The Saddest NFL Stats Of Week 18
This blog completes season three of NFL sad stats. It's been an absolute joy channeling my pain as a Bears fan by leaning into the haplessness of my team and helping fans of other sad teams do the same with theirs. We've laughed together through 17 weeks so far. We've cried. And cried some more. And we'll do it once again.
Here are your sad stats for Week 18.
Sad Stat #1 - George Pickens' 0 yards on 6 targets is just half number of targets of the NFL single-game record for most targets with zero yards receiving
So there I was, running some code on what the record is for most targets with zero receiving yards in a game after George's stooge-like performance Saturday Night. After sorting the data, I see Carl Pickens at the top.
And that's when I went down a deep rabbit hole to find out if Carl was George's dad, or at least related.
Now George Pickens is evidently a Jr., so you'd think that would eliminate Carl from being his dad. But who knows? Does the birth certificate department at the hospital chase you down if a Billy Bob puts Jr. on the end of his newborn son Chetsworth's paperwork? Probably not. But if they did chase him down, it'd be for naming his son Chetsworth.
Anyway, a Google search suggests Carl is George's dad. Now I've been duped by the AI bot answers before, but there are a few articles out there indicating he is, including one from CBS which is cited and hyperlinked in this dissertation on the entire matter from BigBullmoose89 (not a Jr.) on Reddit.
I was so desperate to find the answer I even went to an IG thread page for the first time in my entire life. It did not help, but at least I learned this other guy is in the same spin cycle of wonder.
How is this such a mystery?
Without any hard evidence, I can only offer the forensic statistic that Carl Pickens had a 12 target, zero yard game somewhere in his highly regarded career as a wide receiver to corroborate what the internet is being led to believe.
Carl Pickens…
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(maybe)
Sad Stat #2 - The Browns are only the second team since 1977 to fail to cover a 20.5 or more point spread
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You've got company now 2019 Lolphins. DTR and a heavy dose of Bailey Zappe showed that maybe Deshaun Watson really is a better football player than person. Say what you will about their performances on Saturday, but I was inspired. I haven't felt like maybe I could be an NFL quarterback since Matt Ryan v Russell Wilson on Thursday Night in 2022. And Kendall Hinton/Taysom Hill before that.
But that's the thing about Week 18. With teams having little to play for in many cases, many teams sit their starter to see what the backup can do. Or backups. What the hell? Some of these backups are wild cards we know little about. Like Tanner McKee or Joe Milton! But others are those who we all thought were flamed out and left for dead. And when they return, they come back as undead. Back from the grave to bring horror to their fandom.
And that brings us to…
Sad Stat #3 - 12 undead quarterbacks came back to haunt fandoms in Week 18
Here's who I got on my qualifying "undead quarterback" card. Some of them started the game so at least gave fans time to mentally prepare for a Sunday of the living dead. Looking at you Carson. Others broke through the ground in a shock an awe manner.
Let's run through the full list…
Carson Wentz. Tyler Huntley. Joshua Dobbs. Marcus Mariota. Trey Lance. Malik Willis. Davis Mills. Mitch Trubisky. Mike White. Bailey Zappe. Joe Flacco. All quarterbacks of sad stats past here to haunt us once more. But all in all, things weren't as bad as they might have seemed. I went ahead and combined our Longest Yard assortment of quarterbacks and combined all of their main stats together to see how they did in Week 18 as a group of undead quarterbacks.
Completions: 187
Attempts: 334
Yards: 1,884
TDs: 9
INTs: 6
YPA: 5.67
Not gonna lie. That's not terrible. I mean shit, Daniel Jones had about the same amount of attempts (341) this entire season and he only had 2,070 total yards with an 8/7 TD/INT ratio. Speaking of which. Welcome to club undead, Daniel Jones. See you next year in Week 18.
Sad Stat #4 - Jalen McMillan got a 15-yard penalty for pretending to shoot a gun right before scoring a touchdown that set off a series of literal cannon celebration shots
This was hilarious to watch on Red Zone. I think it was the very next play McMillan scored after the penalty and hearing the cannons fire away one after the other gave me quite the chuckle. Lesson here for the kids. Hand guns are bad. But cannons are fine. They're just the things ruthless gangs of pirates used back in the days of Blackbeard, Kidd, and Morgan to massacre, mutilate and defile innocent seagoers. No foul on the play.
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Sad Stat #5 - Michael Pierce is only the second heaviest man to run with the football this season
I've never seen anyone that fat run with the ball. But without proper BMI stats at my disposal (hint NextGenStats) all I have to go off is listed weights from PFR and he is somehow 11 lbs. lighter than T'Vondre Sweat from earlier this year. And Sweat is NFL history's heaviest player to ever run with the ball according to listed weights.
Sad Stat #6 - The Packers finished behind the Bears in the super important "just division games" standings
I thought for sure the Packers were going to become the first team to ever block two would-be game winning last second field goals against the same team in a season. But the Bears finally won a Super Bowl game which means they beat Green Bay in the regular season or the Packers lost in the playoffs. Crazy to think the Packers would be winless in the division had that block not happened. I've long thought Jordan Love isn't the quarterback everyone thinks he is. Green Bay has an amazing offensive line and he seems to struggle when they aren't playing at an elite level.
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Finish them off Philadelphia. Give us Sad Bears fans two Super Bowl wins in back-to-back weeks.
Sad Stat #7 - The Titans are the only team in NFL history to finish the season 2-15 against the spread
This might be one of the saddest stats of all time. I'll tell you why. Many teams are bad. Many have been worse than this Tennessee Titans 3-14 catastrophe. But to week-in and week-out fail to meet expectations that lower each and every week is a level of sad that one must stop and appreciate. Not even the winless Lions or winless Browns (3-13 vs spread) were able to do this.
Here are all the teams in the Super Bowl era the Titans just limbo'd under at three wins against the spread…
And with that… we conclude another full season of weekly NFL sad stats blogs. Thank you all for stopping in to skim through some entertaining and mostly originally sourced stats to turn those tears of pain into that of laughter. What else is a sad fan to do? But I very much appreciate all the love I get from these. Even when I get buried for screwing something simple up since I'm usually up late finishing them. Life of a part-time blogger with a real 8-5, I guess.
Til next year, fam.
Catch up on last week's sad stats: