There are two kinds of streaks in sports: the real kind, which go on without interruption, and the regular-season kind, which are suspended for the playoffs and resume — the player hopes — the next year. In Sunday’s 43-21 loss to the Patriots, the Broncos’ Peyton Manning threw two touchdown passes for the 14th straight regular-season game to set an NFL record.
“Going into the game,” The Associated Press reported, “Manning had two 13-game streaks with at least two touchdown passes, and Tom Brady of the Patriots and Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers each had one.”
Of course, if postseason games were included, then that paragraph would have read differently. Brady (2010-11) and Rodgers (the same two seasons) have both had 14-game streaks counting the playoffs – and Manning’s current run of 14 games would only be eight games (since he threw for just one TD in the Super Bowl against the Broncos).
I’m not trying to bust anybody’s chops here. I totally get why the NFL separates the regular season from the postseason for record-keeping purposes. In the playoffs, after all, you’re going up against the best teams every week. They’re not Typical Games.
But I do wish the league paid as much attention to Real Streaks as it does Regular-Season Streaks. I mean, what’s the harm? All it would cost is a few extra pages in the record book. And the benefit is obvious: You’d be acknowledging some performances that might otherwise be overlooked. Better still, you’d be letting the fans decide for themselves whether one streak is better than another.
My reason for bringing this up is that Johnny Unitas threw two touchdown passes or more in 13 consecutive games in 1959 — the Colts’ 12 regular-season games, plus the title game against the Giants. That’s as long as any Real Streak Manning has had. (Peyton had a 13-gamer to start 2004, when he tossed 49 TD passes.)
You know who else had a 13-gamer? Dandy Don Meredith with the Cowboys in 1965 (the last nine games) and ’66 (the first four). I’m still not sure why Meredith was left out of AP’s story. His was strictly a regular-season streak, unlike Johnny U.’s.
Here are the game-by-game breakdowns for Unitas’ and Meredith’s streaks. Given the times — and the less-passer-friendly rules — who’s to say their runs weren’t greater those of Manning, Brady and Rodgers?
UNITAS’ 13-GAME STREAK (1959)
Opponent
TD
Lions
2
Bears
3
Lions
3
Bears
2
Packers
3
Browns
4
Redskins
2
Packers
3
49ers
2
Rams
2
49ers
3
Rams
3
Giants*
2
Total
34
*championship game
MEREDITH’S 13-GAME STREAK (1965-66)
Opponent
TD
Browns
2
Steelers
2
49ers
2
Steelers
2
Browns
2
Redskins
2
Eagles
2
Cardinals
3
Giants
3
Giants
5
Vikings
2
Falcons
2
Eagles
5
Total
34
Note that each threw for exactly 34 scores during the streak. Unitas’ 32 TD passes in the regular season broke the NFL record of 28 set by the Bears’ Sid Luckman in 1943. Johnny U.’s Colts, by the way, won the title that year, and Meredith quarterbacked the Cowboys to the championship game in ’66.
There’s little chance the NFL and its record-keepers will ever come around on this issue, but that won’t stop me from bugging them about it from time to time. That said, something tells me Unitas, were he alive today, probably wouldn’t care much about such a record, being an old schooler and all. In fact, if you ever brought the matter up to him, he’d probably give you a look like this:
The World of Statistics — or is it Statsland? — has no rules. At least, it seems that way at times. Like today, when ESPN Stats & Info tweeted this out:
Maybe we should blame it on Twitter and its hard cap of 140 characters. Because what the numbers gnomes at ESPN neglected to add was “(minimum: 30 attempts).”
On second thought, scratch that. I just added “(minimum: 30 attempts)” myself and still had 25 characters to spare.
Look, McCoy had a very nice game in the Redskins’ 20-17 upset win, hitting 25 of 30 passes (17 of them, as you can see in the graphic, within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage). This isn’t about him. It’s about the mindless need to create “records” where none really exist — all, of course, at the expense of the past (even the recent past).
