A small bone to pick with FiveThirtyEight

Lord knows, I love stats. Love what you can learn from them. Love just playing around with them to see what turns up. And what FiveThirtyEight.com’s Neil Paine does with stats in his revisionist piece about the Greatest Show on Turf — the 1999 Rams offense — is terrific. By all means read it, if you haven’t already.

My only quibble is Paine’s overinflation of Kurt Warner’s ’99 season. “Warner ended up completing 65.1 percent of his passes,” he writes, “which at the time was the third-best single-season completion percentage by any quarterback ever.11” Third-best ever. Wow. That one caught me by surprise. Then I chased down the footnote and found out he was talking about only “quarterbacks with 450 attempts.”

I’m not sure what, in Paine’s mind, is so magical about 450 attempts — other than that it allows him to say Warner’s completion rate was “the third-best . . . ever.” After all, 450 attempts are a lot of attempts. Only three NFL quarterbacks had that many in a season before 1978, when the schedule was increased to 16 games and rule changes turned pro football into the passer’s paradise we have today. (Note: Five more had 450-plus in the bombs-away AFL.)

But that’s a minor point because, the rules being what they were, almost no quarterback back then was going to complete 65.1 percent of his passes — unless it was the Redskins’ Sammy Baugh hitting 70.3 in the talent-starved war year of 1945. Show me a QB in those days who connected on 65.1 percent, and I’ll show you an extraterrestrial.

The larger point is: Why 450 attempts? Steve Young threw 447 passes in 11 starts for the ’95 49ers and completed 66.9 percent (1.8 percent more than Warner). We’re just going to leave him out? Then there’s Joe Montana, who threw 386 passes in 13 starts for the ’89 Niners and completed 70.2 percent (5.1 percent more than Warner). We’re going to ignore that season, too, even though Joe set a record that year (since broken) with a 112.4 rating?

What I’m objecting to is the arbitrariness of “450 attempts,” which serves no real purpose except to make Warner’s season look better. And here’s the thing: Neither he nor the story of the ’99 Rams offense needs any ginning up. His numbers are perfectly capable of standing on their own, without any creative massaging. It was, by any measure, a fabulous year, among the greatest of all time. For Paine create this imaginary 450 Attempts World — in which Warner has “the third-best single-season completion percentage by any quarterback ever” — is just plain silly.

To qualify for the passing title, a QB needs to throw 224 passes (14 per scheduled game). If you make that your threshold, Warner had the 17th-best completion rate ever. The Top 5:

HIGHEST SINGLE-SEASON COMPLETION RATES THROUGH 1999

Year Quarterback, Team Att Comp Pct
1982 Ken Anderson, Bengals 309 218 70.6
1994 Steve Young, 49ers 461 324 70.3
1989 Joe Montana, 49ers 386 271 70.2
1993 Troy Aikman, Cowboys 392 271 69.1
1993 Steve Young, 49ers 462 314 68.0

Minimum: 224 passes.

(Note: The schedule was only nine games in ’82 because of a player strike.)

Again, Warner had a sensational season, especially when you consider his 41 touchdown passes, 109.2 rating and Disneyesque backstory as a former Arena Leaguer. But making the cutoff 224 attempts, the league standard, instead of 450 tones down the idolatry a little — which is what statistical research is supposed to do.

Of course, 17th doesn’t sound nearly as good as “third-best . . . ever.” But what are you gonna do? It’s one thing to ignore Frank Filchock’s 111.6 passer rating for the 1939 Redskins because it isn’t “modern” — even though, coupled with his 413 rushing yards (ninth in the league), it was one of the most amazing years in NFL history. But when you disqualify seasons by recent Hall of Famers like Steve Young, Joe Montana and Troy Aikman because they fall short of some arbitrary minimum (450 attempts – and not a pass less!), that’s when I’m going to pipe up.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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A flash in the pan . . . or the real deal?

Granted, this is his third NFL season, but the Redskins’ Kirk Cousins had a 400-yard passing game Sunday against the Eagles in just his fifth NFL start. Not too shabby.

What’s surprising is how many quarterbacks have accomplished the feat just as quickly – or even more quickly. I came up with eight since 1960, and there could be a few more further back.

