Courtesy of Matt Knobbe and the Tecmo Super Bowl Repository, here's your Tecmo Super Bowl NFC Game of the Week for the Wild Card Round, featuring the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles. The highlights:

(How did we do this? Matt and the other dedicated folks at the Knobbe.org message board have spent a lot of time over the years updating this classic Nintendo football game, including the introduction of a 32-team ROM a few seasons ago. Sounds complicated, but don't worry, it's easy for you to enjoy the fruits of their labor: just get yourself an NES emulator, download the 2009 version of Tecmo here, and play to your heart's content. And be sure to check back at Matt's site for roster updates and more Tecmo-related goodness all season long.)

Previous HOF 2010 Bios: John Randle; Roger Craig; Russ Grimm; Steve Tasker; Aeneas Williams; Art Modell; Terrell Davis; Dermontti Dawson; Tim Brown/Cris Carter/Andre Reed; Chris Doleman, Kevin Greene and Charles Haley; Cortez Kennedy; Don Coryell; Ray Guy

In my All-Decade team of the 1970s article, I noted how several wide receivers were very good during that decade but no one receiver truly stood out. Harold Jackson, Cliff Branch, Gene A. Washington, Fred Biletnikoff, Harold Carmichael, Drew Pearson, Paul Warfield, Charley Taylor and Lynn Swann all could make arguments that they were the best receiver of the decade. The Hall has largely ignored the receivers of the '70s, with only Swann (the less said, the better) and players who also starred in the '60s -- Biletnikoff, Taylor, and Warfield -- getting in. Steve Largent, John Stallworth and Art Monk started their careers in the '70s but were really stars of the '80s. The one HOFer whose career should have lined up perfectly in the decade of the '70s was Charlie Joiner, but he wasn't one of the best receivers of the decade (his top two yardage seasons were in the '80s) and is the most glaring error by the HOF committee at the wide receiver position.

It's difficult to see why Branch should be inducted but not Carmichael or Jackson or Washington or Pearson. Why has Branch made it this far when Carmichael and Jackson have more yards and touchdowns? Why Branch when Pearson and Washington have similar production and All-Pro honors? It's difficult to see why Branch deserves the honor of being called a HOFer while his peers who produced just as much and were just as well regarded do not. If they all deserve the honor, it's likely that none of them do, because there's no way the Hall is about to induct five receivers (or more) from the '70s. I'm also surprised Branch got this far this season, because starting in the HOF Class of 2011, Branch will be eligible as a Senior's nominee. Branch has never so much as been a finalist for induction, so perhaps there is some push to get him chosen this year. And while Branch wouldn't be a poor selection, I don't see anything particularly special about his case.
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Previous HOF 2010 Bios: John Randle; Roger Craig; Russ Grimm; Steve Tasker; Aeneas Williams; Art Modell; Terrell Davis; Dermontti Dawson; Tim Brown/Cris Carter/Andre Reed; Chris Doleman, Kevin Greene and Charles Haley; Cortez Kennedy; Don Coryell

No semifinalist this side of Art Modell stirs as much passion and disagreement as Ray Guy. Modell moved the Browns from Cleveland; all Ray Guy did in comparison was punt a football for fourteen seasons. Ray Guy's candidacy has two layers to it. The first is whether a punter--any punter--should be in the Hall of Fame. There are those, not that I know any personally, who don't think that punters are real football players and thus should not be in the Hall. I know it's a matter of semantics, but the game is called "football." By definition, punters are football players. I happen to fall in the camp that considers the Hall of Fame should be able to accurately portray the history of the game. For almost fifty years now, the punter has been a unique and specific position in the game, and I'm not sure you can accurately portray it without reference to place kickers and punters. If you disagree on this specific issue though, I don't think there is much I can do to sway you.

