Tag: NFL record

Lions rookie TE Sam LaPorta continues to set new NFL landmarks

Detroit Lions rookie TE Sam LaPorta continues to make tremendous strides by rewriting NFL history at the tight end department

Throughout training camp, Sam LaPorta made noise as a potentially important cog in the Detroit Lions offense after he almost instantly connected with Jared Goff. Now, through three games in the 2023 season, LaPorta has shown that chemistry as a reliable target for Goff, which was evident in their 20-6 victory over the Atlanta Falcons this week.

LaPorta saw the second most targets today (11), only behind Amon-Ra St. Brown, catching eight of those for 84 yards while catching his first NFL touchdown. Not only has he shown to have reliable mitts, but he has been important in the run game as well, showing he is not afraid to throw his body into blocks, leading to big gains on the ground. He is the do-it-all tight end the Lions needed for their offense and fits in like a glove.

Now, everyone in the Lions world is quite aware of the importance LaPorta has brought to Detroit, but he is showing on a national scale the type of season he is having so far this season. Just last week, he set the NFL record for instant production by a rookie tight end by being the first tight end in NFL history to have 5+ catches in their first two games.

He continued setting records with his stellar performance against the Falcons. I’ll let the good people from the Lions PR show how big he has been for Detroit.

As you can see, the story writes itself. LaPorta is having a historic start not only for the Lions but also for rewriting NFL history in the tight end department. The chemistry is strong and seems in sync with Goff, a proven commodity in the running game, making him an indispensable player for the Lions and another cog in the strong young core the Lions have built this far in Detroit.

Also, here is a fun interaction between LaPorta and Goff concerning his touchdown today.

 

Dolphins dominate Broncos, become 4th NFL team ever to score 70 points in a game

That’s the best game of the Mike McDaniel era.

The Miami Dolphins defeated the Denver Broncos 70-20 at Hard Rock Stadium in Week 3, scoring the most points by one team in an NFL game since 1966.

In league history, only three other teams have ever hit the 70-point mark in a game, including playoffs. This was clearly the Dolphins’ best performance in the Mike McDaniel era, and they should feel great about their day.

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa played just three quarters of this game, completing an incredible 88% of his passes for 309 yards and four touchdowns before turning it over to his backup, Mike White.

Tagovailoa moved the team up and down the field with efficiency despite missing Jaylen Waddle, who was out with a concussion. He completed passes to six targets, including Tyreek Hill, who had nine receptions for 157 yards and a touchdown in three quarters.

Running backs Raheem Mostert and De’Von Achane looked like the two best players on the field as they combined for 285 yards and five rushing touchdowns on a ridiculous 9.2 yards per carry.

They were able to dominate due to the stellar day for the offensive line, who got Terron Armstead back at left tackle for the first time this season. However, they did lose center Connor Williams in the third quarter, and he was replaced by Liam Eichenberg, who hasn’t really found a set position in his three NFL seasons.

Defensively, the Dolphins were everywhere. They put constant pressure on quarterback Russell Wilson even though they only got home once. The pressure forced the former Seattle Seahawks quarterback to make some mistakes.

Safety Jevon Holland may have made Miami’s biggest defensive plays. He punched the ball free from Courtland Sutton twice, with Miami recovering both fumbles.

Even Emmanuel Ogbah, who hasn’t gotten much playing time to start this year, got in on the action, as he recorded an interception off of a tipped pass and interception late in the game.

Miami (3-0) sits atop the AFC East with a battle against the Buffalo Bills coming up next week.

Jalen Hurts breaks NFL record previously held by Cam Newton

A former Alabama player just broke an NFL record previously held by an Auburn player.

Former Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts earned himself and his team, the Philadelphia Eagles, a bid to the Super Bowl after dominating the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game.

In that game, Hurts pushed through the line of scrimmage and scored rushing touchdown No. 15 on the season including the playoffs.

That touchdown etched Hurts’ name in the NFL record books as the quarterback with the most rushing touchdowns in a single season including the playoffs. The player who last held the record? Cam Newton.

There’s recently been some debate as to whether Hurts is considered a former member of the Crimson Tide or a former Oklahoma Sooner.