FEWEST STARTS IT TOOK A QUARTERBACK TO HAVE A 400-YARD GAME

Date Quarterback (Year) Team Opponent Start Yds Result
9-11-11 Cam Newton (1st) Panthers Cardinals 1st 422 L, 28-21
1-1-12 Matt Flynn (4th) Packers Lions 2nd 480 W, 45-41
11-14-99 Jim Miller (6th) Bears Vikings 2nd 422 L, 27-24
11-29-87 Tom Ramsey (5th) Patriots Eagles 2nd 402 L, 34-31
9-30-12 Ryan Tannehill (1st) Dolphins Cardinals 4th 431 L, 24-21
11-10-02 Marc Bulger (2nd) Rams Chargers 4th 453 W, 28-24
9-21-14 Kirk Cousins (3rd) Redskins Eagles 5th 427 L, 37-34
12-21-69 Don Horn (3rd) Packers Cardinals 5th 410 W, 45-28
10-13-61 Jacky Lee (2nd) Oilers Patriots 5th 457 T, 31-31
12-13-04 Billy Volek (4th) Titans Chiefs 6th 426 L, 49-38
10-10-04 Tim Rattay (5th) 49ers Cardinals 6th 417 W, 31-28
9-6-98 Glenn Foley (4th) Jets 49ers 6th 415 L, 36-30

Note: Ramsey played two seasons in the USFL before joining the Patriots in 1985. Those years are counted as experience. . . . Newton also threw for 400 yards in his second NFL game/start (432 vs. the Packers in a 30-23 loss). . . . Volek also threw for 400 in his seventh start (492 vs. the Raiders in a 40-35 loss). . . . The combined won-lost record of the group is 4-7-1. Cousins, in other words, has plenty of company in his despair.

As you can see, only two Actual Rookies since 1960 (Newton and Tannehill) have had a 400-yard passing game in their first five starts. The other quarterbacks were in their second, third, fourth, fifth and even sixth season when they did it.

Also, just two of the dozen QBs listed have gone to the Pro Bowl: Newton and Bulger. The others, for the most part, could be described as Serviceable Backups.

So . . . make of Cousins’ big day what you will. Or maybe he should make of it what he will.

OTHER ACTIVE QUARTERBACKS WHO HAD A 400-YARD GAME EARLY

Date Quarterback (Year) Team Opponent Start Yds Result
11-4-12 Andrew Luck (1st) Colts Dolphins 8th 433 W, 23-20
9-8-13 Colin Kaepernick (3rd) 49ers Packers 8th 412 W, 34-28
11-22-09 Matt Stafford (1st) Lions Browns 8th 422 W, 38-37
11-3-13 Nick Foles (2nd) Eagles Raiders 9th 406 W, 49-20
11-13-08 Matt Cassel (4th) Patriots Jets 9th 400 L, 34-31

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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Peyton Manning: chasing more history

Not sure how much was made of this, but 50 minutes into the Broncos’ Week 3 showdown with the Seahawks, Peyton Manning still hadn’t thrown for a touchdown. And if Seattle had shut him out, Manning likely would have lost his last chance to break the record for most consecutive games with a TD pass. He is, after all, 38 — old enough to be Johnny Manziel’s . . . much older stepbrother.

Almost on cue, though, Manning hit tight ends Julius Thomas and Jacob Tamme for scores in the last 9:20 to push his streak to 42 (and tie the game at 20). If he can keep it going through the end of the season, he’ll be at 55 — one more than the mark set by the Saints’ Drew Brees from 2009 to 2012.

It’s a record that has always gotten a fair amount of attention, largely because Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas held it for more than half a century — so long that people began to wonder whether his 47-game streak was unbreakable. But then Brees came along, helped by all the passer-friendly rules that didn’t exist in Unitas’ day (not to mention climate-controlled indoor stadiums and sticky gloves for receivers).

Soon enough, the Patriots’ Tom Brady took a run at Brees, only to have his streak peter out at 52 last season. And now Manning is giving it a go himself, at an age when most quarterbacks are ex-quarterbacks (or, like Johnny U., hanging on by their high tops).

What tends to be forgotten with all these footballs flying around is that it’s hard — even now — to throw a touchdown pass in every game of a season, never mind in 42, 47, 52 or 54 games straight. If it weren’t, everybody would do it. And everybody hasn’t done it.

