The Stat Hole: Stupid Sports Stats From the Past Week — September 29, 2026
We start with Thursday Night Football. Not Steelers/Browns coming up. We're going back to Packers/Falcons as I had to let some dumb juicy stats marinate at the Packers expense. What an absolutely lost team the Packers are turning out to be. A wet dream of a Thursday night watch for a Bears fan like me. The Falcons came in as one of the league's premier laughing stock teams and even started the game as much with an extremely rusty Michael Penix. Which brings me to the first dumb, random lookup I want to entertain.
Has there ever been a worse touchdown scoring drive of 85-yards or more for a quarterback?
Penix hit Kyle Pitts for 5-yards to start this drive by darting one at his feet in what appeared to be a failed attempt at throwing an incompletion. This would be his best play of the drive. His only other throws of the football include a grounding penalty and an almost interception that got bailed out by a roughing the passer well after the ball started its trajectory. Bijan for 6. Bijan for 9. Then 55. 2. And the score from 3-yards out.
Some dumb history on similar drives that spanned at least 7-plays, 85-yards, and in route to a touchdown where the quarterback didn't really do jack squat.
- 2008 Raiders: 95-yards against the Chiefs, but they literally ran the ball every play. Can't really blame J'Marcus Russell on that one.
- 2017 Saints: Same for Drew Brees vs the Bills in 2017 as he capped off a 94-yarder with his own feet.
- 2002 Falcons: Michael Vick led an 88-yarder with zero passing yards vs the Lions in 2002, but did a little damage on the ground himself.
- 2019 Seahawks: Russell Wilson threw two incompletions on an 88-yard touchdown drive.
- 1999 Bears: Jim Miller threw two incompletions in a game also against the Packers on an 86-yard drive as the Bears beat the Pack right with Bryan Robinson blocking a game ending field goal perhaps aided by Walter Payton's soul mere days after his death.
I saw a stat saying the Packers are 1-8 in their last nine games including playoffs. Thats hard to imagine for a team led by Rodgers and Favre for so many years before Love. But it actually did happen with Favre in 2004-2005. Only one other team had a longer stretch of avoiding 1-8 in any nine game span and if I gave you one guess which team that was, you'd absolutely get it right.
The Packers are a complete mess and it's pretty clear why. Jordan Love is the complete opposite of a guy like Caleb Williams in that he's much better in-structure vs on the move and needs much more from an offensive line to be successful. And this offensive line is a flat out clown show. Long are the days this team has had skilled corn-fed behemoths dominate at the line. I've always kind of thought less of Love for being so dependent on an elite offensive line. Same thoughts on CJ Stroud. They might actually be the same guy now that I think about it. There's some evidence there…
Small pesky issue with this half-baked conspiracy is that they have played head-to-head before so let's forget about that piece.
Let's move on to some more dumb stats from Sunday. I'm officially out wholeheartedly on Jim Harbaugh and Mike McDaniels. They were brought in to take the Chargering out of the Chargers and this entire team looks like it's being led by a substitute teacher on the last day before holiday break. The fact that they had no idea how inept this team was is inexcusable. I don't think I'm wrong in declaring Jim Harbaugh as the Jameis Winston of NFL coaches. Hilarious quote. Awful at his job.
Five takeaways with a +4 margin and they still lose. Since 2015, only four teams have done this. Half of them were the Chargers.
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And they lost by eight my friends. Aside from the 2000 Browns the only other team on here to lose by five or more were… yes… also the Chargers. And it's not just awful coaching either. Let's chat Justin "when it all goes down I think he'll be the best that ever did it" Herbert. Tom Brady correctly lit him up on Sunday and Brock "Mr. Irrelevant" Purdy has been a better passer while being pressured this season than Justin Herbert when given clean protection.
I mean… yikes.
Chargers are and will forever be… the Chargers. A team that will continue to excite and disappoint. I wrote a blog about this a few years back and if they lose again this week it'll be high time to circle back given that the whole premise was that they end up .500 no matter what. They'll be 505-505-11 all time if they lose next week.
Let's get to a fun one. Debo Samuel did something very cool. Set an NFL record for most receiving yards without a catch. Scott Hanson mentioned this on RedZone but didn't go through the list of who was usurped from the catchless wonders. So, here they are for proper historical recording.
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If Kink Richards wasn't nicknamed "Kinky Dick" back in the day I might have to rethink my reverence for the depression era generation.
One more thing for this week. We have to talk about this 4th and 16 check down.
You could probably chalk this up as a rookie mistake for a kid in Jr. Tackle if you're in a decent enough mood. But this is quite something. I ran the numbers as best I could here given short time, but this gem ranks just 10th in air yards thrown short of the sticks on 4th down in the final 2:00 of a game a team is losing by one score. The only thing is some of these were likely designed screens including Joe Flacco's #1 ranked 3-yard pass that was 26-yards short. And it worked!
Didn't pan out as well for Joe a couple years later.
That's it for this week. Hoping to have some college football and baseball playoff stuff set for next week. If you see something funny and/or dumb out there that happens in sports give me a tip!