With a majority of NFL teams set to finish off their first half of the regular season, this year has flown by big time around the league. It also gives us an ability to look at some absurd stats.
Every team has already played at least six games, which differentiates this from mentioning stats earlier in the season. This gives us a tremendous sample size to look at.
What are the trends for individual players and teams? What stats stand out the most heading into Week 8? Is the Jacksonville Jaguars’ defense really this good? Can Alex Smith’s MVP-caliber performance continue throughout the season?
Here are a look at 15 absurd stats heading into Week 8 of the NFL season.
Six teams allowing 100-plus passer rating
In today’s pass-first NFL, teams are struggling big time to stop opposing quarterbacks. A total of six defenses are allowing a 100-plus passer rating heading into the season. That category is “led” by an Oakland Raiders defense that is yielding a 109.0 rating and 68.9 completion percentage through seven games.
Even after holding Atlanta to seven points in Week 7, the Patriots’ defense remains a hot mess. Malcolm Butler and Stephon Gilmore are in Bill Belichick’s doghouse, both taking on lesser roles. And now through seven games, New England has yielded a 103.8 passer rating and a near 67 percent completion mark. That’s just not good for the defending champs.
Jaguars’ historically dominant defense
Heading into Week 8, Jacksonville is on pace to break the single-season NFL sack record. It has 33 through seven games, putting the unit on pace to best the 1984 Chicago Bears in this category.
In his first season with the Jags, veteran Calais Campbell leads the NFL with 10 sacks. He’s on pace for 23, which would break Michael Strahan’s single-season record. Meanwhile, Yannick Ngakoue and Dante Fowler are both on pace for double-digit sacks. This has the Jaguars ranked second in scoring defense and second against the pass. It is also yielding an NFL-low 62.3 opposing passer rating.
Kareem Hunt’s utter domination
Even when Hunt isn’t scoring touchdowns, he’s still making a huge impact. A dynamic dual-threat option in the Chiefs’ backfield, the rookie has already put up over 1,000 total yards in seven games. He’s also averaging a ridiculous 6.7 yards per touch. Adding to the absurdity, Hunt has caught 93 percent of the 27 passes thrown in his direction thus far this season.
If we were to take a preseason poll on who might surpass what Ezekiel Elliott did as a rookie last season, Hunt likely wouldn’t have been in the top three. Instead, that would have gone to Leonard Fournette, Dalvin Cook and Christian McCaffrey. Now, almost halfway through his first season, Hunt is on pace for nearly 2,300 total yards. That’s ridiculous.
Browns’ turnover issues
With three more giveaways in Sunday’s overtime loss to Tennessee, Browns quarterbacks have now turned the ball over a whopping 19 times in seven games. Yes, that’s an average of nearly three times per game and puts them on pace to turn it over 43 times on the season. To put this into perspective, no other NFL team has turned the ball over more than 14 times.
The focus this week has been on DeShone Kizer’s off-field antics. He was also benched for the third consecutive start Sunday against the Titans. But there’s not much hope in either Kevin Hogan or Cody Kessler turning this thing around. Now, it looks like head coach Hue Jackson will be rotating quarterbacks for the remainder of the season. What could possibly go wrong here?
Brutal Arizona Cardinals offensive line
It led to Carson Palmer breaking his left arm, an injury that will likely keep him out of action for eight weeks. And much like we’ve seen in both Carolina as well as Seattle, it’s the Cardinals’ offensive line that’s to blame. Cardinals quarterbacks have been sacked 24 times in seven games. They have also been hit on 20 percent of the team’s dropbacks.
To put this into perspective, Raiders quarterbacks have been hit on just 6.5 percent of their dropbacks. That just goes to show us that the discrepancy between Arizona’s offensive line performance and the rest of the NFL is what has led to a 3-4 start to the season.
Alex Smith’s record-breaking trajectory
Kansas City is heading into Week 8 in the midst of a two-game losing streak, but its star players are still performing at an elite clip. Take Smith for example. Here’s a veteran that’s having a career season, by a wide margin. It’s not close. The MVP candidate leads NFL quarterbacks in completion percentage (72.4) and passer rating (120.5). He’s also tallied 16 total touchdowns and zero interceptions while finding himself on pace for nearly 4,000 passing yards.
It’s almost a sure bet that Smith will somehow throw an interception this season. Though, if that does not happen, he’d become the first quarterback in NFL history with north of 20 touchdowns and zero picks. Heading into the final week of October football, this is something we have to talk about. It’s just been an insane opening seven weeks for Smith.
Antonio Brown stands above the rest
Brown is coming off just a four-catch performance against the Cincinnati Bengals. In no way does this mean that he hasn’t been dominating the stat line for the first-place Steelers. Here’s a guy that leads the NFL in receptions (52) and receiving yards (765). This has him on pace for his second career 1,700-plus yard season. To put this into perspective, Jerry Rice crossed that threshold just once in his career.
More to the point here. Brown has accounted for 34 percent of Ben Roethlisberger’s completions and 44 percent of his passing yards. If there’s any non-quarterback that should be in the MVP conversation, it surely is Brown.