Joe Montana, for instance, never did it. Neither did John Elway or, for that matter, Sammy Baugh. (And Slingin’ Sam’s seasons were a lot shorter.) You have to be a consistently good passer, of course, but you also have to have luck on your side. You can’t get hurt and miss some time. You can’t run into one of those wicked bad-weather games, the kind NFL Films loves to turn into comic opera. You can’t get yanked early in the regular-season finale because your playoff spot is already set (a fate that befell Manning in 2005).

Something else to keep in mind: When Tom Brady racked up a then-record 50 touchdown passes in 2007, there was still one game where he came up empty — Dec. 16 against the Jets.

By my count, only 18 quarterbacks in NFL-AFL history have thrown a TD pass in every game of a season, be it 16 games, 14, 12 or whatever. The shorter-than-you’d-expect list:

● Three times (2) – Brady, Patriots (2010-12); Brees, Saints (2010-11, ’13).

● Twice (4) – Manning, Broncos (2012-13); Dan Marino, Dolphins (1984, ’86); Unitas, Colts (1957, ’59); Cecil Isbell, Packers (1941-42). (Yes, Cecil Isbell. We’ll get back to him in a moment.)

● Once (12) – Philip Rivers, Chargers (2013); Ben Roethlisberger, Steelers (2013); Matthew Stafford, Lions (2011); Daunte Culpepper, Vikings (2004); Brett Favre, Packers (2003); Kurt Warner, Rams (1999); Dave Krieg, Seahawks (1984); Daryle Lamonica, Raiders (1969); Sonny Jurgensen, Redskins (1967); Frank Ryan, Browns (1966); Milt Plum, Browns (1960); Sid Luckman, Bears (1943).

In most cases, you’re talking about a guy’s career year, his absolute peak. Take Plum, for instance. Little remembered today, he had one of the greatest passing seasons of all time in Milt Plum football card1960. His rating of 110.4 — still the 11th best in history — was nearly twice that of the rest of the quarterbacks in the league (57.8). Mind-boggling. How did he accomplish this, you ask? Well, for starters, in the first 11 games (of a 12-game schedule) he was intercepted only once.

Which brings us to Isbell . . . and his unusual apparatus. Cecil, you see, had suffered a separated shoulder in college and was concerned about it popping out again. So he wore a harness that ran a chain from his waist to his (non-throwing) left arm and kept him from raising the arm above the shoulder. I wrote about this in a previous post.

How do you suppose the aforementioned quarterbacks would have done with a similar contraption attached to their anatomies? When Brees blew by Unitas in 2012, much was made — and rightfully so — of the difference between their two eras and how Johnny U.’s mark was more impressive (given how physical the defense was allowed to be with receivers, among other things). But maybe Isbell’s 23-game streak is the most amazing of all.

Especially when you consider he played in a single-wing offense, the Notre Dame Box, and at a time when the air was hardly filled with footballs. In 1942, the Lions (1), Steelers (2) and Brooklyn Dodgers (3) threw for fewer touchdowns all season than Cecil did in a single game against the Cardinals (5).

His 23-game run, counting a playoff for the Western Division title in ’41, stood as the record for 16 years, until Unitas broke it. Even now, tossing a TD pass in 23 consecutive games is no small feat. Plenty of Hall of Fame quarterbacks, recent ones, never pulled it off, including Montana (longest streak: 14), Elway (15), Troy Aikman (16), Steve Young (18), Jim Kelly (18), Dan Fouts (20) and Warren Moon (21).

So why haven’t you heard more about Isbell? Because he retired after five seasons to go into college coaching. The explanation he gave in Chuck Johnson’s book, The Green Bay Packers:

“I hadn’t been up in Green Bay long when I saw [coach Curly] Lambeau go around the locker room and tell players like [Arnie] Herber, [Milt] Gantenbein and Hank Bruder that they were all done with the Packers. These were good players who had given the team good service for years, and they had no money in the pot. But there was no sentiment involved. I sat there and watched, and then I vowed it would never happen to me. I’d quit before they came around to tell me.”