I say this because there have been three Redskins quarterbacks in the 2000s alone — and a couple of others before that — who started a game, went the distance and completed a higher percentage of their passes than McCoy did. But their performances have been conveniently “disappeared” because they didn’t throw 30 passes. The specifics:
REDSKINS QBS WITH A HIGHER COMPLETION % THAN McCOY HAD VS. COWBOYS
Date
Quarterback
Opponent
Att
Comp
Pct
Yds
TD
Int
Rating
Result
11-18-12
Robert Griffin III
Eagles
15
14
93.3
200
4
0
158.3
W, 31-6
9-24-06
Mark Brunell
Texans
27
24
88.9
261
1
0
119.3
W, 31-15
12-5-04
Patrick Ramsey
Giants
22
19
86.4
174
3
0
139.2
W, 31-7
10-24-65
Sonny Jurgensen
Cardinals
14
12
85.7
195
3
0
158.3
W, 24-20
10-7-84
Joe Theismann
Colts
20
17
85.0
267
4
1
137.5
W, 35-7
10-27-14
Colt McCoy
Cowboys
30
25
83.3
299
0
1
94.3
W, 20-17
Actually, Theismann yielded in the late going to Jim Hart, but he essentially went the route. Anyway, looking at these figures, can you think of any reason why we should be genuflecting in front of McCoy’s 83.3 percent? Griffin and Jurgensen, for instance, both posted ratings of 158.3. That’s as high as the scale goes. And Brunell set a real NFL record that day by completing 22 passes in a row (most of them shorties like Colt’s).
These quarterbacks just happened to be in games where they didn’t need to put the ball in the air 30 times. Besides, it might be harder to hit a high percentage when you only throw 14 or 15 or 20 times, as some of them did, than when you throw 30. It’s just harder to stay in rhythm.
OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now. But riddle me this: When did it stop being acceptable simply to say, “Colt McCoy had a fine game, one of the best in Redskins history in terms of passing accuracy”?
Tracing the history of an NFL record can be more fun than a barrel of Statue of Liberty plays. That was certainly the case when I researched the mark Peyton Manning broke Sunday night for career touchdown passes.
The Broncos legend — who’s at 510 and counting — is the eighth quarterback to hold the record since 1943, when the Redskins’ Sammy Baugh took possession of it. All eight — Baugh, Bobby Layne, Y.A. Tittle, Johnny Unitas, Fran Tarkenton, Dan Marino, Brett Favre and now Peyton — are either in the Hall of Fame or guaranteed to get there. The NFL isn’t as stats-driven as baseball, but this mark is probably the closest it comes to the home run record in baseball. (Once upon a time, the Holy Grail was the career rushing record, but that was before rule changes reduced the running game to a quaint sideshow.)
The year Baugh broke the mark, statistics-keeping was much less exacting than it is now. In fact, the league didn’t even know who held the record, much less how many TD passes he’d thrown. As proof, I offer page 43 of the 1943 Record and Roster Manual. As you can see, the Top 3 under “Most Touchdown Passes” at the start of that season are Cecil Isbell with 59, Baugh with 56 and Arnie Herber with 51. (Isbell and Herber, two former Packers, had retired, though the latter would make a comeback in 1944.)
Unfortunately, the figures aren’t accurate. Subsequent research revealed that Herber was No. 1 with 66 (not 59), followed by Isbell with 61 (not 59) and Baugh with 57 (not 56). Also, Arnie was actually tied with Benny Friedman, who’d thrown 56 of his 66 TD passes from 1927 to ’31, before “official” records were kept. (Or unkept. As I said, there were lots of mistakes that weren’t caught until later.)
Anyway, when Baugh tossed No. 67, there was no mention of the record in the newspapers. Instead, sportswriters gushed about another mark he broke that afternoon — by throwing for six scores in a 48-10 bludgeoning of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Thus, the headline in the next day’s Brooklyn Eagle looked like this:
“All the stunned crowd could see,” the Eagle’s Harold C. Burr wrote, “was Bob Seymour, Andy Farkas, Wilbur Moore and [Joe] Aguirre . . . taking all sorts of passes — long, short, high and low, leisurely and hurried from the sharpshooter behind the Redskin[s] line, who calmly looked over the field and picked out the man in the clear. Once they gathered in the leather, over their head, waist high or off their shoetops, on the gallop or standing waiting, the receivers whirled away from the Dodger[s] secondary like autumn leaves.”
As terrific as Manning was against the 49ers — and he carved them up to the tune of 318 yards and four touchdowns — he didn’t match Baugh’s 376 yards and six TDs against the Dodgers. So far, nobody who’s broken the record has had a game like that.
By 1962, when the Steelers’ Layne passed Baugh’s mark of 187 by throwing his 188th and 189th in a 30-28 win over the Cowboys, there was a little more awareness of these career achievements. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s headline:
“Layne and the immortal Sammy Baugh of the Washington Redskins had been tied for most TD passes at 187,” Jack Sell reported. “Slingin’ Sam finished his career in 1952.
“The tiebreaker came on a beautiful 38-yard play with Buddy Dial on the receiving end. It not only smashed the record but put Rooney U. ahead to stay in the second quarter.”
There wasn’t much exulting on Layne’s part, though. He’d had to leave the game briefly in the first quarter after he “got slugged,” he said, but didn’t offer any other details about the incident. [At 36 — and playing his final season — Bobby still didn’t wear a facemask.] It should have been one of his more satisfying moments, coming as it did in Dallas, where he’d played his high school ball. The game was even stopped so he could be presented with the ball. But his basic reaction was: “It warn’t nothing. . . . It didn’t feel a damn bit different from any other touchdown pass I’ve thrown.”
(Yes, he said “warn’t.”)
Less than 15 months later, in December 1963, the Giants’ Tittle went shooting by Layne’s mark of 197. He, too, did it against the Cowboys at the Cotton Bowl. (Meaning Dallas coach Tom Landry bore witness to both Layne and Tittle breaking the record. Bet he was thrilled.)
The game took place just nine days after the Kennedy Assassination. (How weird must it have been to play in Dallas that close to the tragedy?) TD No. 198 — a 17-yarder to Del Shofner with five minutes left — gave the Giants the victory, 34-27. The pass was released, The Associated Press noted dramatically, “just as the old boy was being slammed to the ground.”
Here’s what’s really funny: The New York Times was so nonchalant about the mark that reporter William N. Wallace didn’t mention it until the seventh paragraph of his story. And when he did mention it, it was only after mentioning first that “Don Chandler . . . kicked a 53-yard field goal for New York today. It was the longest in Giant[s] history and tied the third-longest kick listed in the NFL record book. [Chandler’s] kicking was a major contribution to the Giant[s] victory. So were two touchdown passes by Y.A. Tittle, who thereby set a record. The 37-year-old quarterback has thrown more touchdown passes than anyone else in the 43-year-old league — 197. Bobby Layne held the old mark of 196.”
And when the Dolphins’ Marino blew by Scramblin’ Fran’s mark of 342 in 1995, the opposing quarterback was the Colts’ Jim Harbaugh — the same Jim Harbaugh who, as coach of the 49ers, got to admire Manning’s handiwork up close Sunday night. When he wasn’t gnashing his teeth, that is.
(A couple of other things also made Marino’s feat unusual. One, he had the same coach Unitas did in ’66: Don Shula. And two, he was the only one of the eight QBs who didn’t come away with a victory. Despite his four touchdown passes, which rallied his team from a 24-0 deficit, Miami lost, 36-28.)
