The Saddest Stats Of NFL Week 7
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.Happy seven weeks of sadness. For those who celebrate here every Tuesday morning anyway. I'd love to tell you the misery of the season is almost over, but it's literally not even the half of it. The same length of time you've gone through to this point in your sad team's year will elapse all over again. But the good news is by that point you'll only have four weeks left to go.
Let's just get on with it.
Sad Stat #1 - The Saints went from 0 to 60 to subzero in seven weeks
You never want to see you team on a roller coaster graph. Those never end well as evidenced above by the Saints going from "What Dat?" to "You Splat!" as they rose to an over +60 point differential after Week 2 only to crash and burn into the ground Thursday night.
You could lie and tell yourself this is all because Derek Carr got injured but let's be real - he was still there when this all started to go south. But it sure seemed early on Thursday Night that Spencer Rattler and Bo Nix were going to go full Taysom Hill vs Kendall Hinton. The way Broncos/Saints games are supposed to be played.
OK - let's dive into the historical precedence on all this. As if there would be some other kind of precedence. I cooked up every team in NFL history to start the season with a +60 point differential after Week 2 and listed their end of season win/loss record. Right now the Saints are surprisingly on pace to be only second worst:
What on earth happened to the 1966 Oilers? They were the only team of the group to not end a season above .500 and would end the season at 3-11. Led by the great George Blanda, it looks like they benched him in Week 10 after posting a 1/6 TD/INT ration in the two games before. Evidently, things did not improve after that.
Well, things better improve for the 2024 Saints if they're going to try to argue that actually the roller coaster just went through an underground tunnel and will rise back up again. But as it stands after Week 7, they're well ahead of schedule of the 1966 Oiler's path from +60 to -60.
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Sad Stat #2 - What if Jim Irsay drafted Anthony Richardson AND Will Levis after all?
Who doesn't love a good thought experiment? I remember seeing this tweet knowing it was a joke but thinking that would actually be a good idea because you get two swings of the bat to find your franchise quarterback. Wouldn't have worked out but at least they'd have swung and missed twice instead of once. Face it Colts fans - there is no hope for Anthony Richardson. He's awful and has shown zero progress. And you can't say "well Darnold, Baker and Geno were bad too until they joined a competent team" either. Joe Flacco acted as the proper control in proving Richardson was the problem. Just like he did in Cleveland. Seriously, I think Tennessee needs to trade for Flacco now while Levis is out. If he has success - Levis is gone. Draft someone else.
Anyway - back to the thought experiment. What if Irsay did draft both Richardson and Levis? I went ahead and compiled their stats (games/attempts/completions/TDs/INTs) to make a combined Will Richardson stat line: 23 games, 331/565 with a 19/18 TD/INT ratio. This is what Irsay would have gotten. Let's get some player comps on our guy Willy Richardson. Or maybe Anthony Levis if you prefer:
Billy Joe Hobert: 26 games, 275/527 and 23/25 (TD/INT)
Cade McNown: 25 games, 281/515 and 16:19 (TD:INT)
Dan Orlovsky: 23 games, 298/512 and 15:13 T(TD:INT)
EJ Manual: 25 games, 343/590 and 20:16 (TD:INT)
Joshua Dobbs: 21 games, 312/502 and 21:18 (TD:INT)
Tyler Thigpen: 26 games, 275/509 and 21:18 (TD:INT)
I know Richardson and Levis's careers are far from over. But are they? How much longer do we want to give them?
Sad Stat #3 - Antonio Pierce pulled a Matt LaFleur in kicking a field goal to make a one score game a one score game late in the 4th
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We all remember Antonio Pierce from his earlier hit this season - punting on 4th and 1 down one score late. Well, he's back in Week 7 with this befuddling field goal to cut a touchdown lead to a touchdown lead with 2:50 left in the game. I found just two similar examples of teams doing something this stupid in the last 20 years. Of course, the Matt Lafleur game in the 2020 Playoffs. We all know that one. But the other was Dan Quinn's 2015 Falcons in Week 9. While it doesn't have the commercial recognition of LaFleur's, this is most certainly pound-per-pound the dumbest coaching decision in the history of football.
The Falcons were down 17-13 with 3:00 left and 4th and goal at the 1-yard line. That's right. The 1-yard line. Just making sure you don't think that's a typo. Quinn dials up a field goal in this spot which was a decision that - as explained below in an amazing breakdown of this very play - would have been statistically improved had he instead instructed his kicker to miss the field goal on purpose.
Sad Stat #4 - Congrats to Josh Jacobs for catching his first receiving touchdown on the 211th catch of his NFL career
This was a fun stat to track but we can now officially put this to bed. Jacobs came into Week 7 with 1,593 receiving yards which topped Gerald Riggs' 1,540. Gerald now stands alone where on top of this lonely mountain stat.
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Sad Stat #5 - Patrick Mahomes is one of just four quarterbacks to throw an interception in each of his first six games of a season since 2020
He can't keep getting away with this. Except. Well. It appears he can. 6-0. The other quarterbacks to do this are as follows:
- Joe Flacco (2023)
- Jimmy Garappolo (2023)
- Mike Glennon (2021)
- Nick Foles (2020)
I think it'd be funny to watch this team go 17-0 with Mahomes throwing a pick in every game. That makes me wonder. What is the record for most consecutive games with an interception in NFL history, anyway? Has anyone gone the entire season throwing at least one every game without getting benched?
Hang on a sec…
Sad Stat #6 - Frank Tripucka threw an interception in all 14 games in the 1960 season
I'd pay a lot of money to see what sort of film slides Frank Tripucka had on his head coach Frank Filchock. This Bronco quarterback would end the season after playing every game and posting a 24/34 TD/INT ratio. He is the only quarterback to ever play a full 14-game or longer season with an interception in every game.
But wait just a minute. What if I told you there was no film slides Tripucka was holding to keep his coach playing him? What if it was coach Frank Filchock all along who wanted this to keep happening? Perhaps he had something to gain. I almost completely missed this, but coach Frank Filchock (a name that's too funny to not keep writing out) played quarterback himself before coaching and threw an interception in all 12-games of the 1946 season for the New York Giants. A team that somehow still made it to the Playoffs because - well - that was the 1940s. But at least we now know why 14-years later he'd allow a quarterback under his tutelage to bury that record deep where most people would never find.
But I'm not most people, Frank Filchock.
That's it for Week 7.