This is not to say that I think the Hall of Fame should be overrun with punters. Another, more logical, approach to punters not being in the Hall of Fame is that they don't generate enough value to justify inclusion. This is a similar argument to that facing a player like Steve Tasker who is most known for his special teams work. While a punter can be an important aspect of a particular game, and a good one can perhaps be more valuable than marginal or decent players at other field positions, it is true that a player who participates in perhaps 70 plays over the course of a season does not have as much impact as one who participates in 70 over the course of a game. This value issue is doubly amplified when we are looking at the Hall of Fame candidates, because we are not looking at average field position players. We are looking at players who were well above average for, in many cases, a decade, and participated in over 800 plays a season. Ray Guy, in contrast, punted the ball 1,049 times in the regular season over the course of 14 years and 207 games. Though there is a faction out there that thinks Ray Guy was one of the most valuable players in football, I'm not going to take that position.

The best response for the pro-Guy camp is that it is the Hall of Fame and not the Hall of Value. While they are sometimes parallel, that is not always true. Punting is a part of the game of football, and being the most famous punter (to the point of having the college award named after you) may lead to being more famous than being the 40th best outside linebacker, even if we could show that the linebacker who was the 40th best of all-time was more valuable for a team over the course of a career.

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Courtesy of Matt Knobbe and the Tecmo Super Bowl Repository, here's your Tecmo Super Bowl AFC Game of the Week for the Wild Card Round, featuring the Baltimore Ravens and the New England Patriots. The highlights:

(How did we do this? Matt and the other dedicated folks at the Knobbe.org message board have spent a lot of time over the years updating this classic Nintendo football game, including the introduction of a 32-team ROM a few seasons ago. Sounds complicated, but don't worry, it's easy for you to enjoy the fruits of their labor: just get yourself an NES emulator, download the 2009 version of Tecmo here, and play to your heart's content. And be sure to check back at Matt's site for roster updates and more Tecmo-related goodness all season long.)

Previous HOF 2010 Bios: John Randle; Roger Craig; Russ Grimm; Steve Tasker; Aeneas Williams; Art Modell; Terrell Davis; Dermontti Dawson; Tim Brown/Cris Carter/Andre Reed; Chris Doleman, Kevin Greene and Charles Haley; Cortez Kennedy

The 1966 San Diego State Aztecs went 11-0. It's safe to say they were coached pretty well. Joe Gibbs served as the team's offensive line coach. John Madden was the defensive coordinator. Those two men answered to Don Coryell, who won 84% of his games during his first stint coaching football in the city of San Diego. By that point, being associated with future Hall of Fame coaches was old hat for Coryell. Before coming to SDSU, Coryell was the head coach at tiny Whittier College from 1957 to 1959. Whitter needed a new coach after George Allen left the college but stayed in the city when he joined the Los Angeles Rams staff.

Coryell's innovative coaching coupled with his success with the Aztecs caught the eye of the NFL; he was hired as head coach of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1973 following his time with San Diego State. The Cardinals had gone 4-9-1 in three of the previous four seasons, and would repeat that record during Coryell's ifrst year. Whether it was good fortune or good coaching, Coryell inherited three young linemen who would become stars in the mid-'70s: Dan Dierdorf, Conrad Dobler and Tom Banks. Jim Hart, Jim Otis and Mel Gray -- the main passer, rusher and receiver during the Coryell years in St. Louis -- were all in St. Louis when Coryell arrived, as well. But Coryell would make one big addition during his first season in St. Louis. In the third round of the '73 draft, he selected Long Beach State star and JKL's hero, Terry Metcalf.

