The Saddest NFL Stats Of Week 15
Welcome Island of misfit fans. It's getting about that time of year Santa sets off to bring joy to fans across the world wishing for a playoff spot and postseason success while we all sit on this sad cold plot of arctic acreage. Who needs a specialized Rudolph to lead the way in the sky when we have the Mason version putting on his annual December performance. It was a crazy packed week with all teams taking the field and that means plenty of sad shenanigans to get to.
Here are your sad stats for Week 15.
Sad Stat #1 - The Bengals allowed 30-yards to the heaviest football player to ever carry the football
This was an absolutely crazy week for NFL units. Let's start with our guy, T'Vondre Sweat. Dude looked like he was born to run the ball. Like someone took Derrick Henry in Madden and customized the wight to max and kept the stats the same. That's the only way to describe what you see in the clip above.
Looking into the numbers here, I have this as the heaviest player to ever carry the ball. Ever. Meaning - anyone that gained any yardage. So perhaps there was someone fatter that fell on a ball, but never advanced it. With data at hand from all players in every game that gained yardage this tops the previous largest ball carrier - Ted Washington - who took 365 lbs. five yards in 1994. So Sweat beat him by one Pardon My Cheesesteak.
Sweat wasn't the only big man doing big things Sunday. Dan Skipper of the Lions took all 330 big ones into the endzone for the Lions.
That means Jonah Williams at 312 lbs. was only the second largest man to score a touchdown this week.
So yeah - big day for the big man. Go ahead and celebrate big men!
Sad Stat #2 - Mason Rudolph threw an official sad touchdown
To qualify as an official sad touchdown it must come at triple zeroes when a team is losing by nine or more thus disallowing the extra point attempt. Rudolph joins the likes of Justin Fields - who last to do this (Week 15, 2021), Daniel Jones (Week 1, 2021) and Nickelodeon MVP Mitch Trubisky (Wild Card Weekend, 2020 season). Two Bears quarterbacks. Wonderful…
Sad Stat #3 - The Carolina Panthers scored their first 80+ yard touchdown since 2019 Christian McCaffrey
Shout out to Brody for dropping a line on this one. Always welcome sad fans with sad angles for the sad blog. Keep em coming!
It's been a while since the Panthers had a sudden jolt of stimulant result right after staring at glass. Five years to be exact. But a Young Coker fixed that problem Sunday, despite the Panthers getting demolished by the Cowboys in the end. So while it was fun while it lasted, the crash always gets you.
But here's the surprising thing when digging into this stat. The Patriots have the longest 80+ yard touchdown drought in the NFL. Not since Brady to Aaron Dobson for 81-yard score all the way back in Week 9, 2013. Then the Packers are shockingly next (Week 2, 2014). Just a weird stat. You'd think Tom and Aaron would have had longer bombs since then.
Sad Stat #4 - Sam Howell's 5-net yards are the fewest for any quarterback this season with a minimum of 19 dropbacks
Oh yeah. It get's worse.
I ran the numbers on this myself before seeing 33rd Teams who I think we can safely say would not trade for Sam Howell if they ever became an actual NFL team. I ran it for a minimum of 19 dropbacks, which puts Howell fifth worst since 1999. Out of 13,702. Long live Spergon Wynn's -18 yards on 21 dropbacks back in Week 14, 2000. That would be the 13,702nd place finish in this stat.
Sad Stat #5 - The Steelers went "fumble lost", "punt" to start the second half… and finish the second half…
I'm not sure how I'd be Steelers fan and not lose my mind over Mike Tomlin's complete lack of in-game ability to do anything analytical. He's such a great coach in every other respect but punting on fourth and seven from the Philly 46 down two touchdowns with ten minutes left was bad enough. The fact that the Steelers never got the ball back was just an extra twist of the knife.
But who would have thought the Steelers wouldn't have gotten the ball back at all? They are one of just six teams now to have only two 2nd half drives since drive data was publicly logged in the late 90s.
I will give Tomlin this. It's probably not realistic to expect him to know this would be one of the 13,852 team second halves that resulted in just two drives. It's actually only one of five if you count overtime drives. But let's get the details out here in case you want to go PFR game box hunting to see for yourself. Here they are. The only other games on record with a team having just two second half drives:
- 2000 Browns (12-0 loss to the Ravens in Week 5)
- 2002 Raiders (23-20 overtime loss to the 49ers in Week 9)
- 2004 Ravens (20-7 loss to the Steelers in Week 16)
- 2005 Browns (13-6 loss to the Colts in Week 3)
- 2009 Patriots (35-7 win over the Jaguars in Week 16)
Wait, what?? The Patriots won 35-7 in a game they had just two second half drives??? No wonder conspiracy has forever surrounded this franchise. But to be fair, the only reason the Jaguars didn't also only have two drives that game was because they got to fire off one final play of the game for a three-yard run. That was their entire third second half drive.
Sad Stat #6 - Anthony Richardson successfully threw a ball to his teammate on a play that ended in a pick six
OK - technically I think would be a pitch-six, not a pick-six since the ball was thrown backwards one yard from the Bronco 49 to midfield. The play logs called it a fumble since it's not a forward pass. Richardson still threw a couple picks himself but maybe now that he knows what it's like to be on the other end of one he'll finally learn. Probably not. But these are the types of thoughts we think here on the Island of Misfit Fans.
Honorable mention to Jonathan Taylor and Jordan Battle for giving up a double-dose of DeSean Jacksoning this week. I actually have a take on this. I think this is on NFL coaches. How many times do we see players celebrate before entering the end zone and nothing bad happens? A lot. Like, every week over and over again. I'm guessing none of them got any earful from the coaches for risking doing the same dumb shit. So if there's anyone to blame for these on Sunday it's Shane Steichen and Zac Taylor.
That's it for this week. Finished before the Bears start on Monday Night Football so I'm sure there's no other sad content about to play out from here…
Sad Stat #7 - The Chicago Bears
This miserable seeping wad of equally incompetent and unintelligible puss has me up late to at least let everyone know I still realize my team is the bottom of every laughing stock team in the NFL. Sure, there are teams with worse records. But as a franchise, no team is even in the same zip code of stupid from the top down. At this point, with the head coach and newly hired offensive coordinator fired, this was a carcass of a team that took the field in Minneapolis. But their ability to shit all over themselves remains alive.
Caleb Williams has been ruined. For this year anyway. The offensive line is a joke and that's 100 percent Ryan Poles fault who 100 billion percent needs to be fired on black Monday. Tyrique Stevenson can't even not fuck things up when getting an interception, and Doug Kramer is the comedic relief called upon when things are so embarrassing but you need to find a way to make it just a little bit more so.
I think it's officially time to consider picking a new team. I have the Chargers circled as the team I'm ready to cheat on the Bears with just to see if they'll care. Maybe then the Bears will turn their life around and I can come back. Standard thought process for someone one month away from closing on a divorce.
See you all next week. Plenty of coal still left to be handed out.
Catch up on last week's NFL sad stats: