Thanksgiving approaches while football and culinary gluttons prepare to enter the land of Gobble-gobbelopolis, and I'm just as unable to get my head around this football season going into the end of November as I was back in the beginning of September. Wonders never cease to amaze me as the Twitterverse is all atwitter with football fans prognosticating college rankings, bowl matchups, and wild card chances for their favorite Division I-A (er... FBS... or is it BCS?) or NFL teams. I typically advise football fans not to worry about postseason scenarios until at least midseason, but even at this point of autumn I have no clue how things may shake out. Is this all due to parity, convoluted overtime rules, over-emphasis on player safety, under-emphasis on player fundamentals, the cosmic randomness of our galaxy, or some other silly notion on par with Sabermetrics in baseball?
Beats me, but each passing weekend convinces me more and more that football seasons are getting stranger and stranger.
Take Saturday's NCAA football action as evidence Earth's axis might be tilted a bit more than usual. In Exhibit A, I present to you this final score from West Point: Temple 63, Army 32. Uh huh! Uh huh! Everyone not consuming hallucinogens knows Temple football teams don't score 63 points in a single game. Heck! Sometimes Temple football teams don't score 63 points in a month! But there it was, thanks to 351 yards and seven rushing touchdowns by Montel Harris, the Temple Owls football team imitated the Temple basketball team.
In fact, the Temple-Army game was one of twelve games played on Saturday that seemed more like lopsided basketball games. Twelve different teams scored at least 50 points, and among them three topped 60 (Temple, Clemson in beating North Carolina State 62-48, Oregon State in beating Cal 62-14) and one topped 70 (Morehead State beat Valparaiso 76-24). Topping 70 actually isn't so unique anymore, since Oregon manages that feat a couple of times each season, but Oregon didn't even top 20 this weekend, falling in overtime to Stanford 17-14, an absolute scoring drought compared to all the points-o-plenty from this weekend's action.
The Clemson-NC State game led the pack on games completely devoid of defense. Of the twelve teams topping the 50-point plateau Saturday, four actually surrendered more than thirty points, most notably Oklahoma which sqeaked by West Virginia 50-49. 50-49 is not what people expect for Sooners-Mountaineers. 50-49 is what we expect when Penn and Princeton get together at the Palestra for an Ivy League hoops battle.
By comparison, Exhibit B provides us nine NCAA Men's basketball games from Saturday where at least one team failed to score 50 points. All nine teams lost their games, the worst performance being Mercer, scoring a mere 36 losing by 26 to the University of Illinois-Chicago.
When did college football games start having basketball scores? I can't wait to see some of these defensive stalwarts (ha) in a bowl game in six weeks. Can you imagine two of these programs getting together and fans throwing toilet paper streamers from the stands after the first touchdown is scored, like they do at basketball games? People complain that the NFL has become too much of a passing league due to rules progressively favoring quarterbacks and receivers, but I beg to differ... the NFL has become a passing league because too many defensive players never learned how to master tackling in college. Watch any Big-12 football game! You'll see what I mean. Heck! Watch the replay of Saturday's Temple-Army game. If the Pentagon trained soldiers the way Army defenders slowed down Montel Harris, we would've surrendered to Iraq years ago.
Let's take a look at Exhibit C, the NFL regular season as week 11 nears its conclusion. Wasn't it only a few weeks ago when fans and pundits were lamenting how seemingly superior the NFC was to the AFC based on teams with winning records? Yeah, what about it? Has anyone taken a look at the standings today?
There are exactly two 9-1 teams - Houston in the AFC South and Atlanta in the NFC South. There is one 8-2 team, Baltimore leading the AFC North. San Francisco is 7-2-1, comfortably leading the NFC West. New England, Denver, Green Bay and Chicago are all 7-3.