In '71 and '72, the Cardinals had offensive SRS ratings of -4.0 and -4.5, respectively. The Cardinals ranked 23rd in points and 25th in yards in a 26-team NFL in 1972. Over the next five seasons, St. Louis would rank in the top half of the league in points scored and yards gained every season, and average an OSRS rating of +2.8. From 1974 to 1976, St. Louis won double digit games each season despite sharing the division with two of the league's powerhouses in Dallas and Washington. From '74 to '77, the Cards would sent 28 players to the Pro Bowl, with a minimum of five players each year. The Cardinals haven't had five players make the Pro Bowl in a single season since.
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Previous HOF 2010 Bios: John Randle; Roger Craig; Russ Grimm; Steve Tasker; Aeneas Williams; Art Modell; Terrell Davis; Dermontti Dawson; Tim Brown/Cris Carter/Andre Reed; Chris Doleman, Kevin Greene and Charles Haley

Outside of Seattle, the Seahawks are a blip on the radar of most NFL fans. The Seahawks are one of the youngest franchises in the league, one of the most geographically remote, one of the least successful, and have been one of the most devoid of star power. They've had only five superstars since Seattle entered the league in 1976. Steve Largent is the only Seahawk in the Hall of Fame and was one of the greatest wide receivers in league history. Safety Kenny Easley had his Hall of Fame-like career derailed due to injuries and kidney disease. Walter Jones and Shaun Alexander - both of whom may be Canton bound - helped form one of the most potent offenses in the NFL in the middle of this decade, and earned Seattle an NFC Championship. Bridging the gap between Largent and Easley of the '80s and Jones and Alexander of the '00s, was Cortez Kennedy.

If you weren't paying attention, it would have been easy to forget about the Seahawks while Kennedy was there, with the Seattle sports scene dominated by the likes of Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Randy Johnson, Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton. The most memorable football moments of the '90s from the Pacific Northwest are the split National Championship the Huskies won in 1991, Drew Bledsoe becoming the first pick in the 1994 draft, and Ryan Leaf taking Wazzou to its first Rose Bowl in 57 years.

Despite playing in Seattle for eleven seasons, Kennedy's teams played in just one playoff game during his tenure. But to forget the easily-forgettable '90s Seahawks would be to throw the 305-lb baby out with the bathwater. After starring at "The U" during its prominence -- Kennedy's Hurricanes went 45-3 during his time there -- Kennedy was the #3 pick in the 1990 NFL draft. He lived up to expectations quickly: his 1992 season is easily one of the most uniquely incredible seasons any defensive player has ever had.
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We'll talk about these three men together because they were contemporaries in the late 80's and early 90's, and regardless of their nominal position--outside linebacker in a 3-4, defensive end in a 4-3, they filled the same role throughout their careers: pass rush specialist. As I noted last year when talking about Derrick Thomas for the Hall of Fame, there were only six outside linebackers (now seven) who began their careers since 1950 who are in the Hall of Fame. More defensive linemen are in, but these three players are part of the generation that came of age right after the sack became an official statistic and began to define and quantify pass rushers.

In the last decade, we have seen two dominant all-around defensive ends who racked up high sack totals, Reggie White and Bruce Smith, go into the Hall. In the last two years, Derrick Thomas, Fred Dean and Andre Tippett have also been selected. These three players were not slam dunks, and they certainly don't give us enough precedent to know how the selectors are going to handle the post-1982 generation of pass rushers.

How will they view players who were known at times in their career as one-dimensional and focused on their sack totals? What will matter more, high peak, or longevity of getting consistent sack totals? How much will rings and post-season success outweigh raw sack totals?

Doleman, Greene and Haley's chances depend on the answers to those questions. All three were, at various times, game changers for the opponent to plan around, and team changers because they caused a few too many headaches in their own locker room or groused over their contracts. Like wide receivers who needed the spotlight, these three represent a new breed of pass rusher that came with the official tallying of taking the quarterback to the ground, and their tradition is carried forward by the various dances of the sack specialists today.

Here is a statistical summary of these three players:

We'll start with Charles Haley. If rings are the things, then we all know that Haley accumulated the most, and between the 1988 and 1995 seasons, he was on a Super Bowl champion team five times. Still, when we look at sack totals and tackle totals, Haley comes up well short of Doleman and Greene. Was this a case of Haley's contribution not being fully captured by his sack totals, and injuries robbing him of tacking on sack totals late in a career, or was he just in the right place at the right time?

