Weird NFL Facts

#1
CardsNVols

CardsNVols

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#1
Since it's the dead of summer and off season is still in full force, I figured I'd start a thread for something trivial, but interesting. Title says it all. What are some weird/random NFL facts or oddities?

I'll start with a couple:

1. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were founded in 1976. They didn't return their first kickoff for a touchdown until 2007.

2. The New York Jets have never beaten the Philadelphia Eagles.

What are some others?
 
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#3
#3
orangepridenation said:
Since it's the dead of summer and off season is still in full force, I figured I'd start a thread for something trivial, but interesting. Title says it all. What are some weird/random NFL facts or oddities?

I'll start with a couple:

1. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were founded in 1976. They didn't return their first kickoff for a touchdown until 2007.

2. The New York Jets have never beaten the Philadelphia Eagles.

What are some others?
Click to expand...

To add to this, what makes point 1 so funny (to me), is that the New Orleans Saints ran back the opening kickoff of their very first game for a touchdown. And I think the Dolphins did as well. Just blows my mind that on the other end of that spectrum a team had to wait 31 years.
 
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#4
#4
vols 30 said:
I only know a couple off the top of head.

Brett Farve 1st completion was to himself( a deflected pass)

Not really weird or odd but it's still hard to believe the Steelers have only had 3 head coaches in the last 53 years
Click to expand...

Steelers and Ravens are two of the best ran organizations by far
 
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#6
#6
The Baltimore Ravens have never had a WR selected to a Pro-Bowl.

Edit: They have had 3 return men selected to the pro-bowl who were technically listed as WRs, but none invited as actual WRs.
 
#8
#8
The Raiders, Falcons, and Cowboys do not retire numbers. The Ravens, Jaguars, and Texans all do not have retired numbers but that is more due to the franchises not being all that old; though the Panthers did retire Sam Mills' 51.
 
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#10
#10
Since Jacksonville was brought up, the weird fact I always think about with them is that they and their expansion partner (Panthers) both went to the CCG in their 2nd year of existence.

Jaguars won 4 playoff games in their 1st 5 years and have only won 3 playoff games in the last 22 seasons. In 1999, their fans probably thought they were going to be the next big franchise. Imagine telling them then that they were going to be one of the bottom 4 teams over the next few decades.
 
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#11
#11
n_huffhines said:
Since Jacksonville was brought up, the weird fact I always think about with them is that they and their expansion partner (Panthers) both went to the CCG in their 2nd year of existence.

Jaguars won 4 playoff games in their 1st 5 years and have only won 3 playoff games in the last 22 seasons. In 1999, their fans probably thought they were going to be the next big franchise. Imagine telling them then that they were going to be one of the bottom 4 teams over the next few decades.
Click to expand...
weren't they allowed to "draft" unprotected players for other teams?
 
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#12
#12
It is amazing that a league intentionally constructed so that every team finishes 8-8 (well, I guess 7-9 or 9-7 now) has a relatively large number of teams with various kinds of extremely long postseason droughts.

Detroit: has not won a playoff game since 1991
Miami: has not won a playoff game since 2000
Vegas: has not won a playoff game since 2002
Washington: has not won a playoff game since 2005
Cincinnati: prior to last year, had not won a playoff game since 1990
Cleveland: prior to 2020, had not won a playoff game since 1994
 
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#13
#13
n_huffhines said:
Since Jacksonville was brought up, the weird fact I always think about with them is that they and their expansion partner (Panthers) both went to the CCG in their 2nd year of existence.

Jaguars won 4 playoff games in their 1st 5 years and have only won 3 playoff games in the last 22 seasons. In 1999, their fans probably thought they were going to be the next big franchise. Imagine telling them then that they were going to be one of the bottom 4 teams over the next few decades.
Click to expand...

It's pretty amazing how good that 1999 team was and for whatever reason the Titans just had their number that year. They lost 3 games, all to the Titans. Also looked like that was the beginning of a pretty fierce rivalry between the 2 franchises but that turned out to be short lived.
 
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#15
#15
The Jets were the first ever team to have a 4000 yard passer (Namath in 1967) and have not had a single one since.

Even crazier is that he did it in 14 games.
 
#16
#16
VolsSportsFan said:
It's pretty amazing how good that 1999 team was and for whatever reason the Titans just had their number that year. They lost 3 games, all to the Titans. Also looked like that was the beginning of a pretty fierce rivalry between the 2 franchises but that turned out to be short lived.
Click to expand...
Jax has a great team that year. No way we should have won all three with two of them being in their house. Even worse Neil O’Donnell was the qb for the champ game and we still won.
 
#17
#17
The AFC South was brutal in the early to mid 2000's and it beat the Jaguars down, and the franchise has never really recovered. I remember one year when the Texans were the worst team in the division at 8-8 and the other 3 teams made the playoffs.
 
#18
#18
The "legend" of Bobby Layne is still one of the better ones I've heard:

Apparently he cursed the Lions during a trade dispute back in 1958 and stated "they won't win for 50 years". Literally 50 years later, they went 0-16 and used the resulting #1 draft pick to select Matthew Stafford, who grew up in the same town and attended the same high school as....Bobby Layne.

Doesn't really work as well now that the "curse" has carried on for an extra ~15 years, but still a cool story. Not so much for Lions fans (sorry @mad4vols).
 
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#19
#19
GreveHaller said:
Jax has a great team that year. No way we should have won all three with two of them being in their house. Even worse Neil O’Donnell was the qb for the champ game and we still won.
Click to expand...

I think you got the games mixed up. O'Donnell started the first game against Jax, that the Titans won 20-19. McNair started the last 2 games.
 
#21
#21
Probably one of the most somber/morbid ones I've heard:

The 1994 San Diego Chargers team that made the Super Bowl featured 8 players who passed away before their 45th birthday.
 
#23
#23
orangepridenation said:
Probably one of the most somber/morbid ones I've heard:

The 1994 San Diego Chargers team that made the Super Bowl featured 8 players who passed away before their 45th birthday.
Click to expand...

Wow, I had to look that up. I remember Seau and I remembered Rodney Culver had died in a plane crash. I had forgotten about Chris Mims. Even crazier of those 8, 4 were linebackers leaving Dennis Gibson as the only surviving member of the linebacker corp from that team.

2 more members died in 2021 at 52 and 54.
 
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#24
#24
The 2014 Kansas City Chiefs did not complete a single touchdown pass to a wide receiver. Only team in the modern, 16+ game era to accomplish that feat.

They still finished 9-7 and narrowly missed the playoffs.
 
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#25
#25
95 Vol Alum said:
There are still Detroit Lions fans.
Click to expand...

I admire Lions fans, no joke.

Their last playoff win was 31 years ago. Literally closer in time to the moon landing than to 2022, by about 9 years at that. And you have to go back ANOTHER 30 years to find their most recent playoff win before that, which I believe was the championship of '57.
 
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