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This Week in Football
January 10, 2009
Cold, Hard Football Facts for January 10, 2009

(Ed. note: Baseball has its TWIB notes while the average CHFF reader made his way through high school and community college thanks to those venerable old Cliffs Notes. In fact, if not for Cliffs Notes, we never would have appreciated the works of Stanley Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe, the guy who invented poetry. Now we have our TWIF notes – This Week in Football – our new weekly wrap-up of the best stats, data and facts from the week that was the CHFF. See our most recent TWIB notes, from Week 17, here.)
 
With a Tennessee win over Baltimore Saturday, Kerry Collins will become the first QB in history to win a playoff game with three different teams.
 
Bart Starr (.900) and Tom Brady (.824) are the two most successful quarterbacks in postseason history, based upon winning percentage; they're also the least likely to be intercepted: Starr was picked off on just 1.41 percent of pass attempts; Brady on 2.02 percent of pass attempts.
 
Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb is the least intercepted passer in NFL regular-season history, throwing just 90 picks in 4,303 career attempts (2.09%) since entering the league in 1999. To put that into perspective, Brett Favre has thrown 101 INTs since 2004 alone.
 
Each winning team on wildcard weekend featured a star performer from the mighty 1-AA Colonial Athletic Association: Arizona's Tim Hightower (Richmond), San Diego's Stephen Cooper (Maine), Baltimore's Joe Flacco (Delaware) and Philadelphia's Brian Westbrook (Villanova).
 
Five – 225 Club in All its Chubby Glory
This week the CHFF tailgate team, the 225 Club, hunted down the story behind two regional culinary icons in playoff-contending towns: learn how to make real-deal South Philly cheesesteaks from the family that invented them, or learn the secrets to an authentic Chesapeake Bay crab boil from a famous Baltimore restaurant.
 
Baltimore safety Ed Reed has scored eight touchdowns on just 65 career touches – a rate of one TD for every eight touches. Defensive scoring legend Deion Sanders scored 19 touchdowns on 433 career touches – a rate of one TD for every 23 touches.
 
The Cold, Hard Football Facts Defensive Hog Index is 14-1 indentifying playoff winners since we introduced the indicator last year.
 
Teams that throw zero INTs have won 78 percent of their playoff games in the Super Bowl Era. Teams that throw two INTS have won just 31 percent.
 
The Colts have averaged just 13.6 PPG in their eight playoff losses in the Peyton Manning Era, while Manning himself has posted a cumulative 70.4 passer rating in those same eight games – nearly 25 points below his career rating of 94.7.
 
BCS title game contenders Oklahoma and Florida were statistical juggernauts in countless categories in 2008. But turnovers, as they so often do, played a big part in each team's success: Oklahoma ranked No.1 in the nation in turnover differential (+23) while Florida ranked No. 2 (+22).
 
Baltimore posted a 60.6 Defensive Passer Rating in 2008 – better than the 62.5 of its legendary Super Bowl champion defense of 2000.

We missed wildcard weekend amid holiday chaos. But our weekly TWIB notes are back. This week, we looked at the Quiet Man of NFL QBs, revisited the Lord of Postseason Stats, considered the state of the mighty Baltimore defense, and took one last look at a chasm of success so deep and wide it should be declared a national landmark.

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