The Saddest NFL Stats Of Wild Card Weekend
Joe Sargent. Getty Images.Wild Card Weekend was anything but that for 4/5ths of the weekend slate. Then Washington/Tampa Bay happened. As if the Commanders haven't been the luckiest team in years already, they had one more horseshoe up their ass to call glass on the upright for a doink field goal to win it.
But this blog isn't for the winners. It's for the losers. After 18-weeks of covering sad stats for the league bottom feeders, it's only fair to show the worst of the good teams who came so far for nothing. These are your sad stats for Wild Card Weekend.
Sad Stat #1 - The Chargers have been outscored 63-9 from one minute left in the second quarter through rest of the game in their last two playoff games
Brooke Sutton. Getty Images.Well it turns out not even Jim Harbaugh could take the Charger out of the Chargers. Same old story. Bring hope to your fans and crush that hope like a grape. They had everyone thinking they could at least beat the mopey Texans. Not just Chargers fans either.
A few more notes. Since 2009, the Chargers have won two playoff games. The Titans have won three. So have the Panthers. Yes, the Panthers. The Jets have even won four. What are we doing here?
I'll tell you what they're doing here. They're being incredibly average. Minus one. Just like they always are.
I even wrote about this very thing a year or two ago. It's truly dazzling.
Let's see it dazzle. Here was the Chargers franchise record at the time of that blog's posting back in September of 2023.
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Incredibly average. Minus one.
And here was Justin Herbert's record with the Chargers.
Incredibly average… you get the point.
Well let's fast forward to now and see what progress the Chargers savior Justin Herbert has made with the franchise regular season record…
That is the inevitible and perpetual purgatory of the Los Average Chargers (minus one).
Sad Stat #2 - The Steelers are 0-6 in their last six playoff games
Al Bello. Getty Images.Is Mike Tomlin a bad coach?
He's way behind the ball in terms of cowardly decision making that becomes most old coaches, but can we get real about the quarterbacks this guy's been given since Big Ben? I'll do you all a favor and not relitigate the names. But I will say one name. Russell Wilson. Remember when he finally took the helm of this offense and dropped 400 plus yards on the almighty Bengals defense in Week 12? Yeah, he would finish the regular season with a game high of 217 yards after that before waiting to do absolutely anything on Saturday until his team was already in the gutter.
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I still think they should have let it ride with Justin. The ceiling is higher despite the floor being lower but either way is better than this team being in the same place every single year. While the Chargers are average minus one, the Steelers are pretty much alwasy average plus one. Just good enough to make the dance. But always left standing in the corner watching everyone else have fun.
Sad Stat #3 - Jalen Hurts is the first quarterback to win a playoff game with 131 yards passing or less since… Jalen Hurts vs the 49ers in 2022
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.Remember that Conference Championship game when the Eagles beat the Niners because Purdy got hurt, and Josh Johnson came in for a few passes that got everyone thinking… "Hey, I think Christian McCaffrey played a little QB in high school."?
Jalen threw for 121 in that game and added just ten more on Sunday to beat Jordan Love's Packers by 12. No touchdowns and three picks for a quarterback Green Bay has been fooled into thinking was worth the 50+ million dollar contract. Some of us knew his offensive line was making him look much better than he was. Some of us knew…
It's probably a bad sign that the Packers quite frankly looked the same with Malik Willis this year. That's a huge red flag not talked about enough. Instead, the narrative is Willis has improved / LaFleur has done a great job developing him and only giving him what he can handle. But there's a flip side to that. It's that Jordan Love isn't that great. I won't overshoot and say he's terrible, but the body of work is starting to tell us something. His only good win this season was at home vs Houston and even then he threw two picks. 0-2 vs Detroit. 0-2 vs Minnesota. And save for a blocked field goal would have been 0-2 vs the disaster of a Chicago Bears outfit.
That's it for the weekend. We'll see what's in store for tonight.