Only Favre’s record day was utterly ordinary, devoid of strangeness or coincidence. When the Packers icon threw for his 421st TD to overtake Marino in 2007, it was simply a case of catching the Vikings in a blitz and whipping a 16-yard pass to Greg Jennings on a slant. The middle had been vacated by the safety. Jennings, covered by the nickel back, had no trouble getting open. It couldn’t have been much easier.
And now we have Manning replacing Favre (508) atop the all-time list, firing for one, two, three, four scores to lead Denver to a 42-17 win. You may have noticed, too, that there was plenty of build-up before the game, exhaustive discussion of the record during it and the requisite amount of whoopee when the mark finally fell.
The NFL has come a long way from 1943 — from the days when Sammy Baugh, its most famous player, could break a major record and no one would be aware of it. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if the game story in Monday’s Denver Post mentioned Manning’s accomplishment before the seventh paragraph.
You know what’s almost as cool? The QB who came closest before Wilson was Browns Hall of Famer Otto Graham, and the game Graham nearly did it in was the 1950 title game. Check out the box score for yourself. Otto had 298 yards passing and 99 rushing, which left him just 3 yards short.
At a locker nearby, Graham was stripping off his jersey. It was plain to see that he had taken a physical beating from the huge Los Angeles linemen who had knocked him down repeatedly. His face displayed cuts and bruises, and he limped on a twisted knee.
“Somebody hit me in the back toward the end of the first half,” Otto said. “I thought I was going to fold up right there. My knee buckled, but luckily it didn’t stiffen up. It’s just getting stiff now. It’ll probably be plenty sore tomorrow.”
If you’re interested in a visual, here’s Graham scrambling for a 22-yard gain to the Rams 31:
Just a tremendous player — as is Wilson.
QBS WHO CAME CLOSEST TO 300 YARDS PASSING, 100 RUSHING IN SAME GAME
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 1960. 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.
Had Peyton Manning not sat out the last game of the 2004 season — except for the first three snaps, that is — he might have done something last year that hadn’t been done in two decades: break his own NFL season record.
Manning, you may recall, had 49 touchdown passes going into the ’04 finale at Denver. He’d topped Dan Marino’s mark of 48 the week before, so there was no compelling reason for him to run up the score, so to speak — especially since the Colts had already clinched their division and had no shot at a first-round bye. So after the first series against the Broncos, coach Tony Dungy played it safe and replaced him with Jim Sorgi.
Three years later, the Patriots’ Tom Brady threw for 50 TDs to edge past Manning. And last season Manning threw for 55 to take the record back. But had Peyton gone the distance in the ’04 closer, he might well have thrown for several scores. Indeed, the following week in the playoffs, in a rematch with Denver, he threw for four in a 49-24 blowout. Could Brady have gotten to 52 or 53 – or more? I wouldn’t count on it.
Ah, what might have been. The last time a player broke his own NFL season record, according to my research, was in 1993, when the Packers’ Sterling Sharpe caught 112 passes, surpassing his own mark of 108 set in ’92. (The next year, the Vikings’ Cris Carter topped Sharpe by hauling in 122. So it goes in the receiving game.)
I’m not talking about any old records, by the way. I’m talking about records that fans care about (at least a little). We seem to be at the point in pro football history where this sort of thing – self-erasure – is getting incredibly hard to do.
It wasn’t always thus. In the ’30s and ’40s, another Packers receiver – the iconic Don Hutson – upped his own record nine times in various categories (receptions, receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, points scored). Of course, the passing game was still in its infancy then, and Green Bay was one of the few teams that made effective use of it.
Nowadays, though, one record-breaking season appears to be all a player has in him. Take the Saints’ Drew Brees, for instance. Three years ago he threw for 5,476 yards to blow by Marino’s longstanding mark of 5,084. In 2012, however, despite a fabulous effort with a 7-9 team, he fell 299 yards short of his record. Now that he’s 35, he might never get that close again.
Maybe this is another way we can measure greatness: Was a guy good enough to break his own season mark? The list of players who’ve done it since — World War II — is fairly short:
● RB Steve Van Buren*, Eagles (rushing yards) — 1,008 in 1946 (old mark: 1,004), 1,146 in ’49.