Jags corner’s continue to play dominant football
We covered how well Jacksonville’s pass rush has performed. Along with that level of play, the team’s secondary has been among the best we’ve seen in recent NFL history. It all goes hand in hand, but this is just absurd. Second-year corner Jalen Ramsey and high-priced free agent acquisition A.J. Bouye are both yielding passer ratings of under 42 when targeted this season.
At 4-3 on the season, Jacksonville remains one of the biggest surprises in the NFL. The team also seems to be pretty darn legit with the way its defense is dominating. If Blake Bortles can continue limiting his mistakes and Leonard Fournette returns healthy after missing last week’s game, we could be looking at a division championship in Duval this season. Ramsey and Bouye are major components in this success.
Bengals have no idea what they’re doing
Joe Mixon and A.J. Green are the two most talented players on this offense. And for some reason, the Bengals have seemingly forgot about both at times this season. Take Week 7’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers as a prime example of this.
Mixon averaged 6.9 yards on seven attempts in the first half against Pittsburgh. He didn’t attempt a single run in the second half en route to Cincinnati losing by the score of 29-14. For his part, Green was targeted a grand total of four times out of 30 pass attempts for Andy Dalton. This represents the third time in six games that Green has not seen double-digit targets. No wonder Cincinnati finds itself at 2-4 heading into Week 8. Gross.
Eli has no help
With Odell Beckham Jr., Brandon Marshall and Dwayne Harris all lost for the season, it’s readily apparent that Eli Manning has no one to really throw the ball to. Last week against Seattle, with Sterling Shepard also sidelined, the two-time Super Bowl champion put up 134 yards on 39 pass attempts.
That’s average of less than four yards per attempt. And over the past two games, he’s averaging a grand total of 4.5 yards per attempt. To put this into perspective, Giants running back Orleans Darkwa is averaging nearly one yard more per rush this season.
It gets “better” from there. In last week’s 24-7 loss to the Seahawks, Manning completed 5-of-15 passes for 45 yards to actual wide receivers. Some will blame the veteran for this, but he legitimately has no help on offense. It’s simply been horrific watching.
Kirk Cousins weeknight futility continues
Cousins completed 75 percent of his passes, threw for 300 yards and had three touchdowns. He still lost Monday night’s game against the first-place Philadelphia Eagles. This means Cousins is now 0-6 on Monday Night Football, tying Archie Manning for futility in that mark. Cousins is also now 0-9 in weeknight games. He’s 22-15-1 when starting on Sundays.
That’s just an odd stat that might people likely didn’t realize. It could also lead us to believe that Cousins’ Redskins don’t come up big under the microscope of nationally televised night games. At 3-3, it’s something to think about as Washington looks to vie for a wildcard spot in the NFC moving forward.
Cardinals miss David Johnson big time
The Arizona Cardinals are hoping to have Pro Bowl running back David Johnson in the mix sometime this regular season. And it couldn’t come soon enough. Sure Adrian Peterson put up 134 yards and two scores in his team debut Week 6 against Tampa Bay. But it’s been a complete and utter dumpster fire in every other game.
Consider this: Arizona is averaging 3.0 yards per rush and 63.4 rushing yards per game. If we take away that one performance from Peterson, this goes down to 2.6 yards per rush and under 52 yards per game. Yeah, the Cardinals’ offensive line is still a mess. That hasn’t changed from earlier in the article.
Gronk Smash
Dating back to an injury-plagued 2016 campaign, Rob Gronkowski has caught 54 passes for 992 yards and seven scores over the past 14 games. That’s an average of 18.4 yards per catch from the tight end position. Some perspective here. Antonio Brown is averaging 14.7 yards per catch this season.
In seven games during the 2017 campaign, Tom Brady also boasts an absurd 121.9 passer rating when targeting Gronkowski. There’s a reason why many consider Gronk one of the most gifted receiving tight ends in NFL history. These stats prove this to a T.
It’s a “sackfest” in Los Angeles
Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram are putting quarterbacks on their backside at a record clip thus far this season. The two have combined for 16 sacks in seven games. That’s more than 20 teams have racked up in total through Week 7.
Ingram is now on pace for nearly 20 sacks while Bosa’s pace has him north of 17 for the season. This would represent the most sacks for a defensive tandem in the history of the NFL. It also has the Chargers are 3-4 on the season after the team lost its first four games.
Sophomore quarterback swoon
No one in their right mind thought Carson Wentz and Jared Goff would be among he two most productive quarterbacks leading two of the best teams in the NFL. But here we are, seven weeks into the season, and both second-year signal callers have their teams in first place.
Following Monday’s four-touchdown performance against Washington, Wentz has now thrown 17 touchdowns compared to four picks on the season. He’s also on pace for north of 4,200 passing yards. Did we mention that Philadelphia sits in first place in the NFC East with a 6-1 mark?
In Los Angeles, Goff has his Rams at 5-2. Sure he hasn’t put up the awe-inspiring numbers of Wentz, but it’s been awesome nonetheless. Goff is currently on pace for nearly 4,000 passing yards with just nine interceptions in 507 pass attempts. He threw seven picks in 207 attempts as a rookie last season.
Let us not forget Cowboys second-year quarterback Dak Prescott, who continues to shine. He’s compiled 17 total touchdowns compared to four picks in six starts this season. All said, Prescott now has 46 total scores and eight picks in 22 career starts. Whoever came up with this sophomore slump thing might need to rethink that narrative.