Like touchdowns? Rice and Cris Carter are the only two players to catch 35+ touchdowns from inside of five yards.

And one more: Jerry Rice and Doug Flutie are the only two players to ever score a touchdown after turning 42 years old.

But putting Rice in a group with Hall of Famer (or future Hall of Famer) isn’t very fun, and even Flutie and Jackson are good enough players that the trivia isn’t shocking. Hence today’s post: I want to see who can come up with the worst player to be in a bit of Rice trivia along these same lines. I will defer to mob rule to select a winning entry.

The rules:

1) The trivia must take this form: “Jerry Rice and [___] are the only two players…”

2) Everyone must be eligible, so no restrictions based on team. So it can’t be “Rice and Terrell Owens were the only two 49ers to… or “Rice and Deacon Jones are the only two players from Mississippi Valley State to….”. However, a “Rice and [__] are the only two players to [________] for two or more teams would be acceptable. Make sense? If not, hey, give it a shot and maybe the crowds will approve.

Fire away, and remember, the PFR play index is your friend. Multiple entries are not just permitted, but encouraged.

Last year, I wrote an article about Super Bowl squares. Well, it’s that time of year again, so here’s your helpful cheat sheet to win at your Super Bowl party.

Every Super Bowl squares pool is different, but this post is really aimed at readers who play in pools where you can trade or pick squares. I looked at every regular season and postseason game since 2002. The table below shows the likelihood of each score after each quarter, along with three final columns that show the expected value of a $100 prize pool under three different payout systems. The “10/” column shows the payout in a pool where 10% of the prize money is given out after each of the first three quarters and 70% after the end of the game; the next column is for pools that give out 12.5% of the pool after the first and third quarters, 25% at halftime, and 50% for the score at the end of the game. The final column is for pools that give out 25% of the pot after each quarter — since I think that is the most common pool structure, I’ve sorted the table by that column, but you can sort by any column you like. To make the table fully sortable, I had to remove the percentage symbols, but “19, 6.7, 4.1, 2” should be read as 19.0%, 6.7%, 4.1%, and 2.0%. [continue reading…]

Did you happen to notice the stat line produced by Ryan Tannehill last week? He completed just 10 of 27 passes for only 82 yards in a 19-0 loss to the Bills. A 37% completion rate and a 3.0 yards per attempt average are ugly numbers in their own right, but Tannehill was also sacked seven times for 46 yards. That means on 34 dropbacks, he produced…. 36 yards.

Tannehill did not throw an interception in the 19-0 shutout, so perhaps that’s why this game has gone under the radar. But a quarterback does not get to fare so poorly and avoid coverage of it at Football Perspective. Can you imagine if Tony Romo or Jay Cutler had a game like this? Why aren’t people talking about this? Tannehill averaged One Net Yard per Attempt over THIRTY FOUR DROPBACKS!?! Tannehill’s NY/A average dropped from 5.72 to 5.46, an unheard of drop this late in the season.

To be fair, Tannehill’s lack of interceptions does make the performance less horrible. But today, I want to just focus on yards produced on pass attempts (including sacks). Lots of good quarterbacks have had bad days when it comes to interceptions, but how often does a quarterback struggle so much on nearly every play for 34 plays?

Let’s provide some context. This season, the average pass play (including sacks) has produced 6.217 net yards, which means you would expect 34 dropbacks to produce 211.4 yards. That means Tannehill’s performance produced 175.4 net yards under average. Among quarterbacks with at least 15 pass attempts in a game, that’s the 25th worst performance since 1960, and the 7th worst performance since 2000.

The table below shows the worst 250 performances since 1960, although the only game I calculated for 2013 was Tannehill’s. The worst performance using this formula goes to Green Bay’s Lynn Dickey in 1981 against the Jets in week 16. He completed just 12 of 33 passes for 96 yards (I’ve included the TD and INT numbers even though they are not part of the calculation), and was sacked an incredible 9 times for 57 yards (Mark Gastineau, Joe Klecko, and Marty Lyons each had multiple sacks). So on 42 dropbacks, Dickey gained 39 yards, for an average of 0.9 NY/A. The NFL average that season was 6.02 NY/A, which means Dickey produced 214 Net Yards below average.
[continue reading…]

In 1990, there were 22 running backs who rushed for at least 700 yards. Of those players, Barry Sanders, Ottis Anderson, Sammie Smith, John L. Williams, Emmitt Smith, John Stephens, Lorenzo White, James Brooks, Cleveland Gary, and Neal Anderson were former first round picks. In addition, Bobby Humphrey, Mike Rozier, and Kevin Mack were selected with first round picks in supplemental drafts, bringing the number to thirteen.

