Calling all NFL Stats Nerds

[Lomax]

Yes, I am a stats nerd. It occurs to me that one reason I follow the NFL is that it allows me to be so stattishly nerdy. It is possibly second only to cricket in this regard (a subject on which I can be truly sad. For reasons most of you won't understand, I experience a warm glow merely from typing 903-7).

But anyway. I've just been following the Saints game against the Packers, in which we seek to put our season back on track by only allowing 418 passing yards (sigh... but a win is a win, I suppose - and we did see the first 100+ yards rushing game by a Saint since about the fourteenth century...)

But anyway again. One nerdish thing I notice about this game is that there was not a single punt by either team.

Is this unprecedented?

[Fred588]

Yes, I am a stats nerd. It occurs to me that one reason I follow the NFL is that it allows me to be so stattishly nerdy. It is possibly second only to cricket in this regard (a subject on which I can be truly sad. For reasons most of you won't understand, I experience a warm glow merely from typing 903-7).

But anyway. I've just been following the Saints game against the Packers, in which we seek to put our season back on track by only allowing 418 passing yards (sigh... but a win is a win, I suppose - and we did see the first 100+ yards rushing game by a Saint since about the fourteenth century...)

But anyway again. One nerdish thing I notice about this game is that there was not a single punt by either team.

Is this unprecedented?

Dunno if that has ever happened before but it sounds like it might be as rare as a final score of 4-2.

[Fox78]

MLB and NFL stats geek in the house!!!!!


Supposedly it's only happened two other times ever.

And one of them was earlier this year!


The 9/28/14 GB @ Chi game earlier this year,
(Huge Bears fan here. Watched the whole game, thought something was odd about it)

and 9/13/92 Buff vs. SF.


Crazy.


With the way offense is being made easier in the NFL, we might be seeing more of these.

[BSink42]

This has kind of been a season of history and stat making games.

[Lomax]

Supposedly it's only happened two other times ever.

And one of them was earlier this year!

See what you get for inducting a Punter into the Hall of Fame...

[kham]

The hard-eyed snark take, is that both goddamned defences need to practice until they die this week....

[BSink42]

Speaking of Football, I'll just be over here, hiding in shame over Washington's loss to the Bucs.

[Fred588]

Speaking as one who has spent a professional career working with athletes and training people for their own careers as coaches (as well as other things), and with the caveat that every case is different and I did not see the game mentioned, it would not be uncommon for coaches to react in this case by a week of very intense practices, but with the effect of making things worse. More often than not, when you see a team blown out of a game, when they should not be blown out, it means one of two things. Either there are undisclosed injuries (possibly undisclosed to the coaches themselves) or the players are tired and need a rest.
When a game is played at an elite level but two closely matched teams, and even when they score comes out 55-0 there isn't all that much difference in reality, all it takes is a key player playing with a cold to make a difference in the outcome.

The hard-eyed snark take, is that both goddamned defences need to practice until they die this week....

[Lomax]

When a game is played at an elite level but two closely matched teams, and even when they score comes out 55-0 there isn't all that much difference in reality, all it takes is a key player playing with a cold to make a difference in the outcome.

I think the entire Saints squad must have gone down with scrofula.