(Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports)
Finally. After a first month of the season where the drama in hotel ballroom press conferences and legal jousting over player conduct often overshadowed a somewhat lackluster opening month of action on the field, the first Sunday of October saw an incredibly close slate of games, with ten of the 12 afternoon contests finishing with a margin of ten points or less.
We take a closer look at that stat with this first item, as well as four other things we thought about while spending seven hours in front of the Red Zone Channel on Sunday afternoon.
1) Seven of the nine early games had a potential game-winning drive in the works in the final two minutes.
(Don McPeak-USA TODAY Sports)
For the first time all season, none of the 1 p.m. ET games resulted in a blowout. In the first four weeks, the average margin of defeat in the early Sunday matchups were as follows.
Week 1: 10.1 points
Week 2: 16.6 points
Week 3: 12.1 points
Week 4: 16.1 points
In Week 5’s early games, with the 30-20 Giants’ win over the Falcons presenting the largest final deficit, the average margin ended up being just 5.6 points.
Seven of those games were all still facing a potential game-winning drive with under two minutes to play. Here’s how they all went down.
Indianapolis Colts 20, Baltimore Ravens 13
The Ravens got the ball down one touchdown with 1:49 left in the game, moving the ball to their own 43-yard-line before turning the ball over on downs with 27 seconds to play.
Buffalo Bills 17, Detroit Lions 14
Tied at 14, the Lions miss a potential game-winning field goal with 21 seconds left. Sammy Watkins makes a ridiculous 20-yard catch on the next drive and Bills kicker drills a 58-yard field goal win the game with four seconds left.
Dallas Cowboys 20, Houston Texans 17 (OT)
The Texans tie the game at 17 with 41 seconds left. After Dallas kicker Dan Bailey misses a potential game-winning 53-yard field goal, he doesn’t miss on Dallas’ first drive of overtime when he hits a 49-yarder after Dez Bryant’s insane catch put him back in range.
New Orleans Saints 37, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31 (OT)
This wild game went to halftime with the Saints up 13-10, then saw the Saints go down 11 points early in the fourth quarter before they came back with a touchdown, safety and field goal to send the game to overtime.
Philadelphia Eagles 34, St. Louis Rams 28
After going up 34-7 with just two minutes left in the third quarter, the Eagles gave up three touchdowns to put the Rams in position of orchestrating a winning final drive with just 1:47 left in the game. The defense made a stand in a contest that shouldn’t have even gotten close.
Cleveland Browns 29, Tennessee Titans 28
Down 28-10 at halftime, the Browns not only blanked the Titans in the second half but orchestrated a 19-point comeback culminating in a 114 second drive that resulted in a six-yard touchdown pass from Brian Hoyer to Travis Benjamin with just 1:09 left in the game.
Carolina Panthers 31, Chicago Bears 24
The Panthers tied the game on a Graham Gano field goal with 4:29 left and then took advantage of two late Bears fumbles. One set up a six play touchdown drive that gave Carolina the lead with 2:18 to play. The other, with 1:06 remaining, allowed the Panthers to run out the clock.
2) If the Bengals lose to the Patriots Sunday night, there will be no 4-0 teams for just the third time since 1970.
(AP Photo/Al Behrman, File)
The only undefeated teams remaining in the NFL following Week 4 were two who had byes last week, the Arizona Cardinals and Cincinnati Bengals. The Cardinals dropped to 3-1 after their 41-20 loss to the Denver Broncos Sunday afternoon, leaving the Bengals as the only team without a defeat.
If the Patriots do manage to upset them Sunday night, it will be just the third time since 1970 that no teams started off 4-0. That happened in 1970 and not again until 2010.
If the Bengals should go to 4-0, they might go on an even longer run if recent history is any indication. Other than that 2010 season, there has been at least one team every year since 2003 to start the season 7-0 or better.
3) Can Peyton Manning finish with 600 career touchdowns?
(Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports)
Manning became the second quarterback in NFL history to throw for 500 career touchdowns when he hit Julius Thomas with a 7-yard-pass in the first quarter of the Denver Broncos’ 41-20 win over the Arizona Cardinals Sunday. He ended up tossing three more by the end of the game, bringing his total to 503, just five shy of Brett Favre’s NFL record 508.
There’s now hardly a doubt that he’ll take over the top spot in the record book, just whether it’ll happen by end of the month. The real question when it comes to Manning’s career touchdown total at this point has to be whether he can get himself to a number that would have once seemed unfathomable.
600.
With 12 touchdowns in four games this season, Manning is on pace to throw 48 this season, a median number between the 37 he had in his first season with the Broncos in 2012 and career high 55 he tossed last season.
Assuming that Manning stays healthy this year and puts up another 36 give or take this season, that would give him a total around 539 heading into the 2015 season.
Manning, who is signed through the 2016 season, will be 39 when next September comes around. As long as Manning doesn’t have any significant injuries or doesn’t face a sudden dropoff, something that keeping his current impressive supporting cast will guard against, it’s not hard to see him averaging 31 touchdowns per season over the next two years.
In 1995, a 39-year-old Warren Moon threw 33 touchdowns for the Vikings, but only started eight games the following season due to injury before returning as a 41-year-old to throw 25 touchdowns as the starter in Seattle in 1997.
Then again, 38 was also the age that both Dan Marino and Joe Montana concluded their NFL careers at, although both players had seen their production gradually sliding for several years earlier.
Manning hasn’t had that issue, putting up two of his best two career seasons since his arrival in Denver. Even if his production starts to slip a little as he approaches 40, it’ll be hard to see him not reaching the 600 mark as long as he’s on the field.
4) DeMarco Murray’s 2014 season is off to a historic start
(Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports)
With his 136-yard rushing performance against the Cowboys on Sunday, Murray became the first running back since O.J. Simpson in 1975 to run for over 100 yards in each of the season’s first five games.
The notorious Hall of Famer also started the 1973 season off with five straight 100-yard rushing games, but failed to continue the streak in Week 6 during both campaigns. If Murray can cross the century mark yet again in Week 6 against the Seattle Seahawks – certainly no easy task – he’ll become only the second player in NFL history to do so in the first six games of the season. Only legendary Cleveland Browns back Jim Brown has done it before, completing the feat in 1958.
Murray, who entered Week 5 with 156 more rushing yards than his closest competitor, now has 670 on the season, putting him on pace to finish with an NFL single-season record 2144 rushing yards.
5) There may be a Nashville Lifestyles‘ “Most Beautiful People” issue jinx
(Nashville Lifestyles/Cameron Powell)
Charlie Whitehurst’s biggest news this week should have been his addition to the 2014 edition of Nashville Lifestyles magazine’s 25 Most Beautiful People list. Instead, the Titans backup quarterback found himself back behind center in Week 5 versus the Cleveland Browns after starter Jake Locker left the game in the second quarter with a hand injury.
Whitehurst came in and threw two quick first-half touchdowns upon entering the game, but the Titans’ offense was listless in the second half, scoring zero points as the Browns scored 19 points to erase a 28-10 halftime deficit and beat Tennessee 29-28.
While the Titans’ demise can be more attributed to defensive lapses than Whitehurst’s play, we’re going to eye the Nashville Lifestyles list with the same wariness as other legendary sports jinxes like the Sports Illustrated and Madden video game covers.
If cover subject Taylor Swift’s new pop album 1989 tanks upon its release later this month, we’ll know there were other nefarious forces at play than just Whitehurst and the offense’s ability to move the ball past Cleveland’s 47 at any point during the second half.
