The NFL Statistic That Must Be Fixed

Here we go. This will be my 39th season covering the NFL in some way, shape or form. In other words, I’m old,. But that also means I’ve seen a lot of great football. I’ve seen the Dallas Cowboys dynasty and the New England Patriots dynasty. As a New York Giants fan, I was there for “Wide Right” and the “Helmet Catch.”

I may be old, but — at least when it comes to football — I’m not cranky. Still, I will admit this: There is one thing about the NFL that has always made me a cranky old man. And I will not back down from this.

The NFL gridiron is 100 yards long. Period. So how is it possible that there can ever be a play longer than 100 yards?

The longest play in NFL history, according to the NFL Record & Fact Book, is a 109-yard kickoff return by Cordarrelle Patterson when he played for the Minnesota Vikings in 2013. In other words, Patterson fielded the kickoff nine yards deep in the end zone. But there are no yard markers in the end zone! How sure are we that he was nine yards deep and not eight yards?

Five players have recorded 108-yard kickoff returns — Jacoby Jones did it twice. Those players should share the record with Patterson — the record of a 100-yard kickoff return. The end zone is nebulous. Those yards don’t count.

Look at it this way:

The Los Angeles Rams have first-and-goal at the 1-yard line. Matthew Stafford drops back and lobs a fade into the back corner of the end zone, where Davante Adams comes down with the football.

That play covers 10 yards — but it goes down in the books as a 1-yard touchdown pass.

How come Patterson got those extra nine yards, but Stafford and Adams didn’t?

Now, I understand it’s different for kickers. With the goalposts set up in the back of the end zone, we add 10 yards to the official length of the field goal. Heck, we also add the seven yards back from the line of scrimmage where the holder puts down the ball to be kicked. So if it’s fourth down at the 20-yard line, the kicker gets credit for a 37-yard field goal. I’ll concede those yards to the kickers because, well, they’re kickers. They need the love.

But if a player returns a punt, kickoff, fumble or interception 102 yards, I think he deserves the same place in the record books as someone who had a 103-yard return. Because they’re really both 100-yard returns.

I once asked Joel Bussert, who retired back in 2015 as the NFL’s longtime senior VP of player personnel and football operations, how they count these nebulous end-zone yards.

“There is a scoring crew at each game, and they make a decision on how long it is,” Bussert told me via email. “Obviously, with televisions all over the press box, and all kinds of replays, they can peg it down pretty accurately. Sometimes a change is made after a game after a review by the Elias Sports Bureau.”

I then asked Bussert is he thought this rule might ever be changed.

“Not a chance, kid,” he said. “Not a chance.”

That was back in 2012, when I was 47. Hey, at least he called me kid!

For the record, here are the longest returns, as noted in the NFL Record & Fact Book. Perhaps the most incredible note here is this: In 2018, Marcus Maye had a 104-yard interception return, but it wasn’t a touchdown. He made the interception five yards deep in the end zone and got tackled at the 1-yard line. Well guess what? That’s a 99-yard INT return, not a 104-yard return!

Aside from Maye, all the records below should be listed as 100-yard returns. I’m gonna be a cranky old man about this, but I refuse to recognize it any other way.