Haley played outside linebacker in a 3-4 system with the San Fransisco 49ers. Through age 26, Charles Haley was a dominant pass rusher. His 56.5 sacks by that age ranks tied for fourth all-time for players since the sack became an official stat. In 1991, he had his first single digit sack season in four seasons with San Fransisco, and he also wore out his welcome with his surly behavior in the locker room. He was traded to the up and coming Dallas Cowboys before the 1992 season, and moved to defensive end in the 4-3 system that Dallas operated. While he gained notoriety as a ring maker in his first two seasons in Dallas, as the Cowboys knocked off his old teammates in two straight NFC title games, his sack totals continued to plummet. He ranked outside the top 12 on the team in tackles both years, and only third on Dallas both seasons in sacks, behind the other less renowned defensive end, Tony Tolbert, and Jim Jeffcoat, by then a veteran pass rush specialist. Haley was slowed in the second season in Dallas by a back injury, and he bounced back in 1994 and 1995 to record double digit sacks in both seasons. That was basically it for Haley, as an injury felled him in 1996, and he would start only 5 games and record only 4 sacks after 1995. Though he was the youngest of the three, he didn't last as long. In a survey conducted before the '95 season about future Hall of Famers, only a small minority of those writers polled had Haley as a Hall of Famer. As he didn't add much to his resume after that season, I'm not sure if that one additional season was enough to change minds, or if the passage of time has softened people's views of his personality. He was on pace for a Hall of Fame career, but the three consecutive seasons with low sack totals at ages 27-29 (ironically, two of which resulted in Super Bowl victories and cemented his legend as a championship player) probably leave him just lacking. If he had been more dominant through age 30, then I think the voters would forgive his quick demise and focus on the rings. As it is, I'm not sure he did quite enough to make the rings make up the difference.

Whereas Haley was an early peaker, Kevin Greene withstood age and continued to find employment in different cities as a pass rush specialist well into his thirties. With his noticeable flowing blonde locks and over the top personality that included friendships with Ric Flair and a sideline scuffle with a position coach, Greene was a true character of the game. He was often enamored with his own sack totals and knew what he needed to reach milestones. If this were baseball, his career sack totals and longevity would be a milestone that would get him in the Hall. But it's not, so he is not guaranteed a place in Canton based on numbers alone.

Still, where Charles Haley fell off when changing teams, Greene thrived in numerous roles and situations. He didn't record his first double digit sack season until age 26, but would get at least 9 sacks in every season he played after turning 30, for four different organizations. Haley may be well-known for his five rings, but Greene's teams played in five conference championship games. Considering that he didn't exactly play with 2010 HOF Semifinalists Jerry Rice (okay, yes he did play with Rice for one season in 1997) and Emmitt Smith on the other side of the ball, I don't think post-season accomplishments are a negative for Greene.

In 1992, Greene played one season as an OLB in a 4-3 scheme, and Dr. Z named him as an all-pro OLB, noting that "[Greene] had more coverage responsibility than ever before, and he did just fine. He was a consistent pass rusher." Dr. Z's selection, hardly a no brainer at the time, proved prescient, as Greene would be THE consistent pass rush specialist of the next five years. Later, Dr. Z would name Greene as one of the top ten pass rushers of all-time, on a list that included players from before 1982.

Greene isn't a lock, and his persona may turn some off, but I don't much care if he was focused on getting sacks and concerned about his numbers and showboating. Sacks are important and help teams win, and for a stretch, Greene did a lot of helping teams win even if he was focused on marketing himself as well.

The last player of this group, like Greene and Haley, also eventually wore out his welcome and changed teams despite his sack proclivity. If Haley was early success and Greene was consistent longevity, then Doleman has the highest peak going for him. In the late 1980's, he teamed with Keith Millard to form the best inside/outside combination at defensive line. In the 1987 playoffs, the duo helped destroy the Saints, and then manhandled the feared 49ers to the point that Joe Montana was benched halfway through in favor of some guy named Steve Young. Two years later, Doleman reached 21 sacks in the regular season. He recorded over 90 tackles in three straight seasons from 1989 to 1991, showing that he wasn't just all about sacks and nothing else. From 1987 to 1993, he played in six pro bowls and was on at least one publication's all-pro or all-conference team in six of those seven seasons. After 1993, though, the Vikings traded their star defensive end to the Atlanta Falcons. His stay in Atlanta was somewhat disappointing initially, and it remains about the only tarnish on his otherwise illustrious career. He was selected to a pro bowl for the seventh time in 1995 as the Falcons reached the playoffs as a wildcard. After that, he was pretty much a pass rush specialist, finishing his career with three seasons in San Fransisco (including with Greene in 1997) and returned to Minnesota for his final year. All told, Doleman's teams made the playoffs ten times during his career, but he never reached the Super Bowl and only played in a conference championship game twice.

These three players are likely going to be viewed together during this selection process, and with such a strong class of candidates headlined by two slam dunks, it's doubtful that more than one would get consideration in 2010. Three pass rushers have gone in over the last two years, so there may not be the urgency to induct one of these guys right away. Doleman has the career comparables that suggest he will end up in Canton. Greene has the numbers. Haley has the rings. I think Haley is out, and Doleman and Greene are decent candidates, but not mortal locks, based on who else is in.

Chances that one of them is selected in 2010: Collectively, average to below average, with Doleman having the best chance.

Chances that Chris Doleman eventually gets selected: Very Good
Chances that Kevin Greene eventually gets selected: Average to Good
Chances that Charles Haley eventually gets selected: Below Average

As part of his reaction to the bizarre situation unfolding in Lubbock, Dr. Saturday noted:

Some day, when a major team does go an entire game without handing the ball off, there's a good chance it will come from the Big 12, which endured two or three rounds from Leach's attack and began converting Option Central into the most pass-happy conference in the nation as quickly as it could.

That made me wonder how close to going a full game without a rush attempt has an NFL team ever come? Here's a close-to-complete (but not necessarily exhaustive) list of all games where a team had fewer than ten carries:

Previous HOF 2010 Bios: John Randle; Roger Craig; Russ Grimm; Steve Tasker; Aeneas Williams; Art Modell; Terrell Davis; Dermontti Dawson.

Over the past few decades, no position has evolved more than that of the wide receiver. It wasn't until 1986 that the NFL had its first ever 750-catch receiver (Charlie Joiner). Today, 28 players have hit that benchmark, with over half of them having begun their careers in the '90s or '00s. Wes Welker is now the fifth player with 330 receptions over a three-year span (joining Marvin Harrison, Jerry Rice, Cris Carter and Herman Moore), and he's not even the best receiver on his own team. The average first-team All-Pro WR, as selected by the Associated Press, averaged 53 receptions, 961 yards and 9.5 touchdowns in the '70s; this decade, those averages are up to 97 receptions, 1439 yards and 12.5 scores. Wide receiver records are constantly being broken, and numbers that looked terrific in the '70s looked mediocre in the '90s and are underwhelming today.

With that backdrop, it makes sense to analyze Tim Brown, Cris Carter and Andre Reed together. Each player's HOF case largely depends on how he compared to his peers during his playing days and how he now stacks up against others already in Canton. Brown's and Carter's career perfectly overlapped; both were drafted in the late '80s, were elite for most of the '90s, and were still productive at the beginning of this decade. Reed was a couple of years older, but was still a contemporary of Brown and Carter, and peaked during roughly the same time. All three made the Pro Bowl in 1993 and 1994. All had long careers and then chose to play one final season in a new uniform over retiring. Reed played for 15 seasons with the Bills and then one with the Redskins; Carter played 12 years with the Eagles and Vikings, before finishing up with the Dolphins; Brown played for Al Davis Raiders for 16 seasons before reuniting with Jon Gruden in Tampa Bay. Ultimately, at least one but not all of them will make the Hall of Fame. So who gets inducted?
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Every Tuesday for the remainder of the season, P-F-R will be teaming up with the New York Times' Fifth Down Blog. Last week I looked at the most unlikely playoff participants in N.F.L. history; this week, the reverse. Which teams have "choked" the most down the stretch over the past twenty years? The Giants started the season 5-0, which would put them in the running for the biggest second-half flops in recent history. Do you know which team started 9-2 in the '90s and still missed the playoffs?

Previous HOF 2010 Bios: John Randle; Roger Craig; Russ Grimm; Steve Tasker; Aeneas Williams; Art Modell; Terrell Davis.

Teams almost never replace one Hall of Famer with another. The 49ers replacing Joe Montana with Steve Young, the Bears filling Bill George's absence with Dick Butkus and the Browns handing the ball off from Jim Brown to Leroy Kelly are exceptions to the rule. Things aren't supposed to be that easy for a team. But in Pittsburgh, fans didn't have to worry about their center for a quarter-century. From 1976 to 1988, Hall of Famer Mike Webster manned the middle for the Steelers offense. Pittsburgh drafted Dermontti Dawson in the second round of the 1988 draft, and he played next to Webster for one season. After Webster left for Kansas City, Dawson moved to the middle, and would start for the Steelers from 1989 to 2000. Those in Pittsburgh still debate who was the better center. But things didn't end there for Pittsburgh, as Jeff Hartings would replace Dawson similarly to the way Jeff Garcia followed Young. From '01 to '06, Hartings continued the Steelers tradition of excellence at the position: he was named to two Pro Bowls and two Associated Press All-Pro teams. But today, we're going to focus on Dawson, and his fantastic accomplishments during his twelve seasons in Pittsburgh.
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After Sunday's loss to Atlanta, Braylon Edwards is, um, somewhat perturbed with the state of New York's offense:

"We're embarrassing on offense. Forget the stats and 'This is where we are rushing the football.' We're not making plays when it counts, and we are continuously in a situation that is embarrassing, irritating, frustrating coming in on Monday, knowing that we could have won yesterday then we would be ahead and almost certain, if we won the rest of our games, to get in [the playoffs]. Now here we are again, if we win out, we have to have this scenario happen [to make it]. It's irritating."

It's pretty clear that the Jets rise and fall on the basis of Mark Sanchez's play, and like any rookie QB, he's had his ups and downs this season. First, the ups:

When Sanchez has a solid game (QB rating > 80), NY is 5-2, and he's had more solid games than most signal-callers in the league this year. I would imagine Braylon isn't really complaining when Sanchez performs at that level, but Sanchez has also had more than his share of clunkers this year as well:

The Jets are 0-5 when Sanchez has one of his bad games, and as you can see, there really isn't a lot of room in between good and bad for the rookie -- in all but one game this year, he's had a rating of either greater than 80 or less than 60. No other QB has alternated solid and bad efforts as much as Sanchez, which means Braylon should only really be embarrassed and irritated half of the time. All things considered, I guess that's better than the team he started the year on, which, prior to their rush-happy 41-point explosion vs. KC, had a frustrating and embarrassing offense all of the time.

I could have handled the conclusions one of two ways. The first would have been to present all my conclusions and then have a chart of all the AFL and NFL teams from the decade with their ratings. The second way is to present the results first, and then follow up with how I got there. I opted for the second way, as I didn't want the results and actual team ratings to be a footnote at the end of the series. These ratings, after all, were the reason I started on this path in the first place. I wanted to see how an NFL team compared in 1964 to an AFL team, how the champions of each league compared, and so forth.

