Monday morning hangover update

Cold, Hard Football Facts for Nov 27, 2005

This week's Monday morning hangover update was written while shaking off the

effects of a four-day weekend spent drinking from a firkin of Fenway Pale Ale from Boston Beer Works that was tapped at 6 a.m. Thanksgiving morning and then flowed freely right up until Sunday night. That's the alleged firkin, along with several shamelessly overweight members of the 225 Club, sopping up the suds at 7:30 Turkey Day morning. For the record, we suspend our "no beer before 10 a.m." rule on Thanksgiving. However, we make up for it by eliminating vegetables from our diet for the long weekend ... and for most of the rest of the year, too.

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Has any defense in the history of football fallen harder and faster than New England's defense has from 2004 to 2005?

The short answer is no. But there are some notable challengers.

The 1968 Colts fielded the No. 1 defense in the league and one of the stingiest in NFL history (10.3 PPG), but it fell apart following their crushing loss to the Jets in Super Bowl III. The 1969 Colts surrendered 19.1 PPG, but that dropped them only five places in the NFL rankings. That's a mere flesh wound compared with the crippling loss of limbs the 2005 New England defense has suffered.

The Vikings led the NFL in scoring defense three straight years from 1969 to 1971, surrendering a mere 9.9 PPG in that final season. In 1972, they fell to 12th (18.0 PPG). The 2005 Patriots can only dream of such a high ranking in the NFL standings.

The 1981 Super Bowl champion 49ers boasted the second-ranked defense in the NFL (15.6 PPG), but fell to 23rd in the strike-shortened 1982 season (22.6 PPG). The 2005 Patriots mock their pathetic effort at collapsing.

Sure, all these defenses folded like well-oiled lawn chairs. But only two teams in modern NFL history can challenge the 2005 Patriots when it comes to cataclysmic defensive implosions, and one of them was another defending Super Bowl champion: the 2000 Rams. The other was the famed "46" defense of the Chicago Bears from 1988 to 1989.

Here's how these once-mighty defenses declined from one year to the next:

1988-89 Bears

Category	1988	1989
Scoring defense (rank)	13.4 PPG (1)	23.6 (20)
Total defense (rank)	295.3 YPG (2)	373.5 (24)
Rush defense (rank)	82.9 YPG (1)	118.6 (15)
Pass defense (rank)	212.4 YPG (9)	254.9 (25)

1999-2000 Rams

Category	1999	2000
Scoring defense (rank)	15.1 (4)	29.4 (31)
Total defense (rank)	316.0 (2)	361.4 (24)
Rush defense (rank)	74.3 (1)	106.1 (13)
Pass defense (rank)	241.7 (24)	255.3 (27)

2004-05 Patriots

Category	2004	2005
Scoring defense (rank)	16.2 (2)	25.4 (26)
Total defense (rank)	310.7 (9)	386.3 (31)
Rush defense (rank)	98.2 (6)	118.8 (21)
Pass defense (rank)	212.5 (17)	267.5 (31)

While the 1989 Bears and 2001 Rams certainly deserve a special spot of indignity in the NFL Hall of Shame, no team has dropped farther in so many categories than the 2005 Patriots defense. Here's how far each team has dropped from one year to the next, both in terms of total points or yards, and in terms of league-wide ranking in each category:

Category	'99-'00 Rams (rank)	'04-'05 Pats (rank)	'88-'89 Bears (rank)
Scoring D	-14.3 PPG (-27)	-9.2 (-24)	-10.2 (-19)
Total D	-45.4 YPG (-17)	-75.6 (-22)	-78.2 (-22)
Rush D	-31.8 YPG (-12)	-19.6 (-15)	-35.7 (-14)
Pass D	-13.6 YPG (-3)	-55.0 (-14)	-42.5 (-16)

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The quote of the week came from former NFL MVP Rich Gannon, who called the New England-Kansas City game as a color commentator for CBS. It began to rain in the second half with Kansas City sporting a big lead over New England, prompting Gannon to lament: "If you're Tom Brady, you wonder what else can go wrong, and now you gotta deal with wet balls in the fourth quarter."

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Random Cold, Hard Football Fact of the Week: Florida has had seven different head coaches during the Bobby Bowden era at Florida State.

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(Ed. Note: the piece about the stingiest defenses of all time that originally appeared here in the hangover update has been moved to its very own place in the Cold, Hard Football Facts archives. We apologize for the inconvenience and expect that, with your diet, you'll probably get winded making that extra click.)

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New York's three NFL teams (Bills, Jets, Giants) committed 27 penalties for 200 yards yesterday. The Giants did the bulk of the damage, with 16 penalties for 114 yards in their crushing 24-21 loss at Seattle.

Kicker Jay Feely missed three potential game-winning field goals on three straight Giants drives: a 40-yarder as time expired in regulation, a 54-yarder on New York's first overtime drive and a 45-yarder on the next drive. The last two kicks fell short.

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Tom Brady tossed out his annual mulligan – 4 interceptions – in yesterday's 26-16 loss to Kansas City. He's had one such game each year of his career. But just one.

In 2001, Brady threw 4 INTs in his fifth NFL start, a 31-20 loss to Denver. (Brady began his career with more than 130 pass attempts without an INT, the longest streak to start a career in NFL history.)
In 2002, Brady three 3 INTs in a 28-10 loss to Green Bay.
In 2003, Brady threw 4 INTs in a 31-0 season-opening loss to Buffalo. (He concluded the season with 4 TDs and 0 INTs in a 31-0 win over Buffalo.)
In 2004, he threw 4 INTs in a 29-28 loss to Miami.

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One of our favorite shows is "The Sports Reporters" on ESPN Sunday mornings. Normally, it's one of the more insightful sports shows on television. But yesterday, one of their guests, Sports Illustrated writer and editor Roy S. Johnson, couldn't help but toss out the race card when the topic turned to Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis.

"Notre Dame still has some explaining to do" when it comes to the firing of former coach Ty Willingham. Charlie Weis got a new contract this season, lamented Johnson, while "Willingham goes 8-0 and he gets fired."

Willingham, of course, went 8-0 in his first eight games with the Irish in 2002. But apparently, Johnson missed the subsequent developments:

Notre Dame went 5-6 under Willingham in 2004.
The Irish suffered a long series of historic losses, including three straight 31-point losses to USC. (It was Notre Dame's largest margin of defeat to USC in the history of the rivalry.)
Notre Dame was lifeless with Willingham at the helm.
Willingham went 2-9 this season at Washington. (The Huskies were 1-10 in 2004.)
Notre Dame's offense underwent a dramatic transformation this year, highlighted by some two dozen single-season and all-time passing and receiving records set by quarterback Brady Quinn and wide receiver Jeff Samardzija.
After its 9-2 season, Notre Dame is poised to get a $14 million payoff and an appearance in a BCS bowl game.

The bottom line is that Willingham got fired because he was not a particularly great coach and the Notre Dame program clearly declined on his watch. Weis got a new contract because he has a proven track record of success in the NFL and has seemingly single-handedly turned around the Notre Dame football program.

Weis, to quote an old "Seinfield" episode, got a new contract because he has "hand." Willingham had nothing on his résumé but mild success with Stanford, and clearly that did not translate into an improved program at Notre Dame.

And that, Mr. Johnson, is why one man got fired and the other got a new contract.

By Kerry Byrne

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