What's my point? There are 17 -- yes, seventeen -- teams (8 in the AFC, 9 in the NFC) that are within one game above or below .500 -- 17 teams that are either 6-4, 5-5 or 4-6 -- middle of the pack teams somehow in the mix for a postseason berth -- the Jets, Dolphins, Bills, Colts, Titans, Bengals, Steelers, Chargers, Giants, Cowboys, Redskins, Buccaneers, Saints, Vikings, Lions, Seahawks and Cardinals are all jumbled within two games of each other and still have a legitimate chance of at least a wild card spot. That's more than half the league right in the bulge of the NFL's bell curve known as parity. Any of these teams can get hot, win enough games down the stretch at the right time, and you never know what could happen. It was only a mere ten months ago that the 9-7 Giants snatched the NFC East crown on the final night of the regular season and parlayed it to a Super Bowl title, their second in five years. Which one among these 17 teams might be this year's Super Bowl champ? The first Sunday in February is still around eleven weeks away. Anything can happen for the good.
And anyting can happen for the bad. Remember last year? The Bears were 7-3 and looked like the NFC front runner alongside the 10-0 Packers. What happened? The Packers went 15-1 but weren't as strong as weeks earlier and got bounced out of the playoffs, and the Bears lost their starting quarterback and ended up 8-8 and out of the postseason. Injuries are a killer. Case in point, Exhibit D -- the 1993 Dolphins. After winning a crazy Thanksgiving Day game in snowy Dallas (the "Leon Lett touched the blocked field goal" game), Miami was 9-2 and on a roll, even without Dan Marino (lost weeks earlier to an Achilles injury). Five straight losses later, they were 9-7 and out of the playoffs.
The Texans are 9-1 now, but a year ago they were 10-3 and barely hung on to win the AFC South after injuries forced them down to their third-string quarterback, rookie Tyler Yates. Six weeks to go is a long, long time and all sorts of good and bad things can happen to a team looking forward towards the postseason. Yesterday's 43-37 overtime win against 1-9 Jacksonville may be reason for concern. The first concern is Houston needed overtime on top of a late fourth-quarter comeback to beat a 1-9 team at home. The second concern is that the Texans needed a 527-yard passing (completing 43 of 55), five-touchdown performance by quarterback Matt Schaub in order to drive this comeback win. The third concern is that one of the league's top defenses gave up 458 yards and 37 points to one of the league's most anemic offenses.
Wasn't it only two weeks ago the Falcons were 8-0 and seemingly invincible, or at least kinda awesome? They don't seem so invincible or awesome after struggling to beat Arizona at home Sunday, 23-19. Matt Ryan threw five interceptions, and the Falcons added a fumble for good measure, yet managed to win in spite of themselves and a -5 turnover margin. Ryan's extreme generosity -- the first QB to toss 5 INT, zero TD and win since Bart Starr did it with the 1967 Packers -- got me thinking about NFL quarterbacks, especially given how many teams have questions if not extensive fan-based hysterics on hand directed towards their quarterbacks and passing games.
It's not every day that a quarterback throws 5 INT in an NFL game, and as we now know, winning a game you throw 5 INT is even rarer. Since 1960, the NFL and old AFL have played a combined 11,327 regular season games, and in 148 of those games (approximately 1.3 percent), a quarterback has thrown 5 INT. Matt Ryan became just the 13th NFL quarterback since 1960 to throw 5 INT in a game and win.
It's even less frequent for a quarterback to pass for 500 or more yards in an NFL game. In case you were wondering, the very first time an NFL quarterback accomplished the feat was September 28, 1951 when Norm Van Brocklin passed for 554 yards and five touchdowns, leading the then-Los Angeles Rams to a 54-14 win against the old New York Yankees (yes... there used to be an NFL team called the Yankees). Van Brocklin's feat (a mere five days before Bobby Thompson's "Shot heard 'round the World"... yes... there also used to be a MLB team called the New York Giants... PLEASE read a sports history book, those of you born in the 21st century! Sheesh!), believe it or not, is still the single-game NFL record for passing yards, 61 years and counting.