Who knows how much farther Isbell could have extended his streak? He was just 27 when he called it quits, and his go-to receiver, the legendary Don Hutson, still had some good years left. In a war-weakened league, the duo could have continued their assault on the record book until Hutson hung ’em up in 1945. (Cecil’s shoulder kept him out of the military.)

“Isbell was a master at any range,” Lambeau told Johnson. “He could throw soft passes, bullet passes or feathery lobs. He was the best, with Sid Luckman of the Bears a close second and Sammy Baugh of the Redskins a long third. Luckman wasn’t as versatile and Baugh couldn’t compare on the long ones.”

But then, Curly was prejudiced. Mel Hein, the Giants’ Hall of Fame center, ranked the passers a little differently — Baugh first, then Isbell and Luckman. “Isbell reminds me of the old days,” he once said. “It’s a rare thing in these times to see the passer fade out of his pocket or normal passing zone, but Isbell will do it casually, up to 15 yards or more. I remember seeing him back up 20 yards before he let go with a 55-yarder that beat us in a Los Angeles all-star game. This is where he differs chiefly from Baugh, who dotes on the short pass.”

(“It was passing at its most perfect and sensational,” Henry McLemore of the United Press said of the bomb to Hutson in the all-star game. “The ball traveled 67 yards in the air.”)

Here’s Isbell flipping a 31-yard touchdown pass to Joe Laws in the ’39 championship game win over the Giants. Note how he gets hit just after he releases the ball.

However you rank ’em, ol’ Cecil could play — and definitely belongs in the same sentence with Brees, Unitas and Manning, chain or no chain.

Sources: pro-football-reference.com, NFL.com

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Sound Bites III

As we’re seeing with the Browns’ Johnny Manziel, NFL teams sometimes break in rookie quarterbacks ver-ry slowly, putting in packages for them every week until they’re ready to run the whole offense. It’s been that way since Y.A. Tittle had hair.

If Manziel ever gets discouraged, he should read this quote from one of the top quarterbacks in the 1964 draft, Jack Concannon — who, like Johnny Football, was a dangerous runner. (Later that year, he threw two touchdown passes and rushed for 99 yards to help the Eagles beat the Cowboys.) Moral: Things can always be worse.

“I was at halfback for three weeks because of injuries to three of our running backs, and I didn’t care for it too much. As a matter of fact, in my first game I was at left halfback. It was against the Giants, and the Eagles had started me with three plays — a halfback pass, an end run and a fake end run with a reverse.

“That’s the way [Packers Hall of Famer] Paul Hornung started, with three plays. The only trouble was the Giants knew the three plays, and you can imagine how I felt when they started calling them [out to one another]. The first play was a reverse, and we lost about 20 yards. The next one was the end run, and I gained maybe two yards. The third was the halfback pass, and I was smeared.

“That was my introduction to pro football. I thought the league would be rough. It was even rougher than I expected.”

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Talk about your Short Work Weeks

Thursday night NFL games are one of our better examples of Man’s Inhumanity to Man. The human body simply isn’t built to play pro football twice in five calendar days. It probably isn’t built to play pro football once every seven calendar days, but that’s another matter.

Anyway, as you watch tonight’s Redskins-Giants hostilities at FedEx Field, keep in mind how much worse it used to be for NFL players. Yes, worse. In the 1920s, for instance, games on back-Screen Shot 2014-09-25 at 8.07.32 PMto-back days were far from uncommon. When the Frankford Yellow Jackets won the championship in 1926, they had three weeks where they played on Saturday and Sunday and another where they played on Thursday and Saturday. Amazingly, they won seven of the eight games.

In the ’30s, the Portsmouth Spartans were fond of Wednesday home games under the lights at Universal Stadium. One season they had two Sunday-Wednesday-Sunday trifectas on the schedule — three games in eight days — and another week they played on Wednesday and Sunday. And this was the era, I’ll just remind you, of 20-man rosters and 60-minute men (not to mention looong train rides).

Even in the ’50s it could get a little crazy. The New York Yanks began the 1950 season with a Sunday/Friday week — on the West Coast — and later had two Sunday/Thursday weeks. Little wonder they wore down after a 6-1 start and finished 7-5.