Christian Okoye and Thurman Thomas were second round picks, Barry Word was a third round pick, and the rest of the 700+ yard group (Herschel Walker ^[1]Who, of course, was morally a first round pick, but fell in the draft because he was in the USFL at the time., Johnny Johnson, Marion Butts, Merril Hoge, Derrick Fenner, and Earnest Byner) was drafted after the fourth round.  But the majority of the top running backs were former first round picks.

1990 was a bit of an outlier year.  That season, 48.9% of all rushing yards by NFL running backs came from backs selected among the first 30 picks.  If you also include the rushing yards produced by Anthony Thompson, Dalton Hilliard, and Ickey Woods — each of whom was drafted 31st overall — the total jumps to 51.1% of all rushing yards by running backs that season. That means the 31st pick in the draft was the tipping point, or median draft slot, for rushing yards by running backs that season.

[continue reading…]

After a five-interception performance against a dominant Seattle pass defense, Eli Manning now has 25 interceptions this season. The odds are extremely low, but it’s not impossible that he throws ten more interceptions and ties the modern record set by Vinny Testaverde in 1988. That year, a 25-year-old Testaverde threw 35 interceptions when the league average interception rate was 3.91%. Since Testaverde threw 466 passes that season, we could say that a league-average quarterback would have thrown 18.2 interceptions; therefore, Testaverde threw 16.8 interceptions over average that year.

So far in 2013, the average interception rate is just 2.70%. Since Manning has thrown 485 passes, we would expect a league-average passer to record 13.1 interceptions. With 25 interceptions, that puts Manning at 11.9 interceptions above average. The table below shows the top 100 leaders in interceptions over average since 1950. [continue reading…]

Green Bay started the season 5-2 and seemed on its way to another playoff berth. But in the first quarter of the team’s eighth game, Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone. The Packers lost that game (technically on Rodgers’ ledger as the starter), and have struggled ever since. In his stead, Seneca Wallace went 0-1, Scott Tolzien went 0-1-1, and then Matt Flynn got a chance to lose on Thanksgiving against the Lions before salvaging a win against the Falcons last Sunday.

Unsurprisingly, Green Bay is much worse without Rodgers. Using his .625 winning percentage as a starter this year, we might presume that the Packers would have won 3.125 out of the team’s five games that he’s missed. Instead, Green Bay has won 1.5 out of five games; that means Rodgers would have provided 1.625 Wins Above the Other QBs on the roster. (If we did not count the Bears game as a Rodgers game, then Rodgers would have provided 2.79 Wins Above the Other QBs.) Rodgers has been ruled out for the Packers’ pivotal week 15 showdown with the Cowboys; a loss there would bring Rodgers’ value up to 2.25 Wins Above the Other Green Bay QBs.

Where does that rank all time? The biggest discrepancy belongs to the 2002 Rams. The Rams started 0-4 under reigning NFL AP MVP Kurt Warner, and then lost the team’s next game when Jamie Martin started in relief of an injured Warner. For the sixth game, the team turned to Marc Bulger, who led the 0-5 team on a five game winning streak before suffering a finger injury just as the starting quarterback was ready to return. Warner started games 11 and 12, but another injury forced Martin started game 13; St. Louis lost all three games. Bulger then returned and won his 14th start. At that point in the year, St. Louis was 6-0 under Bulger and 0-8 under everyone else. In game 15 against Seattle, Bulger was hurt on the St. Louis’ fourth play from scrimmage; Martin came in and the team lost 30-10. The final game of the year was a meaningless one and started by Scott Covington, although Martin took most of the snaps in a victory over the 49ers.

All told, St. Louis went 6-1 in Bulger starts (including the Seahawks game), while the other Rams quarterbacks posted a 1-8 record. Since we would project a 1-8 team to win just 0.78 out of 7 games, Bulger is given credit for being 5.22 Wins Above the Other QBs for the team.

The table below shows all quarterbacks from 1950 to 2013 to produce at least 2 Wins Above the Other QBs for their team. The formula to calculate WAOQBs is simply the difference between the winning percentages with and without the starting quarterback multiplied by the number of starts by the quarterback or by the other quarterbacks on the team, whichever number is smaller. [continue reading…]

If you look at the Patriots’ PFR page, you’ll see that the Patriots are a 10-3team that’s played like an 8-5 team that has a 6-7 record against the spread. I wondered how often a team with such a good record was below average against the spread. The answer: pretty frequently. Which I suppose isn’t too surprising, since Vegas doesn’t like to make it so easy to win money that all you need to do is pick winners.