More importantly, since Van Brocklin's still-standing record day in 1951, thirteen other quarterbacks have eclipsed the 500-yard plateau (no one ever accomplished the feat more than once), Schaub's 527 yards being the second-most (tying Warren Moon's 527 yards, reached on December 16, 1990, when the the former Houston Oilers beat the Kansas City Chiefs 27-10). When you think about it, you might think passing for 500 yards is not only pretty special, but also helps a team win and win big, and normally the lots-of-yards equals lots-of-points makes sense, but not in the NFL, my friends. Believe it or not, of the fourteen quarterbacks to pass for 500 yards in a game, six were actually the losing quarterback on that day.
Another quirky thing about passing for 500 yards is that all those yards don't necessarily translate to lots of points. In fact, nine of those fourteen quarterbacks' offensive units failed to score at least 40 points, and one quarterback, Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints, generated a mere sixteen points in losing a game that he passed for 510 yards. Yessir... On November 19, 2006 (six years ago yesterday) Brees (he of lots of passing records and an offensive unit that scores bunches of points) passed for 510 yards and the Saints lost to the Cincinnati Bengals 31-16. On that day, Brees passed for two touchdowns and the Saints did little else besides move up and down the field without scoring points. Sometimes a lot of passing yards doesn't translate into touchdown passes, so it helps if other players are scoring points. Case in point is Phil Simms' 513-yard performance against the Bengals on October 13, 1985. Simms passed for only one touchdown, the fewest in a 500-yard game, and the Giants lost 35-30.
Does a quarterback need to throw a lot of passes, or complete a lot of passes, in order to accumulate 500 yards in a single game? Well, thirteen threw at least 40 pass attempts (the lone exception was Y.A. Tittle, who threw 39 passes on October 28, 1962, beating the Redskins 49-34), two threw at least 60 passes (Simms completed 40 of 62; Dan Marino completed 35 of 60 in 1988), two completed at least 40 passes (Simms' 40 in 1985 and Schaub's 43 on Sunday) but four quarterbacks completed fewer than 30 passes (Tittle, Moon and Van Brocklin all completed 27; Ben Roethlisberger completed 29 in a 37-36 win over Green Bay on December 20, 2009).
The most-efficient passing performance among the fourteen 500-yard games was Tittle's 1962 gem, completing 27 of 39 passes (69.2 percent) for 505 yards and 7 touchdowns. The least-efficient, if we can even say that, was Dan Marino's game on October 23, 1988, completing 35 of 60 passes (58.3 percent) for 521 yards and 3 touchdowns. Unfortunately, Marino also threw 5 INT and the Dolphins lost to the New York Jets 44-30 (see... I told you throwing 5 INT is typically a losing proposition.
What about throwing for 500 yards and touchdown passes? Tittle threw seven. Van Brocklin, Schaub and Matthew Stafford (Lions, January 1, 2012) each threw five. Tom Brady (Patriots, September 12, 2011) threw four. Moon, Esiason, Marino, Eli Manning (Giants, September 16, 2012), Vince Ferragamo (Rams, December 26, 1982) and Roethlisberger each threw three. Brees and Elvis Grbac (Chiefs, November 5, 2000) each threw two. Simms threw one.
Perhaps the oddest factoid about the fourteen 500-yard games in NFL history is that only two involved overtime, Schaub's game on Sunday and Boomer Esiason's 522-yard performance on November 10, 1996. Esiason completed 35 of 59 passes and threw 3 touchdowns in a 37-34 Arizona win over the Redskins.
Last, for those fans of obscure and potentially useless trivia, November is the most-frequent month for 500-yard passing performances with four, September, October and December each have three, and January had one such performance.
