Cold, Hard Football Facts.com: Sunday 'Stravaganza: It's Week 5, people!

Sunday 'Stravaganza: It's Week 5, people!
Cold, Hard Football Facts for October 7, 2007

By Jonathan Comey

Cold, Hard Football Facts gridiron junkie

The Raiders will take a well-deserved Sunday off today thanks to the NFL’s bye system, which gives us time to reflect on just how remarkable their 2007 has been.

As a refresher, in case you forgot how bad the Raiders were on offense in 2006, we’ll remind you that their 168 points scored in 2006 ranked fifth-worst in the 16-game era.

Fifth-worst team in almost three decades. That’s saying something, and it ain’t good.

Only 11 teams in the 16-game era (including the 2006 Raiders) scored less than 200 points in a full season. Looking back at the other 10 teams, the year following their low ebb brought only minor improvement – from absolutely, unbelievably putrid to just very bad in most cases.

The year-after teams:

1991 New England, 6-10, 211 points
1992 Tampa, 5-11, 267 points
1992 Phoenix, 4-12, 243 points
1992 Indianapolis, 9-7, 216 points
1993 Seattle 6-10, 280 points
1994 Cincinnati 3-13, 276 points
1994 Indianapolis 8-8, 307 points
1999 Philadelphia, 5-11, 272 points
2001 Cleveland, 7-9, 285 points
2001 Cincinnati, 6-10, 226 points

None of the teams got to 20 PPG the following year, and they had a combined average of 16.14 PPG.

Now, ready for Oakland’s numbers in 2007?

The Raiders are on pace to score 408 points, which would rank right next to free streaming internet porn on the list of amazing 21st-century developments.

If they just hit their average of 25.5 PPG over their next three, they will have scored more points in seven games than the 2006 team did in 16.

There are a few grains of salt to take here. The Raiders have played four terrible defensive teams, including three of the bottom five in scoring defense (Detroit, Cleveland and Miami).

But still, going from 10.5 PPG to 25.5 PPG is just incredible.

New offensive line coach Tom Cable gets much-deserved credit, taking a line with four unheralded veterans and one underachieving draft pick (Robert Gallery) and somehow making them dominant run blockers.

The Raiders lead the NFL in rushing yards and average, 194.2 YPG and 5.3 YPA. If those numbers were to stay consistent (which they almost certainly won’t), the Raiders would finish with 3,108 rushing yards, just off the NFL record set by the 1978 Patriots (3,165).

The pass blocking is still subpar (14.23% negative pass plays, 30th), but Raiders QBs have a very respectable 81.3 passer rating – a heck of a jump from 56.2 in 2006.

Not only can the Raiders score points, they could even stay in the hunt in their division.

At 2-2, they’re tied for the AFC West lead, but their final five games – host Denver, at Green Bay, host Indianapolis, at Jacksonville, host San Diego – will probably be too much.

Still, it’s a nice story out in Oakland, and anything more than eight wins would be enough to get a groundswell for Baby Face Kiffin as Coach of the Year.

If only he were old enough to run for President, or shave.

DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE OLD MAN

All in all, it’s been a hell of a year for the Kiffins.

Just when you thought maybe his run of success was over, Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin has the Bucs leading the NFL in scoring defense (11.0 PPG allowed).

Tampa’s defensive excellence has been taken for granted to an incredible degree – this is a team that finished in the top 10 in scoring defense for 10 straight seasons. In today’s NFL, that is beyond amazing, and the Bucs are right back on top.

Is that all Kiffin’s doing? Yes, yes and yes. He took over the defense right at the start of the run in 1996; in the seven years prior to his arrival, the Bucs finished in the bottom ten in scoring defense six times.

Kiffin, who is 67 years old, was a head coach just once, going 16-17 with North Carolina in the early 1980s. He’ll almost certainly never be a head man in the NFL. But he’s been as great a coordinator as you can be, the Buddy Ryan of the 1990s and 2000s, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.

For Ma Kiffin's take on this, our friends at ESPN the Magazine did a piece on the lady this spring.

THE 1992 COLTS: WTF!

Researching the worst scoring defenses bumped us into the 1992 Colts team, truly one of the freakiest teams in NFL history.

Coming off a 1-15 season that saw them outscored 381-143, the 1992 Colts ranked 26th out of 28 NFL teams in scoring at 13.5 points a game, and allowed 18.9 a game to rank 16th on defense.

Using the Pythagorean Method that determines how many games a team should win based on point differential, the Colts came out at 4-12.

Yet they somehow managed to go 9-7, making them probably the worst winning team of all time.

Their leading passer, Jeff George, had a 61.5 passer rating
They rushed for 2.91 YPA
Their wide receivers caught three touchdowns between them
Their kicker, Dean Biasucci, missed 13 of his 29 field goal attempts
They were shutout twice, and scored 10 or fewer points seven times

But they closed the season with five straight wins, all by a touchdown or less, and went into the books as a winning team. Congrats

1ST-and-10 POLL FOLLOW-UP, PART 1

We got more than 1,300 total responses in our two 10-question polls this week, and there were some intriguing results.

Faith in Mike Shanahan’s ground game is high: 68 percent of you believed that if Travis Henry were to go down for the season with a suspension, the Broncos would just plug in another guy and have success. This even though the backup is someone named S. Young (we refuse to learn his first name until he gets in the lineup and gains 215 yards his first time out).

Ed’s note: The percentage of respondents saying the Broncos would be fine without Henry would have been even higher, but all 26 of Travis’ kids said that the Broncos would struggle without their daddy.

Asked how the Bucs would do in Indy if the Colts were without Joseph Addai and Bob Sanders, more people (27 percent) thought the Bucs would win outright than thought the Colts would still roll to victory (13 percent). A more sober 60 percent agreed with the Cold, Hard Football Facts, predicting a close win for Indy (our score: Indy, 23-20)

In keeping with our “Tale Of The Tape” victory by Bart Starr over Brett Favre, 58 percent said Starr was the better Packer QB to 38 percent for Favre. (Five percent picked Lynn Dickey, the H. Ross Perot of Packer QBs).

A whopping 75 percent of you said that the Saints were the most likely of the three winless teams to win Sunday; only 15 percent chose the Rams and 11 percent the Dolphins.

Asked how many wins the Patriots would have, a full 21 percent of respondents picked them to win all 16. The No. 1 answer was 14; only six of 834 voters picked them to win fewer than 12 games.

We asked you which of the 2-2 teams was the best, and you inexplicably and overwhelmingly picked Denver.

Denver, 45 percent
Baltimore, 16 percent
Houston, 12 percent
Giants, 9 percent
Arizona, 9 percent
Oakland, 5 percent
Kansas City, 2 percent
San Francisco, 2 percent

In our book, the best 2-2 team is clearly Arizona, with two wins over Quality Opponents and two close losses to fellow 2-2 teams.

And finally, congratulations to the six brave souls who said that Cleveland would beat New England in Massachusetts this Sunday.

Hey, stranger things have happened. Like getting Randy Moss for a fourth-round pick.

ALSO, BEST FOOTBALL MOVIE

We asked you what your favorite football movie was, and even after fearless Troll Leader Kerry J. Byrne started campaigning for “Rudy,” the clear winner was the original “The Longest Yard.”

Since so many people specified the original in their vote (with caveats like “the real one, not that A. Sandler abortion"), we assume everyone was pulling for the 1970s classic, not the horrific remake.

The top five:

The Longest Yard: 61 votes
Rudy: 26 votes
Remember the Titans: 20 votes
North Dallas Forty: 19 votes
Any Given Sunday: 16 votes

Also receiving multiple mentions: The Replacements, Friday Night Lights, The Waterboy, The Program, Brian’s Song, Invincible. Rudy receiving 15 votes, but we believe every single one came from Byrne, who has a problem.

A couple of flicks were mentioned that don’t qualify as football movies but were great nonetheless: “Dazed and Confused,” which did revolve mostly around Randall “Pink” Floyd’s decision to sign or not sign a no-drug waiver to play football, and “M*A*S*H,” which had a great football subplot.

Other good answers: “Sexbowl 16: Green Bay Ass-Packers vs. the San Francisco 69ers,” “The English Patient” (a gridiron classic), “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Heidi” and “Bill Belichick’s Illegal Film Library.”

Several people said “they all suck,” and one gentleman explained that thought quite nicely: