Week 10 of the 2018 NFL season was the wildest of the year, with stunning upsets, unbelievable records and the Bills scoring 41 points. Here are the 10 craziest facts from a wild football Sunday.
1. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers became the first team in NFL history to gain more than 425 yards from scrimmage while scoring three points or less. And the Bucs went WAY over 425, netting 501 yards in an ugly 16-3 loss to the Redskins. How does that happen? Tampa had the ball in Washington’s red zone five times, missed two field goals and turned over the ball four times.
Prior to Sunday, there had only been one game ever in which a team gained over 400 yards and scored so few points and that team – the 2011 Rams – had 424. (It’s rare enough to find a team netting 300 yards and failing to get more than three points. It’s only happened 99 times in history.) This year, teams gaining 500 yards from scrimmage average 35 points per game.
2. The Bills scored more points on Sunday (41) than they did in the entire month of October (37). This next stat is even more amazing but lacks the punchy conciseness of the former: Since Sept. 24, the Bills had scored 46 points in total. That was over six games too, without any byes wrecking the curve. Forty-six in six and 41 in one. Amazing. And here’s one more, because we can’t get enough stats indirectly indicting the historic awfulness of ex-Bills starter Nathan Peterman: In a span of just over 16 minutes on Sunday, Buffalo scored more points (24) than it had in the previous three games combined.
3. Since avenging their AFC championship game loss to the Patriots in Week 2, moving to 2-0 on the season, the mega-hyped Jacksonville Jaguars have lost six of seven, with their only win coming against the team that just lost to the Bills by 31 points.
4. With a second-quarter touchdown pass in Sunday’s win over the Cardinals, Patrick Mahomes broke a 54-year-old Kansas City Chiefs record for touchdown passes in a season. (Hall of Famer Len Dawson held the mark with 30 TDs in 1964.) It should go without saying, but we’ll do it anyway, that this was only the Chiefs 10th game of the season. Somehow, the electric, MVP shoo-in is six touchdowns behind Peyton Manning’s record 55-touchdown pace of 2013, which only further proves how amazing that season was.
5. It took some missed field goals by Tampa’s Chandler Catanzaro to keep it alive, but on Sunday the Redskins extended one of the more unbelievable streaks in NFL history. In Washington’s six wins, the team has never trailed. In their three losses, they’ve never had a lead. The team that scores first has never relinquished their lead. How rare is it for a team to make it nine games without a single lead change? It’s been 64 years since the odd feat was accomplished, coincidentally by the same Redskins franchise. The difference that year was that the ‘Skins went 2-7 and usually got down so quickly that a lead change was never on the table. This year, Washington has outscored opponents by a single point, making the lack of flip-flop games all the more surprising.
By: Chris Chase