So, yeah, Thursday night games are a raw deal. But the players of yore were treated even less gently.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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The Princes of Ties

This is as good a time as any to mention — in the wake of Sunday’s Seahawks-Broncos classic — that this week is the 40th anniversary of the NFL’s first regular-season overtime game. Yup, until 1974, we would have had to settle for a 20-20 tie at CenturyLink Field . . . and done without Seattle’s eviscerating 80-yard touchdown drive in OT. Bummer.

(Actually, now that I think about it, there was no two-point conversion in ’74, either. So Denver would have trailed 20-19 after its last TD and been forced to onside kick. Amazing how much of an impact these rule changes have had.)

But back to the subject at hand: ties . . . and their virtual elimination. The Broncos, it turns out, were involved in the first regular-season overtime game, too. As fate would have it, things didn’t

Sept. 22, 1974

Sept. 22, 1974

work out that day quite as planned. Despite 15 minutes of bonus brutality, neither they nor the Steelers could break the 35-35 deadlock. Here’s Vito Stellino’s story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about this Sorta Great Moment in NFL History.

Chuck Noll, Pittsburgh’s Hall of Fame coach, had a funny quote afterward. “I don’t like the idea of overtime,” he said. “I have a tired football team that has to get ready for a football game next week. If we’d have one of these every week, it’d kill our team.”

(One of the reasons it’s funny, in retrospect, is that the Steelers didn’t have another OT game for four years.)

Fortunately for the NFL, there have been only 18 more ties in the four decades since, a huge — and necessary — break from the past. In the ’60s, after all, there 72 (counting the AFL), and in the first four years of the ’70s, before OT came in, there were 29. Way too many.

In recent seasons, David Akers (currently team-less) has been the NFL’s Prince of Ties. Akers played a principal role in two of the last three deadlocks — as a 49er in 2012 and an Eagle in ’08.

Two years ago against the Rams, he kicked a 33-yard field goal with three seconds left to make it 24-24 and send the game to overtime. Then he missed a 41-yarder in OT to preserve the stalemate. (Attaboy.)

Four seasons earlier, he was good from 27 yards with 5:18 remaining to pull Philadelphia into a 13-13 tie with the Bengals. Once again, the overtime was scoreless (thanks to an errant 47-yard field goal try by Cincinnati’s Shayne Graham with seven seconds to go).

Not that Akers’ historical contribution figures to be remembered. That’s the thing about tie games; because they lack resolution, they usually don’t leave any footprints. Heck, for a long time, the league didn’t even count them when calculating winning percentage. (The 7-1-6 record, for instance, compiled by the title-winning Bears in 1932 was considered a 7-1 mark. It was as if their other six games never happened.)

So why don’t we pay homage to those forgotten heroes who shined brightest in tie games — even if, at the end of the day, they had to settle for half a loaf? The honor roll:

● QB Tommy Maddox, Steelers (Nov. 10, 2002, 34-34 tie vs. Falcons) — 473 passing yards (a record for a tie game and the highest total in the NFL that season) and four touchdown passes weren’t enough to avoid a Dreaded Deadlock.

● LB Ken Harvey, Redskins (Nov. 23, 1997, 7-7 tie vs. Giants) — Racked up four sacks, the most in a tie game since the NFL began keeping track of the statistic in 1982. Alas, they were overshadowed

Wall 1, Frerotte 0

Wall 1, Frerotte 0

by the antics of Washington quarterback Gus Frerotte, who celebrated his team’s only score — on a 1-yard bootleg — by bashing his head into the end zone wall and suffering a neck injury that knocked him out of the game.

● WR John Gilliam, Cardinals (Oct. 26, 1969, 21-21 tie vs. Cleveland) — Had four catches for 192 yards and all three St. Louis touchdowns. The first two TDs measured 84 and 75 yards; the third, a 15-yarder, came with just eight seconds to play.

● RB Gary McDermott, Bills (Oct. 12, 1968, 14-14 tie vs. Dolphins) — McDermott tied the game in the final seconds with an eight-point play, catching a three-yard touchdown pass from Dan Darragh and a two-point conversion toss from Ed Rutkowski. He’s the last player, by the way, to do that. (It was also, to give it its proper due, one of only two games that year that 1-12-1 Buffalo didn’t lose.)

