The Saddest Stats Of NFL Week 13
Todd Rosenberg. Getty Images.The clock has struck 12 on the 2024 calendar, but that doesn't mean the season is fully over quite yet. The holiday blues are just getting started for sad NFL fans spanning from New York to Cincinnati and continuing on to Chicago before heading up to Green Bay to visit some cold Dolphins looking like the fish out of water they are.
Here are your sad stats for Week 13.
Sad Stat #1 - Matt Eberflus sets in stone his NFL history worst record in one score games
Yep. That's 233 NFL coaches you just scrolled through that coached at least 20 one-score games throughout their coaching career. Guy Chamberlain leads the way. If you don't who that is go ahead and ask your grandfather to ask his dead grandfather. Anyway, I'm excited this is the last Matt Eberflus graph I should ever have to make. Maybe he'll find his way back as a defensive coordinator. But you can't have the IQ of a quality assurance rejected can of cranberry sauce and be a head coach in the NFL. Unless that team is the Bears. But only for 3.5 years. That's it. Then we'll figure it out.
105 years of Chicago Bears history has seen one head coach fired midseason. Not Trestman. Not Nagy. Not John Fox. Not Dick Jauron. Only Matt Eberflus.
Sad Stat #2 - The Dolphins have lost all eight games under 48 degrees they've played outdoors in the Tua era
I didn't double check that every one of these eight games included Tua, but I suspect they all do. Even so, this isn't all on him. I ran the above graph again for the five years before Tua arrived and while it looks better, it's still pretty awful. Oh yeah - and there's this…
I think there's a way they can start to improve on this. The first step is realizing this is an actual problem. Because it is. This is a weak football team in the cold. Having a quarterback who grew up in Hawaii and played college ball in Alabama doesn't exactly help. But you can help him and your pathetic defense who's too cold to do the thing they are there to do. Here are a few free consultant suggestions from your neighborhood fun sports stat blogger:
- Cold plunge tubs at practice. Dip in for 30 seconds at a nice 43 degrees or so between drills. Yes, take off your pads and clothes first. I did about a minute a while back at my friends to cure a hangover and let me tell you - it's amazing. After you get out that is.
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- Rent a liquor store freezer to practice in. Gonna be a tight squeeze, but you gotta get the blood acclimated somehow. Maybe just do tackling drills in there.
- Try being… not a bunch of wimps
Sad Stat #3 - Justin Tucker has the most missed kicks of 2024 through Week 13
A team like Baltimore that has legitimate Super Bowl aspirations just can't let this problem linger. Justin Tucker is done. At least for this season. Yips, injury, old, I don't know what's going on, but as a Bears fan who tweets a GIF of a cat going through PTSD every time I hear a ball hit a goal post, trust me when I say this will come back to bite you in the playoffs. This doesn't necessarily mean cutting Tucker if you think whatever is going on is transitory. But when there's dudes out there selling bricks that can come in and kick 50+, you can't pretend this isn't a problem.
Sad Stat #4 - Leonard Williams set the NFL record for longest interception return (92 yards) for a touchdown by a defender 300+ lbs.
Elsa. Getty Images.For the record this is sad for the Jets who let this happen. But how about it? Let's run some rumblin', bumblin' big man on the run stats! No player has a longer interception than our guy yesterday knocking off this 1999 legend Dan "Big Daddy" Wilkinson:
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Classic Berman Boomer! 340 lbs., this guy. Not Boomer. Dan.
But that's not the longest touchdown by a trey 100. Check out Mike Patterson ripping a hole through time and space to take the ball 98 yards to the house in a clip so grainy and terrible it makes the Zapruder film look like 8K UHD.
Then you have Gabe Wilkins for the Packers in 1997 taking one 77-yards to the house followed by a few others at 66-yards (Bernard Wilson in 1997, Jerry Ball in 1996, and Shaun Rogers in 2007).
Honorable to Sam Hubbard of the Steelers who took a 98-yard fumble to the house vs the Bengals in the 2022 Playoffs. But at just 265, he doesn't officially qualify as a trey 100.
Bonus sad fan for you all Jets fans:
Sad Stat #5 - For every Bengals offensive touchdown, there is an equal and opposite defensive touchdown
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As Newton once said. So here's the thing. I noticed Sunday that every time the Bengals scored, the Steelers inevitably scored right after. The first three touchdowns the Bengals scored were answered with touchdowns by the Steelers Sunday. It's not a perfect science, but I think we can all agree the Bengals might have the worst defense imaginable.
For this stat, I looked up how many times teams either A) allowed a touchdown the immediate drive following scoring a touchdown or B) scored a touchdown after giving up a touchdown. For every action…you get it.
The Bengals scored 39 touchdowns this season. They've done so meeting either A or B an astounding 29 of those times. 14 on the drive after they scored and 15 after being scored upon. Washington is next with 26 followed by Baltimore with 21. These Bengals are just barely ever able to consolidate a break.
Of all the sad fandoms out there, I think the Bengals might have a good claim for being the saddest. This is Joe Burrow's prime. It's not fading yet, but it's being wasted. Every MVP caliber touchdown pass or drive he puts together is going to be meaningless. Even that incredible touchdown drive in the Chargers game to bring them all the way back. While other sad fandoms are starving for something while left in the desert with no hope, Bengals fans are being starved in an open cage hanging in the center of a Brazilian steakhouse. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Starved of food and extracted of every fluid in every gland through Pavlovian torture.
See you all next week.
Catch up on last week's sad stats: