Football notes

The regular season that the Green Bay Packers have just completed looks on the standings page mighty impressive. Like even the fabled Dallas Cowboys franchise, the Packers never won more than 13 games in the regular season, and this year they were one touchdown more or less from completing a perfect season. Wander away from the standings onto the statistics page, the Packers’ 15-1 record is even more impressive in its seeming improbability. Despite the fact that the Packers set a team record in total offense—6482 yards—they also set a new team record for most yards allowed on defense: 6585 yards, “beating out” the New England Patriots by 8 yards for the dubious “honor” of being last in the NFL (the Baltimore Colts still have ownership of the most yards allowed, 6,793 in 1981). While the Packers finished third in net passing yards (4924), they set another NFL record by allowing 4796 yards passing, thanks to Matthew Stafford’s 500-yard game in the season finale. Yet the Packers still managed a point differential of 201 (560-359). How did they manage to win so many games with such a porous defense? Turnovers; the Packers’ defense intercepted 31 opponent passes, compared to only 8 by their own offense. It would seem that Packers’ defense is manned by free agent ballhawkers instead of tacklers—a by-product of the no-touch rules governing pass receivers.

Other notes: The Packers 560 points were the most scored by an NFC team; Aaron Rodgers’ 122.5 quarterback rating is a new NFL record, but propelled by his “jaw-dropping” performance against Detroit, Matt Flynn’s 124.8 rating for the season raised the team rating to 122.6. The Packers are also in the NFL record book for being a party to a 1000 gross yards passing in a single game against Detroit, and 971 net passing yards. Although the sitting of Rodgers in the finale allowed Drew Brees to squeak by his 45 TD passes to set a new NFC mark (46), Flynn’s 6 TD passes allowed the Packers to tie Indianapolis’ record for the most team TD passes in a season (51). Flynn’s 518 yards added to Rodgers’ team record 4643 yards gave the Packers’ 5161 gross yards passing for the year, allowing them to join three other teams this season to pass the 5,000-yard threshold. Rodgers also set team marks for 300-yard games (8), while Flynn engraved his name in the team record books by passing Lynn Dickey’s long-standing single game passing yards mark, with 480 yards against Detroit; he was also the first Packer to throw 6 TD passes in a game (Brett Favre also threw 6 TD passes, but for the New York Jets).

I want to remark on the New Orleans Saints offensive prowess. Their 7474 total yards and 467.1 per game average are NFL records, as is their 5347 net yards passing and 334.2 yards per game. It may come as a surprise, however, that the Saints 5505 gross yards passing just barely added to the previous mark of 5492 set by the St. Louis Rams’ Kurt Warner and Trent Green in the 2000 season. But their offense was more “balanced” that it would seem at first blush, certainly more so than the Packers. The Saints 2127 yards rushing was 6th in the NFL. Truly formidable, but as the Seattle Seahawks demonstrated last year, you can still outscore them, and Mathew Stafford likes to throw the ball around as much as the stat-happy Brees, who threw for 300+ yards in all but three of his starts and 7 straight—both NFL records. Some people are now saying that because of Flynn’s performance, some MVP votes will be shed from Rodgers to Brees; but as ESPN NFC North blogger Kevin Seifert pointed out, Rodgers was more productive per pass attempt than Brees—meaning that the latter had to throw more passes to have the same effect. Throw in Flynn’s numbers, Brees’ needed 103 more pass attempts to gain 315 more yards—and had five fewer touchdown passes. This also points to the fact that the Packers overall had the most efficient offense in the league this season.