● QB Sonny Jurgensen, Redskins (1967) — Threw four touchdown passes in a tie game not once but twice, in a 28-28 tie with the Rams (Oct. 22) and a 35-35 tie with the Eagles (Dec. 3). In the latter, Norm Snead, the quarterback Philadelphia acquired for Sonny in a 1964 deal, also tossed four TD passes. So for a day, at least, it was an even trade.

● FB Jim Taylor, Packers (Dec. 13, 1964, 24-24 tie vs. Rams) — Gained 221 yards from scrimmage (165 rushing, 56 receiving) and ran for a touchdown to knot the score with two minutes left. He accomplished this, moreover, against the Rams’ vaunted Fearsome Foursome (Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen et al.), which led the league in rushing defense.

● Lou Groza, Browns, and Jim Bakken, Cardinals (Sept. 20, 1964, 33-33 tie) — Only two kickers in history have booted as many as four field goals in a tie game: Groza and Bakken . . . in the same game. Groza connected from 32, 12, 37 and 25 yards, Bakken from 30, 51, 44 and 28 (his last with five seconds to go). That same afternoon, Lou scored his 1,000th NFL point and Jim broke the franchise record for longest field goal. All in all, not a bad day.

● WR Charley Hennigan, Houston Oilers (Oct. 13, 1961, 31-31 tie vs. Patriots) — Set an AFL mark — never broken — for receiving yards in a game with 272.

Larry Garron football card● RB Larry Garron, Patriots — Nobody got up for the tie games like Larry. Check out his performance in four of them:

1. Oct. 13, 1961 vs. Oilers (31-31) — 89-yard kickoff return touchdown.

2. Nov. 3, 1962 vs. Bills (28-28) — 95-yard kickoff return TD and, in the fourth quarter, a 23-yard scoring grab to tie it at 28. (In case you’re wondering, the aforementioned kickoff return TDs are the only two of his career.)

3. Nov. 17, 1963 vs. Chiefs (24-24) — 47-yard TD run.

4. Oct. 16, 1964 vs. Raiders (43-43) — Three TDs (one rushing, two receiving), as many as anyone has scored in a tie game.

● QB-K Bobby Layne, Steelers (Nov. 8, 1959, 10-10 tie vs. Lions) — Fired a 20-yard touchdown pass to Tom Tracy in the last few minutes, then kicked tying extra point. And consider the backdrop: It was the first time the Hall of Fame quarterback had faced the Lions since they traded him in ’58. Talk about a clutch tie.

● QB Frank Filchock, Redskins (Oct. 8, 1944, 31-31 tie vs. Eagles) — Tossed five touchdown passes, the most ever in a tie game. How did the Redskins end up with only 31 points, you ask? Simple. They botched four PATs.

● WR Don Hutson, Packers (Nov. 22, 1942, 21-21 tie vs. Giants) — Caught 14 passes for 134 yards and two touchdowns. The 14 receptions tied the NFL record for a single game.

Other items of interest:

Miller Farr vs. Don Maynard

Miller Farr vs. Don Maynard

● In 1967, the Houston Oilers’ Miller Farr picked off three passes in a 28-28 tie with the Jets. According to my research, that’s the most in a tie game. A month later, his brother Mel Farr rushed for 197 yards for the Lions in a 10-10 tie with the Vikings — the biggest rushing day in a tie game since 1960.

● Little-known fact: Not once since 1974, when overtime was adopted, has a two-point conversion been the last score in a tie game. (The Broncos, in other words, would have been the first if Sunday’s game had wound up a draw.)

● Another little-known fact: Nobody has ever kicked a really long field goal to cause a game to end in a tie. The longest I’ve come across is a 41-yarder by the Chiefs’ Nick Lowery in a 10-10 defensive struggle with the Browns in 1989. His boot wasn’t a buzzer-beater, either. It went through with 3:48 still on the clock.

● Finally, the ’74 Steelers club that played the Broncos to a 35-35 standoff in the first regular-season overtime game went on to take the title — making it the last Super Bowl winner with a tie on its resumé.

Sources: pro-football-reference.com, National Football League Fact and Record Book, The Sporting News American Football League Guide, The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia.