New England has mirrored its ancestors from 35 years ago, who also started 10-3 but posted a 7-6 record against the spread. The table below shows all teams from 1978 to 2012, excluding the strike years, to win at least 3 more games outright through 13 weeks than against the spread. In an expected turn of events, the top 4 teams on the list all made the Super Bowl in the prior year. That leads to being favored frequently, and if you win enough close games, you’ll make this list.
[continue reading…]

I don’t know if any of us have ever seen a game quite like the end of Baltimore-Minnesota. With 2:05 left in the game, Baltimore faced 4th-and-goal from the Vikings 1-yard line. The Ravens trailed 12-7.

In what looked to be the game-winner, Joe Flacco hit Dennis Pitta for a touchdown pass. A two-point conversion to Torrey Smith put the Ravens up, 15-12.

On the next play from scrimmage, Matt Cassel hit Jerome Simpson for 27 yards. With 1:27 left, Toby Gerhart rushed up the middle for a 41-yard touchdown, which looked to be the game winner. The Vikings now led 19-15.

But Jacoby Jones returned the ensuing kickoff for what looked to be a game-winning, 77-yard touchdown, to put Baltimore back on top, 22-19.

Matt Cassel then threw a couple of incompletions, before throwing a screen pass to Cordarrelle Patterson…. that the rookie to the house for a 79-yard touchdown. That looked to be the game-winner, as Minnesota now lead 26-22.

But then Joe Flacco drove the Ravens down the field, and hit Marlon Brown for a nine-yard touchdown with four seconds left, in what was actually the game-winner. Baltimore left with a very unlikely 29-26 victory.

Add in the Cassel-to-Simpson touchdown on the second play of the fourth quarter, and that means there were six touchdowns in the final quarter that were lead-changing scores. That’s an NFL record.

Prior to this game, only four games saw five lead-changing touchdowns in the fourth quarter. A Bills-Raiders Ryan Fitzpatrick/Jason Campbell shootout from 2011, a Bruce Gradkowski-fueled comeback win over Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers in 2009, a Monday Night thriller between the great Mark Sanchez and Chad Henne earlier that same season, and a Giants-Cardinals shootout from 1962. Hat/tip to the great Scott Hanson for alerting me to the record.

New Orlean’s Drew Brees is officially listed as six feet tall. Seattle’s Russell Wilson is officially listed as 5’11. That means the average height of the starting quarterbacks in tonight’s game is 71.5 inches, tied for the shortest average in any game since 1964. In fact, it’s been twelve years since a game has featured two quarterbacks of such short stature, when in week two of the 2001 season, Doug Flutie (5’10) and the Chargers beat Anthony Wright (6’1) and the Cowboys.

The other two games since 1990 where the average height of the starting quarterbacks was below six feet also involved Flutie facing a 73-inch quarterback: a 24-21 win in 1999 against Pittsburgh and Kordell Stewart and a 17-16 win year earlier against Mark Brunell and the Jags.

Twenty-five years ago, two other Flutie vs. 6’1 Quarterback games make the list: this game against Jim McMahon and this one against Dave Krieg.

You have to go back to 1978 to find a game before tonight where (1) the average height of the starting quarterbacks was under six feet and (2) Doug Flutie was not involved. Fran Tarkenton (6’0) and Pat Haden (5’11) met five times in the mid-to-late ’70s, and Billy Kilmer (6’0) also faced Haden in the final game of the 1977 season.

Kilmer and 5’11 Bob Berry met three times in the early ’70s, and Sonny Jurgensen (5’11) faced Gary Cuozzo (6’0) and Tarkenton twice each. The only other games of the post-merger era were Len Dawson (6’0) vs. Berry in 1972 and Bill Nelsen and Edd Hargett in 1971. [continue reading…]

Cleveland’s Josh Gordon caught 14 passes for 237 yards and a touchdown against the Steelers last week. Against the Jaguars this afternoon, Gordon caught 10 passes for 261 yards and two scores. In the process, he became the first player to ever record back-to-back 200+ yard receiving games, and set an NFL record with 498 receiving yards in two games.

The table below shows the 53 players to record 350 receiving yards in back-to-back games from 1960 to 2012. Until this year, Houston’s Andre Johnson had the modern record for receiving yards in consecutive games, set just last season. Then Calvin Johnson had 484 yards in two straight games, setting a record that stood for all of five weeks.