● E Tom Fears*, Rams (receptions) — 77 in 1949 (old mark: 74), 84 in ’50.
● K Lou Groza*, Browns (field goals) — 13 in 1950 (old mark: 12 by drop-kicker Paddy Driscoll of the Bears in ’26), 19 in ’52, 23 in ’53. (Yes, he broke his own record twice.)
● RB Jim Brown*, Browns (rushing yards) — 1,527 in 1958 (old mark: 1,146), 1,863 in ’63.
● QB Y.A. Tittle*, Giants (touchdown passes) — 33 in ’62 (old mark: 32), 36 in ’63.
Note: George Blanda tossed 36 TD passes for the Houston Oilers in 1961. But I’m excluding the pre-merger (1960-66) AFL from this discussion, even though the NFL includes the league’s statistics in its record book. It just wasn’t as good a league in the early years (much as I enjoyed it).
● QB Dan Fouts*, Chargers (passing yards) — 4,082 in 1979 (old mark: 4,007), 4,715 in ’80, 4,802 in ’81.
Note: The record Fouts broke in ’79 was set by the Jets’ Joe Namath in a 14-game season. So he didn’t really break it, not if you go by per-game average (255.1 for Dan vs. 286.2 for Broadway Joe). But his ’80 (294.7) and ’81 (300.1) averages were better than Namath’s.
● WR Sterling Sharpe, Packers (receptions) — 108 in 1992 (old mark: 106), 112 in ’93.
* Hall of Fame
As you can see, the only one of the Select Seven who isn’t in the Hall is Sharpe, whose career was cut short by injury. He may yet make it as a Veterans Candidate, though. After all, he did put up some impressive numbers in just seven seasons (595 catches, 8,134 yards, 65 TDs, 5 Pro Bowls).
Anyway, it’s something for the Lions’ Calvin Johnson to think about as he attempts to climb Mount 2,000.
Sources: The ESPN Pro Football Encyclopedia, pro-football-reference.com
Every team wants to get off to a fast start in Week 1, but the 1964 Bills took it to another level. In their opener 50 years ago against the Chiefs, they jumped out to a — no, this is not a typo — 31-0 lead after the first quarter. It’s the best beginning to a season in pro football history . . . by a lot. And lest you think this is just an inconsequential detail, they went on to their first AFL championship that year.
The explosion started quietly enough with a 13-yard field goal by Pete Gogolak. But then Jack Kemp, the future vice presidential candidate, threw three touchdown passes — two to Glenn Bass, the other to Elbert “Golden Wheels” Dubenion — and defensive tackle Tom Sestak added interception to injury with a 15-yard TD return. (His victim: Hall of Famer Len Dawson.)
The Chiefs regained consciousness and got within striking distance by the end of the third quarter, but Buffalo held them off, 34-17. The Bills then proceeded to win their first nine games and, on the day after Christmas, beat the defending champion Chargers to take the title.
In other words, it wasn’t the season their coach, Lou Saban, said this:
No other team NFL team has ever had more than a 21-point lead after the first quarter of its opener. The ’08 Falcons were the last to do it (against the Lions in Mike Smith’s first game on the Atlanta sideline). As you’ll see in the following chart, four of the 12 Fast Starters went on to win the title and eight made the playoffs. Somehow, though, two managed to lose the game.