I don't claim that these numbers are completely accurate or infallible. There is simply year to year variation across leagues and teams that we can't measure accurately. How do the 2007 Colts compare to the 2009 Colts? We don't know, because they didn't play in the exact same situation, and that's with a lot more direct information to draw upon than what we have when comparing the AFL and NFL. We do have numbers upon which we can make reasonable estimates though. Similarly, these numbers represent my best available guess of how teams compared during the decade of the 1960's. If you've been following along and read the entire series up until now, you probably have some idea how I got there, but I'll explain in the final post how I settled on the best guesses that I did.
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Previous HOF 2010 Bios: John Randle; Roger Craig; Russ Grimm; Steve Tasker; Aeneas Williams; Art Modell.

Reminder: the deadline to enter the P-F-R College Bowl Pool contest is tomorrow.

This past summer I set out to determine which running backs were the most statistically dominant in NFL history. Terrell Davis ranked as the 13th most dominant RB in regular season history, and when combined his superior post-season stats, the 8th most dominant RB overall. The other nine RBs in the top ten all are in the Hall of Fame or will be five years after they retire. Davis is a semifinalist for the fourth straight season since first becoming eligible, but he has never advanced past this stage. Davis is perhaps the most interesting player to analyze in this year's class. There are no QBs eligible for induction, and quarterbacks are the only players for whom more individual statistics are recorded than running backs. There's only one other eligible RB and he's a slam dunk. Davis has the rings and the hardware, typically all you need at the glamour positions to make the Hall. Marcus Allen and Emmitt Smith are the only other running backs with both an MVP from the Associated Press and a Super Bowl MVP. Yet, most NFL fans don't think Davis should be inducted. Why?

The common answer is that Davis' career was too short. Four great seasons does not a Hall of Famer make, or something like that. But consider the heights Davis reached: I ranked his 1998 season as the single greatest season any running back has ever had; he broke his own single-season record for most rushing yards gained in a regular and postseason combined. He already had the record because his 1997 season also ranks among the best five ever by a RB; he's the only player to ever rush for 2300 yards (including playoffs) in a season, and he's done it twice. Davis didn't have four great seasons and nothing else; he had two of the greatest seasons in NFL history, another excellent season, a very good year and another solid season. It's not the greatest Hall of Fame profile I've ever seen, but it seems as though Davis is held to a higher standard than other running backs.
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The Cleveland Browns earned a particularly unlikely 41-34 victory over the Chiefs today. Most of the day, the Browns didn't show up. Brady Quinn was 10/17 for 66 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions while the defense was shredded by both the run and the pass. In the first half, Kansas City scored 24 points and largely shut down the Cleveland offense. But thanks to two Joshua Cribbs kickoff return touchdowns, the Browns were still in the game. While Cribbs cooled off in the second half, that's when running back Jerome Harrison got hot. After rushing for 73 yards in the first half, Harrison had 213 rushing yards and three touchdowns in the second half, leading the Browns to victory. Harrison's 286 rushing yards were the third most in NFL history.

Cribbs set or tied several records today. He scored his 7th and 8th career kickoff return touchdowns, breaking a six-way tie for the most in NFL history. He tied the career record, three, of most kickoff return touchdowns of 100 yards or more. He became the 9th player (and second this season) to score two KO TDs in the same game, an NFL record. With 316 all-purpose yards, Cribbs now has 2,336 all-purpose yards on the season. All-purpose yards are the sum of a player's rushing, receiving, punt return and kick return yards. He'll need 355 all-purpose yards in his last two games to set the single-season record, set by Derrick Mason in 2000.

But as teammates, Cribbs and Harrison obliterated another record today. They combined for an incredible 614 all-purpose yards today. Since 1960, only 19 teammates ever had as many as 450 combined all-purpose yards in a single game, and no pair had topped 550 before today. Here are the top 20 single-season dynamic duos of the past 50 seasons. Playoff games are marked with an asterisk.
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This is a fun premise, courtesy of ArmchairGM's "JTStally": If you went to high school with the 2009 NFL, what kind of kid would each team be?

Note: Be sure to enter the P-F-R's College Bowl Pool; the deadline to submit your picks is Tuesday.