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Gadget plays galore

NFL teams channeled their Inner David Copperfield in Week 3. We saw the Bengals’ Mohamed Sanu, the Dan Marino of wide receivers, complete a throwback to QB Andy Dalton for an 18-yard touchdown, and we saw the Browns dust off the illegal-since-1954 Hideout Play against the Ravens — with Johnny Manziel split way, way out, almost far enough to sell hot dogs. (We covered that bit of subterfuge in a post yesterday.)

It’s probably only a matter of time before some special teams coach sells his boss on this beauty:

I wouldn’t mind seeing somebody run this one, either:

Hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?

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The Browns try to pull a fast one

Browns offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan couldn’t possibly have known this, but he ran an illegal Hideout Play against the Ravens on practically the 60th anniversary of the last legal Hideout Play. Even better, the victim both times was a Baltimore team — the Colts in 1954 and the Ravens on Sunday.

The last legal Hideout Play (a.k.a. Sleeper Play) was run Sept. 26, 1954 — by the sneaky Los Angeles Rams on the first play of the season. The Colts defense didn’t notice wide receiver Skeet Quinlan hanging out near the sideline when the ball was snapped, and no one was near him when he caught an 80-yard touchdown pass from Norm Van Brocklin. After the Rams won 48-0, Commissioner Bert Bell said, in essence, “Enough of this crap. We’re not a Sunday morning touch-football league. Anybody who tries to run a Hideout Play again will be penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.”

(His actual quote was: “This thing never should have happened in the first place. No matter how many good rules we have, somebody also comes up with something that we have to correct.”)

Here’s the brief game summary that appeared in newspapers across the country:

Sleeper Play game story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s Bell declaring the play illegal the next day:

Bell outlawing Sleeper Play

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sure enough, the following was added to the rulebook in 1955 (under Rule 10 — Section 2): “If an offensive player lines up less than five yards from the sideline on [the] same side as his team’s players bench, and his teammates (even though they are outside of [the] field of play) are in close proximity to where he is lined up when the ball is snapped, it is Unsportsmanlike Conduct.”

If he were “in close proximity” to his teammates, of course, his uniform would blend in with theirs and he’d be harder to notice. That’s one of the reasons the play was so effective in the early days. (That and the fact that clubs would usually save it for late in the game, when darkness was closing in. Many stadiums back then didn’t have lights — or had inadequate lighting — making the sidelines less visible in the fourth quarter.)

Actually, quarterback Johnny Manziel, the focal point of Sunday’s shenanigans, was in closer proximity to coaches than players as he stood along the sideline in the second quarter, pretending to have a conversation with his offensive coordinator. He had just come out of the game after being sent in for one play – a run by Isaiah Crowell that lost a yard.

As you can see from the clip, Manziel and Shanahan did a great selling job — had any of the Ravens bothered to notice. Johnny had his back turned to the game, waiting for Kyle to tell him to “Go!” (which he clearly did), and wide receivers coach Mike McDaniel gesticulated in the background for good measure. Then Johnny took off, free as can be, down the sideline, and Brian Hoyer hit him for a 39-yard gain to the Baltimore 23.

Alas, the play was called back — not because it was illegal (the referee didn’t mention anything about that), but because running back Terrance West wasn’t set before the snap. The Browns ended up punting and went on to lose 23-21; but think about it: How “great” would it have been, after the two weeks the NFL has had, for one of its teams to win a game by running a bogus play? After all, had West not messed up, Cleveland easily could have gotten three and possibly even seven points out of that possession.

Beyond that, though, there’s always been something a little cheesy about the play. It just doesn’t seem like something pro football players should be doing. That, certainly, was the point Bell was trying to make. Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for coaches reviving long-lost offensive and defensive stratagems. But to pull a stunt like this . . . . Come on, Kyle. With all the rules favoring the offense nowadays, you’re running a Hideout Play? What’s next, having Manziel stick the ball under his jersey?

Some other things about the last Hideout/Sleeper Play that might interest you:

● Hall of Famer Weeb Ewbank made his NFL head-coaching debut with the Colts that day. The Hideout Play, in other words, was the housewarming gift he received from the Rams (the rats).

● The Baltimore cornerback who got caught sleeping was Don Shula. Years afterward, he said, “I remember thinking: Where in hell is [Van Brocklin] throwing the ball?”