BIGGEST WEEK 1 LEADS AT THE END OF THE FIRST QUARTER
Year Team
Opponent
Pts (Score)
Final
Result (Record)
1964 Bills
Chiefs
31 (31-0)
W, 34-17
Won AFL title (12-2)
2008 Falcons
Lions
21 (21-0)
W, 34-21
Wild card (11-5)
1999 Eagles
Cardinals
21 (21-0)
L, 25-24
Missed playoffs (5-11)
1991 Redskins
Lions
21 (21-0)
W, 45-0
Won Super Bowl (14-2)
1990 Falcons
Oilers
21 (21-0)
W, 47-27
Missed playoffs (5-11)
1988 Eagles
Bucs
21 (21-0)
W, 41-14
Won division (10-6)
1981 Seahawks
Bengals
21 (21-0)
L, 27-21
Missed playoffs (6-10)
1973 Redskins
Chargers
21 (21-0)
W, 38-0
Wild card (10-4)
1968 Raiders
Bills
21 (21-0)
W, 48-6
Won division (12-2)
1966 Chiefs
Bills
21 (21-0)
W, 42-20
Won AFL title (11-2-1)
1951 Rams
Yanks
21 (21-0)
W, 54-14
Won title (8-4)
1940 Packers
Eagles
21 (21-0)
W, 27-20
Missed playoffs (6-4-1)
Other items of interest:
● The ’81 Bengals, who overcame that 21-0 first quarter deficit against the Seahawks, went all the way to the Super Bowl (where they couldn’t overcome a 20-0 halftime deficit against the 49ers).
● While the ’51 Rams were coldcocking the New York Yanks in their opener, Norm Van Brocklin was throwing for 554 yards. It’s still the NFL record (by 27). Sixty-three years and counting, folks.
● Did you notice? Two years after the Bills laid a 31-0 first quarter on them in Week 1, the Chiefs returned the favor, 21-0 (in the very same stadium: War Memorial). Buffalo still reached the ’66 AFL championship game, though (only to lose to Kansas City again).
● That miserable first quarter certainly set the tone for the ’08 Lions. They proceeded to go 0-16, the only NFL team to plunge to such depths. The ’91 Lions, on the other hand, proved more resilient. After their stinker of a beginning, they regrouped, went 12-4 and met the Redskins again in the NFC title game (where the result was pretty much the same — a 41-10 whipping).
● The Bills’ 31-point margin isn’t just the biggest in the first quarter of an opener; it’s the biggest in the first quarter of any game. (Vince Lombardi’s Packers put up a 35 in the opening quarter against the Browns in November ’67, the record for total points, but they also gave up a touchdown, so they were ahead by “only” 28.)
● Finally, remember that Gogolak field goal I mentioned at the top? Turns out it was the first by a soccer-styler in pro football history. It’s also the subject of my next post, which I’ve linked to here.
At any rate, who knew the first quarter of the first game could be so telling?
Thirty years is a long time for an NFL record to last. Eric Dickerson’s season rushing record of 2,105 yards, for instance, will turn 30 in 2014 — if the fates and Adrian Peterson permit it. (Though some might say O.J. Simpson’s 2,003 yards in 14 games in 1973, a 143.1-yard average, is a greater feat than Dickerson’s 131.6-yard average in 16 games.)
But that’s a blog for another day. The blog for this day is that Dickerson’s record, which has survived challenges from the likes of AP (2,097), Jamal Lewis (2,066), Barry Sanders (2,053), Terrell Davis (2,008) and Chris Johnson (2,006) in the past two decades, might not have as much staying power as another, less celebrated mark set in 1984: James Wilder’s 492 touches for the Bucs.
Many fans probably feel about touches the way Paul Reiser’s character felt about “nuance” in Diner: It’s not really a Football Word, not like block or tackle or sack. It’s a tad too, well, touchy-feely.
What 492 touches — in this case, 407 rushes and 85 receptions — reflect as much as anything is endurance, the ability to just take it. You’d think that would make the mark revered, this being a tough-guy game and all. But I get the feeling it’s thought of in the same vein as Joey Chestnut scarfing down 69 hot dogs at Coney Island. You just never hear football people talk about it.
Wilder did a lot with those touches, too. He finished third in the league in rushing (1,544), second in yards from scrimmage (2,229, the third-highest total in NFL history up to then) and second among running backs in receiving yards (685). It was, by any measure, a monster year. Unfortunately, his Tampa Bay team wasn’t very good — 6-10 — which helps explain, no doubt, why his accomplishment has been overlooked.
