I swear I have no vendetta against the Raiders, Brownies or Rams. In fact, I have the utmost respect for the true fans of these organizations. That said, I've been messing around the Web a bit and just stumbled upon some numbers that have rendered me speechless. At first, I thought they had to be wrong. Let's just say I knew the Dawg Pound, Raider Nation and the backers of the Lambs were suffering through some bad football. However, I'm not sure people are really drinking in the degree of ineptitude these squads have displayed. We're on pace for historic suckiness. Let me explain.
The short(er) version of the story. I was sitting around drinking wine last night and trolling the Internet (which is what I, as a married 32 yr. old, now do on Friday night but that's neither here nor there). Somehow, I landed on clevelandbrowns.com and a note that the Brownies have failed to score a touchdown in four of their seven games leaped off the virtual page at me. In addition to once again reminding me that there are worse predicaments one can face than being a Jets fan, it also got me thinking...
Specifically, I thought "wow, that's shockingly bad." I wonder just how many points per game Cleveland is managing to amass so far this fine season. The answer? 10.3/ppg. Good for 30th in the NFL. This led to more bewilderment -- not that Mangini's crew was barely scraping 10 points/game behind the resurgent Derek Anderson, but, rather, that such a figure only placed them 30th in the NFL in the category.
Who on Earth could be averaging fewer points a game?
/Door flies open KSK-style and in bursts the Oakland Raiders and St. Louis Rams.
Yeeee-haw! Yes, both the Rams and Raiders sit below the Browns, sporting 8.9 and 8.6/ppg averages respectively. At this point, I'm starting to think these numbers can't be anywhere near normal. Turns out, they're not. Granted it's not even halfway through the season, and I'm admittedly not the Elias Sports Bureau, but consider this:
- The last time a team finished the season with a PPG average as low as 10 was the Oakland Raiders of 2006 (10.5); even last years 0-16 Lions squad managed over two touchdowns a contest (16.8).
- Prior to that, it was the 2001 Cleveland Browns lighting up the scoreboard for 10.1 PPG. That year's squad went 3-13 and featured, at various times, Tim Couch, Doug Pedersen and Spergon Wynn under center. I am only starting to grasp what it means to be a Browns fan.
- So, if you're following my alcohol-fueled logic path, the last time a team finished the season having averaged less than 10 ppg? 1992. 17 years ago. The 1992 Seattle Seahawks managed just 8.8 ppg during that 2-14 debacle of a season.
Where does this all take us? In my mind, perhaps towards a new place in the history of suck. My energy ran out after checking back thiry years to 1979. The question? When was the last time - or has there been a time - where multiple NFL teams have finished the season with ppg averages below 10? If the season ended today, we'd have two with a third just out of range. Sure, it's not too probable, but judging by their performance to date you've got not one, not two but three strong candidates to do so.
Drink that in as you bitch about your favorite team this weekend.
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