After ten games played by all 32 teams so far this regular season, 34 quarterbacks have thrown at least 100 passes and are listed among the league rankings. Supposedly, the "standard" for "good" quarterback play, in this era, includes a pass completion percentage above sixty and a quarterback efficiency rating above eighty. Guess how many of 34 quarterbacks are currently completing less than sixty percent of their passes? Thirteen, and with the exception of Michael Vick, everyone else has 1-4 years of NFL experience. Guess how many of 34 quarterbacks currently have an efficiency rating below eighty? Nine, and with the exception of Michael Vick, everyone else has 1-4 years of NFL experience.
What do these two statistical trends possibly mean? Relatively young and inexperienced quarterbacks tend to struggle with consistency and efficiency... and Michael Vick really hasn't improved with age. These two trends may also suggest that consistency and efficiency improve with age, experience and maturity, and that it likely takes more than 3-4 years to grow into being an NFL quarterback, just like it takes at least that long to grow into a lot of professions or occupations, like medicine and teaching, so if you're a fan of a young and struggling quarterback, perhaps it might make good sense to back off, be more patient and let your team's quarterback mature and evolve into his potential (see New York Jets fans and Mark Sanchez critics).
Do quarterback sacks worry you? It's hard for a quarterback to throw passes lying on his back, right? Well, let's suppose being sacked at least 15 times in the first ten games is an arbitrary caution threshold for a team's passing game. Guess how many of 34 quarterbacks have been sacked less than 15 times heading into Thanksgiving? Seven -- Peyton (Broncos) and Eli (Giants) Manning , Josh Freeman (Bucs), Brandon Weeden (Browns), the Texans' Schaub, Arizona's John Skelton and Tennessee's Matt Hasselbach -- and Skelton and Hasselbach haven't even been their team's full-time starter all season.
On the other hand, guess how many of the 34 quarterbacks have been sacked at least 25 times heading into Thansgiving? Six -- Michael Vick (Eagles), Sam Bradford (Rams), Aaron Rodgers (Packers), Christian Ponder (Vikings), Jay Cutler (Bears) and Kevin Kolb (Cardinals) -- and Kolb shares the quarterback duties with Skelton!
What does this all possibly mean? Well, in addition to Michael Vick seeming to be on the wrong end of a lot of statistical trends for quarterbacks, anybody playing quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals is a glorified tackling dummy for opposing pass rushers. We might also wish to note that the number of times your quarterback is running for his life or being knocked to the ground may not necessarily dictate success or lackthereof, since the most-sacked list includes Rodgers of the 7-3 Packers and Cutler of the 7-3 Bears, and the least-sacked list includes Weeden of the 2-8 Browns.
Perhaps touchdown-to-interception ratio matters to you. After all, tossing five picks like Matt Ryan did Sunday usually doesn't bode well for success, although that brings his season total to seven versus 20 touchdowns. But there are six quarterbacks from the list of 34 who've thrown more interceptions than touchdowns (Dallas' Tony Romo, Carolina's Cam Newton, Miami's Ryan Tannehill, Cleveland's Weeden, Matt Cassel of the Chiefs and Arizona's Skelton), and only three play for teams still with a middle-of-the-pack chance at the playoffs (Romo, Tannehill and Skelton).
Just like completion percentage, yardage and sacks, any individual statistical trend may not tell us anything worth a bag of beans about quarterbacks and team success, but putting all of these statistical trends together may give you a reasonable profile on what makes for a winning and successful quarterback. For my money, I think it's fairly safe to say that unless you're an incredibly gifted athlete surrounded by several other incredibly gifted athletes, you probably can't be a winning NFL quarterback if you're constantly under pressure, running for your life, unable to consistently complete passes (especially scoring passes) to your best receivers, completing too many passes to guys in the wrong-colored jerseys, and are still in the early half of your learning and development curve. In other words, youth, lack of supporting cast and mistakes are not a quarterback's best friend in the cold cruel NFL.
What's our take-home lesson heading into the final six weeks of the regular season? Stop complaining about your team's starting quarterback, let him play, and see where it leads. In the meantime, let indigestion be limited to turkey consumption, not your quarterback's passing statistics.
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