(He did have the benefit, though, of playing for John McKay, a coach who never worried much about putting mileage on his backs. McKay liked to joke that “the ball’s not heavy” — leaving out the fact that the defenders slamming into his ball carriers often were.)
To put Wilder’s season in perspective:
● His 492 touches broke Dickerson’s record, set the year before, by 51 — almost two games’ worth.
● He still holds the mark by 35.
● Only six quarterbacks that season had as many pass attempts as Wilder did touches — Dan Marino (564), Neil Lomax (560), Phil Simms (533), Steve DeBerg (509), Dan Fouts (507), Paul McDonald (493). (In pass-crazed 2013, 16 QBs did.)
Why does Wilder’s record endure — without anybody taking a serious run at it? For one thing, the game has changed. Teams run the ball less now and aren’t as likely to have one back carry as much of the load as James and his contemporaries did. Running Back by Committee is the preferred approach.
Beyond that, though, Wilder had the kind of year that virtually assured his mark would have legs — if not eternal life. Consider: His 407 rushes were an NFL record, and his 85 catches were second all time for a back. Here are the Top 5 in those departments through the ’84 season:
Year Running back, team
Rushes
Year Running back, team
Catches
1984 James Wilder, Bucs
407
1978 Rickey Young, Vikings
88
1983 Eric Dickerson, Rams
390
1984 James Wilder, Bucs
85
1984 Walter Payton, Bears
384
1983 Ted Brown, Vikings
83
1984 Eric Dickerson, Rams
379
1980 Earl Cooper, 49ers
83
1981 George Rogers, Saints
378
1979 Joe Washington, Colts
82
Finally, a chart showing the Top 5 in touches before Wilder’s career year (left) and today:
Year Running back, team
Touches
Year Running back, team
Touches
1983 Eric Dickerson, Rams
441
1984 James Wilder, Bucs
492
1979 Walter Payton, Bears
400
2006 Larry Johnson, Chiefs
457
1981 Earl Campbell, Oilers
397
2000 Eddie George, Titans
453
1981 George Rogers, Saints
394
2002 LaDainian Tomlinson, Chargers
451
1983 William Andrews, Falcons
390
2000 Edgerrin James, Colts
450
Three decades later, Wilder still has the third-most rushing attempts in a season, trailing only Johnson (416, 2006) and Jamal Anderson (410 with the ’98 Falcons). He’s also still in the Top 20 for receptions by a running back in a season (16th, with Larry Centers’ 101 for the ’95 Cardinals leading the way).
Thirty years from now, it’s entirely possible Wilder’s record will still be standing. Let’s just hope it’s a little more appreciated by then. It deserves to be.
Rarely do two things of historical significance happen in the same game. But It’s great when they do — such as in the Browns’ 42-21 win over the Bears on Nov. 25, 1951. For starters, Cleveland back Dub Jones scored six touchdowns, tying the record he now shares with Ernie Nevers (1929) and Gale Sayers (1965).
While Jones was running amok, though, the teams were racking up a combined 37 penalties for 374 yards, two more records. The normally disciplined Browns were hit with 209 yards (yet another mark that has since been broken), the typically rowdy Bears 165. Sounds like the guys might have gotten a little, uh, vindictive.
It is merely in strict adherence to good reporting, not the intention to question the officiating, to record that the Browns were assessed 299 [sic] yards for 21 “infractions.”
In one series of downs with the Bears on the offensive, the Browns three times were charged with 15 yards for a personal foul. Two of them nullified intercepted passes, the second of which was returned 94 yards to an apparent touchdown by Don Shula.
Wait, that’s a third thing of historical significance that happened in the game. Shula had a 94-yard TD wiped out that, had it stood, would have been the only score of his NFL career.
No wonder his Colts and Dolphins clubs were so penalty-averse.