I was reading The Count over at the Wall Street Journal, and this article caught my eye. Carl Bialik noted that Indianapolis has won eight of its 14 games by eight points or fewer. This made wonder which team set the record for most wins by eight or fewer points? What records did they have and how did they fare in the post-season?

The table below shows the number of wins of eight or fewer points, the overall wins, losses and ties, and how many wins and losses in the playoffs each team had. While the Colts are cutting it close, three teams won all of their games by such a small margin.

NOTE: up-to-date standings can be found right here.

All new rules this year, so listen close.

For every game, you pick a team and you name your own point spread. The only catch is that the point spread you name must be worse than the official point spread (listed below). For example, Alabama is a 4.5-point favorite over Texas. If you take Alabama, you have to lay more than 4.5 points. If you take Texas, you have to take less than 4.5. If your team wins against the spread you named, you are credited with the difference between the official spread and the spread you named. For example, if you take Alabama -5.5 (and they cover), you get 1 point. If you take Alabama -10.5 (and they cover that), you get 6 points. If you take Texas +3.5 and they cover, you get 1 point. If you take Texas -3 and they cover that, you get 7.5 points. There is no limit, so you can take Texas -30 if you want, for a potential 34.5 points.

For BCS games, your score (as computed above) is multiplied by 3. For non-BCS games that kick off on January 1 or later, your score is multiplied by 2. Total points wins.

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Week 13 ratings
Week 12 ratings
Week 11 ratings

I don't have as much time as usual, so this will mostly be a data dump post. I've been using a rudimentary system for the past few weeks to predict the outcomes of NFL games, and I've been measuring the system against the spread used by Vegas. Through three weeks, in games my program says are strongly undervalued, the picks have gone 14-5 (or 15-5) against the spread. In week 12, I picked the Saints to cover against the Pats (and they did), but I did not mention them in my summary at the end. A cynic would say that had the Saints not covered, I would have claimed I never picked them, so therefore they shouldn't count in the win column. Regardless of how you veiw that game, the system has been very successful so far -- slightly more successful than it was over the 20-year period in which the method was originally tested. A sample size of 20 games is too small to draw any significant conclusions, but combined with the results from 1988 to 2007, I feel pretty confident that certain types of teams are under (or over) valued.

On to this week's ratings:
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Today, ESPN.com put together a few articles about the Saints and Colts' quest (or non-quest, if they sit their starters) for perfection. In Adam Schefter's mailbag, he was posed this question:

"Q: With just three games left, do you think both the Saints and the Colts will go undefeated the rest of the way and play each other in the Super Bowl? -- Logan (Reno, Nev.)"

Schefter replied:

"A: Logan, I think there is a better chance that each team will go unbeaten in the regular season than there is that these two teams will play in the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl matchup many expect on Dec. 16 is seldom the one that materializes in late January or early February. Don't know which team it'll be, don't know when it'll be, but one of these teams will stub its toe in the postseason. If memory serves me correctly, the last time two No. 1 seeds met in the Super Bowl was in 1993, when the Cowboys beat the Bills. Rarely happens."

My stat-sense was tingling, so I decided to set up a Monte Carlo simulation to see if what Schefter claimed, that Indy and New Orleans both going 16-0 was more likely than them eventually meeting up in the Super Bowl, was true. Using each team's current Pythagorean W% (and a 58.7% home-field advantage, the league-wide rate in 2009) to predict game-by-game outcomes, I simulated the rest of the regular-season and the playoffs 10,000 times, using authentic seedings, matchups, etc. (except that all ties in the standings were broken by Pyth%). Here's what I found:

So it turns out that Schefter was, in fact, correct -- provided both teams try their hardest to win all of their remaining games, there's a 26.6% chance both the Saints and Colts finish the regular season 16-0, compared to just a 22.1% chance that the two teams meet up in February. And, of course, there's always a 5.8% chance that both teams go into the big game with no losses, in which case there's a 100% probability that Mercury Morris' head would explode.