Quantifying Exactly How Sad Thursday Night Football Really Was

What we all witnessed last night before our very own eyes was nothing short of a catastrophe. For those lucky few who don't have Amazon Prime or couldn't navigate to find the game in the Comedy section:

Thursday Night Football Summed Up:

Thursday night's game made the saddest stats from my weekly sad NFL stat blogs look like long-term goals either of these teams can only dream of building towards. Matt Ryan wielded the throwing motion of an Olympic shot-putter replete with running starts that allowed him to put everything he had into 7-yard outs on third and usually longer than 10 leaving his receivers hopelessly diving backwards towards the ball. In the other corner Russell Wilson showed a confidence/level of decision making combination I haven't seen in a sport since Michael Scott vs. the Warehouse. Even when the Broncos made a big play on a deep moon ball prayer they had two receivers almost knock each other out like stooges. And poor Nyheim Hines. He left the game with a violent concussion and once he ever gets better his prize will be to watch the game film which will assuredly leave him once again concussed. 

To put some perspective on this, it's not common for a game to have zero touchdowns, but it happens. Since 1970 there have been 194 touchdown-less suck fests. And you'll be just oh so awfully shocked to learn that the Cleveland Browns lead with nine total games in which no team scored a touchdown followed by the Jets with seven. The only two touchdown-less games that lasted longer in time than last night were 6-6 ties (Cardinals vs Seahawks: 10-23-2016 and Rams vs Chiefs: 11-22-1970).  And for some other sad trivia tid bits:

I got you Scott:

Of course, last night's game makes 9. Anyway, there's no question last night was the saddest game of all time. The winner hasn't scored a touchdown in 89 minutes and 53 seconds of NFL game time and counting. That winning team would be the Indianapolis Colts who are now the first team to ever win a game in Week 5 and be eliminated from the playoffs. That's how bad this all was. So bad and so sad I set out on a mission to quantify just how sad these collective offenses were in this game with the following made-up algorithm. It's pretty simple, for any game, points are awarded based on the following combined offensive scoring:

Touchdown: 6

First Down: 1 

20 yard plays: 1

Punt: -1

Turnover: -2

Three and out: -1

Turnover on downs: -1

Sacks: -1

Offensive penalty: -1

Here's how this works out for every game so far in 2022:

Look, we all knew this was going to come in dead last, but honestly it should be by much more. There's just some things stats can't quantify. The wide open misses. Matt Ryan's passes traveling through liquid iron. Somewhere Colin Kaepernick rolled his eyes all the way back to his heels. I think we all would have welcomed John Elway just face off with Frank Reich at some point too. Although the last time the Broncos lost a touchdown-less game he threw three picks vs the Chargers in '86. And for God sakes, how the hell are the Broncos involved in the bottom 3/5 teams on this list including the worst two which just so happened to be prime time gifts to us all? 

Anyway, the problem on both sides of this affair are pretty clear. Matt Ryan has agility and arm strength of the Knight that said Knee after losing all his limbs with only the power left to fall and somehow always recover his own fumbles. As for the Broncos, they have scored touchdowns on 3/14 drives in which they reached the red zone this year. For reference, the Chicago Bears are 5/10. The Broncos' 21% rate is a whopping 5% lower than the worst team since at least my data tracks back to 1999. We're talking the 2-14 Brady Quinn Chiefs and 2-14 Aaron Brooks Raiders. 

That's enough sadness for one day. I'm going to bed before I have a stroke. I'll be back for more sad NFL stats after Week 5 to continue on this wretched journey. At least we won't have to watch the Broncos shit on another prime time game until…checks schedule… Week 6!!?????

Let's Ride!

- Jeffro