The National Football League has set the record for most meaningless records on a single Sunday afternoon.
Previously held by Major League Baseball, the NFL worked hard all season long to capture the record, bringing a fresh crop of Ivy League-trained statisticians off the bench in the fourth quarter of the AFC Wild Card playoff game on Sunday to clinch mark for monumentally meaningless marks.
The NFL almost set the record of records a week ago on the final Sunday of the regular season, when statistical achievements fell like medals in juiced-up Summer Olympics: Most passing yards (5,476), most completions (468) and highest completion percentage (71.6%) by a quarterback (Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints) in a single season. Most all-purpose yards (2,696) by a single back (Darren Sproles, Saints) in a single season. Most yards (1,327) by a tight end (Rob Gronkowski, New England Patriots) in a single season. Most penalties (163) in a season for most yards penalized (1,358) by a team (Raiders, see Oakland). Most points scored by all teams (11,356) and highest per-team average score per game (44.36). This bounty of records comes to us from the Elias Sports Bureau – which is apparently where a record-setting number of unemployed sportswriters have gone to seek gainful employment after their newspapers were shut down.
But on this, the first weekend of the 2012 NFL playoffs, it would be the first time that the new playoff overtime rules (equal opportunity to score field goals, first touchdown wins) were ever used, and promptly disabused, when the Denver Broncos scored a touchdown on the first play of said overtime against the Pittsburgh Steelers – which was the fastest finish (11 seconds) to an overtime in NFL history (regular season or postseason!) The actual score of that game was 29-23, in case you were interested.
But that was not the last of the firsts on Sunday – it wasn’t even the first of the firsts!
Did you know that the half-time score of the New York Giants – Atlanta Falcons wild card game was the first time a playoff score had ever been 7-2 at the half?
Which is only important if you drew the previously unfortunate 7 and 2 on your football squares… and if you have a football pool for the NFC Wild Card game, you might want to call this number: 1-800-522-4700.
The Giants scored all of the points in their 24-2 victory over Atlanta, having handed the Falcons a meaningless safety (2 points, for those of you scoring at home) on an intentional grounding penalty in the first quarter. This was just the second time that an NFL team failed to score after coming off a 400-plus point season! (The Falcons scored 402 points during the regular season… in case you weren’t scoring at home).
But the hits just kept on coming!
Did you know that Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow completed 10 passes for 316 yards in Denver’s win becoming the first player to average at least 30 yards per completion in a postseason game (minimum: 5 completions – thank you, Elias, I had to type that verbatim to make sure I had it straight). And this is a record that will likely never be broken because Tim Tebow is the first (and only) home-schooled Heisman Trophy winner to set a postseason record in the NFL!
Take that, Chris Weinke!*
* Oldest player to win the Heisman Trophy at age 28, who also managed to snap the second-longest losing streak for an NFL starting quarterback (17 games) in the Carolina Panthers’ 10-3 win over the Atlanta Falcons in 2006. Weinke completed 4 of 7 attempts for 32 yards in the game (not a record for futility but should be) … which also happened to be the game in which the Falcons’ Michael Vick became the first NFL quarterback (who was later convicted of animal cruelty) to rush for 1,000 yards in a single season.
This handy report has been brought to you by the fastest retired sportswriter from Scottsdale, Arizona in her age group at the Las Vegas Half-Marathon.