● When the teams met again late in the season, the Colts gained a measure of revenge by upsetting the Rams 22-21. How sweet must that victory have been?

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Butch Gibson, Hercules of the latter-day Giants

With the Giants coming to Washington for a Thursday night game, the Redskins are facing the dreaded Short Work Week. But at least they don’t have to game plan for Butch Gibson, the all-pro lineman for the Giants in the ’30s. According to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not cartoon that ran in newspapers, the 5-foot-9, 204-pound Gibson was so powerful he could “tear a deck of cards into SIXTEENTHS with his BARE HANDS!”

Try that sometime. (Heck, try tearing a deck in half.)

There was something else about Gibson that was unusual: He didn’t wear a typical leather helmet. “He wore one of those boxer’s headgears,” one of his opponents, Glenn Presnell of the Portsmouth Spartans, once told me. Butch probably wanted to protect himself against head slaps — which were legal in that era — and also avoid developing cauliflower ears (another hazard of the early years).

Here’s the classic Ripley’s cartoon:

Butch Gibson Ripley's

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The Jaguars’ 8 quarters from Hell

We can only hope the worst is over for the Jaguars, that they’ll never again be as Horrifically Bad as they were from the second half of Week 1 through the first half of Week 3. But with a rookie quarterback, Blake Bortles, now running the offense, you can never been 100 percent sure.

To summarize the Jags’ miseries:

They lost the second half to the Eagles, 34-0.

Then they lost the game to the Redskins, 41-10.

Then they lost the first half to the Colts, 30-0.

Add it all up and you get: Other Guys 105, Jacksonville 10 — a point differential of minus-95 in the equivalent of two games.

Any idea how many NFL teams have been outscored by that many points over a two-game span? Answer: one (since 1940, at least).

Indeed, I turned up just 10 in the last 75 seasons who were minus-80 or worse over a two-week stretch. (Wish I could broaden it to eight-quarter stretches like the Jaguars’, but the search engine at pro-football-reference.com doesn’t let me to do that.)

Anyway, here are the Terrible Ten:

WORST POINT DIFFERENTIAL IN A TWO-GAME STRETCH SINCE 1940

Games Team (W-L-T) PF PA Diff
1-2 1961 Raiders (2-12) 0 99 -99
1-2 1973 Saints (5-9) 10 102 -92
6-7 1966 Falcons (3-11) 10 100 -90
8-9 1949 N.Y. Bulldogs (1-10-1) 20 107 -87
13-14 2000 Browns (3-13) 7 92 -85
7-8 1966 Falcons (3-11) 20 105 -85
1-2 1989 Steelers (9-7) 10 92 -82
5-6 2009 Titans (8-8) 9 90 -81
1-2 1978 Colts (5-11) 0 80 -80
4-5 1966 Eagles (9-5) 17 97 -80

What’s fascinating is that several of these teams bounced back after hitting bottom. The ’89 Steelers actually made the playoffs — and beat the Oilers in the first round. In fact, they nearly made it to the AFC title game, dropping a 24-23 heartbreaker to the Broncos in the semifinals. (And Denver, of course, reached the Super Bowl.)

Also, the ’66 Eagles finished 9-5, and the ’09 Titans won eight of their last 10 with Vince Young at quarterback to end up 8-8.

FYI: The ’66 Falcons were a first-year expansion team, so they can almost be excused.  Still, that was a wicked three weeks they had, getting blown out 44-7 by the 49ers, 56-3 by Vince Lombardi’s Packers and 49-17 by the Browns.

Finally, a word about the ’61 Raiders: After beginning the season with back-to-back humiliations of 55-0 (Oilers) and 44-0 (Chargers), they fired coach Eddie Erdelatz and promoted offensive assistant Marty Feldman, “whose only prior head coaching was for Valley Junior College and the Stanford Frosh,” the Oakland Tribune reported.

I know what you’re thinking. But, no, it’s not this Marty Feldman, the guy who played Igor in Young Frankenstein:

It’s this Marty Feldman:

Feldman with Raiders sweatshirt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two years later, Al Davis arrived on the scene, and Pride and Poise quickly replaced 55-0 and 44-0. If only the Jaguars could find an Al Davis of their own.

Source: pro-football-reference.com

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