This Week in Football

(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 last week's TWIF notes here.)

Curse of Flutie architect Wade Phillips has never won a postseason game and in each of the past two seasons has been involved in a first-round playoff loss by a top-seeded team.

 

Dallas quarterback Tony Romo completed 2 of 7 passes for 19 yards with 1 INT that was returned for the game-winning touchdown on his team's final three possessions in a 20-13 loss at Pittsburgh last Sunday.

 

Carolina ballcarriers DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart combined for 301 rushing yards against Tampa Monday night, while the team has averaged 206.3 YPG on the ground over the last four weeks.

 

Eli Manning's 13 completions, 127 yards passing, 48.1 completion percentage, 4.6 YPA and 73.3 passer rating against the Eagles on Sunday were all season lows.

 

The lowly Raiders rank better than the Patriots in every Cold, Hard Football Facts defensive Quality Stat, including Bendability (12th vs. 14th), Defensive Hog Index (21st vs. 22nd) and Defensive Passer Rating (11th vs. 27th).

 

The Pittsburgh defense surrenders just 3.92 yards per play, which puts them in position to challenge the Live Ball Era record of 3.89 YPP set by the 1979 Buccaneers.

 

Atlanta quarterback and rookie phenom Matt Ryan is 5-1 in home games with a 107.1 passer rating.

 

After Minnesota's 20-16 win over the Lions last week, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf dedicated the game ball to head coach Brad Childress, whose son joined the Marine Corps this week.

 

The Bills are yet to match the 10 games they won with Doug Flutie at quarterback back in 1999, while the pint-sized passer pitched the last perfect game by a QB in franchise history with a 158.3 passer rating in his last game in a Buffalo uniform in 2000.

 

The top four teams in our Big Play Index, the Titans, Ravens, Steelers and Giants, are a combined 42-10 in the standings and might just be the top four teams in the entire NFL.