With Hurts being an Alabama fan favorite and Newton being a beloved Auburn Tiger, this is another win for the Crimson Tide.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Hurts and other former Alabama players in the NFL as the 2023 postseason progresses.

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Lions close to setting the record for sacks by rookies in a season

The Lions enter the finale one sack away from breaking the record set by the 1999 Titans

When the Detroit Lions drafted three pass rushers in the 2022 NFL draft, it was a sign the team was looking to add a lot more oomph to the defense. Mission accomplished.

Aidan Hutchinson, Josh Paschal and James Houston have all made impacts as rookies. That was never more evident than in the Lions’ Week 17 win over the Chicago Bears. Houston, the team’s sixth-round pick, sacked Justin Fields three times. Paschal, a second-round pick, added two sacks of his own. Hutchinson, the No. 2 overall pick, chipped in a half-sack and an interception.

The eruption against the Bears pushed the Lions to the precipice of NFL history. Detroit’s rookie class has combined to produce 18.5 sacks, which is just a half-sack away from setting the record for the most sacks from rookies in a season.

Houston leads all rookies with eight sacks and has posted that gaudy total in just six games. He seized the lead from Hutchinson, who has 7.5. Paschal contributed two sacks in nine games, and linebacker Malcolm Rodriguez has one sack of his own.

That leaves Detroit just a half-sack behind the 1999 Tennessee Titans for the most sacks by a rookie class since the NFL started keeping sacks as an official stat in 1983. Those Titans got 14.5 from rookie of the year Jevon Kearse and 4.5 from second-round DT John Thornton. That Titans team wound up winning the AFC Championship.

Detroit plays Green Bay in Week 18. In the first meeting, the Lions sacked quarterback Aaron Rodgers just once, a clean-up sack by second-year LB Derrick Barnes.

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Rams set NFL record for most losses by defending Super Bowl champion

No defending Super Bowl champion has ever lost as many games as the Rams have this season

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In a span of 11 months, the Los Angeles Rams have gone from the absolute pinnacle of the sport to enduring the worst season ever by a defending Super Bowl champion. After getting blown out by the Chargers on Sunday, the Rams now sit at 5-11 on the year.

Their 11 losses are the most ever by a team that won the Super Bowl the season prior, setting a new NFL record for futility. That’s not the way Sean McVay wanted to etch his name in the record book, but that’s what happens when you suffer the number of injuries the Rams have in 2022.

The Rams have one game left against the Seahawks in Week 18, hoping to avoid their 12th loss of the season – and potentially playing spoiler against their division rival. A win over Seattle won’t do anything other than help the Rams’ morale heading into the offseason, but regardless, they’d love to end the season on a high note.

This is just the second time under McVay that the Rams have missed the playoffs; both coincidentally came after the team’s Super Bowl appearances. The Rams are just the 17th team in NFL history to miss the playoffs the season after winning the Super Bowl.

Vikings set an NFL record with Saturday’s win vs. Giants

The Vikings have been great in clutch situations this season

It isn’t often that you see a team extremely effective in one-score games over the course of a season. Winning those games consistently is very unstable and isn’t something you can count on.

Well, nobody told the 2022 Minnesota Vikings.

With Saturday’s 27-24 win over the New York Giants, the Vikings won their 11th game in the 2022 season by one score and that sets an NFL Record. Before this season, only two teams in NFL history had won 10 such games in a season: the 2019 Seattle Seahawks who went 10-2 and the 1978 Houston Oilers who went 10-3.

You can’t count on the Vikings to win those games forever, but the work and focus that Kevin O’Connell’s staff has put into situational football is what has made the difference this season.

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Zulgad: Vikings’ putrid start ends with a comeback for the ages and an NFC North title

From @jzulgad: This Vikings team is incredibly resilient, and they showed that in winning the NFC North in historic fashion

A group of former Vikings gathered at a Bloomington hotel on Friday night to celebrate the anniversary of the “Miracle at the Met” in which Tommy Kramer’s Hail Mary pass found Ahmad Rashad in the final seconds to give Minnesota an improbable victory over the Cleveland Browns and the 1980 NFC Central Division championship.

By the time the sun set on Saturday, the current group of Vikings had a victory that might have been even more miraculous and will be worthy of celebration for years to come. The fact this win clinched the Vikings’ first NFC North title since 2017 made it even sweeter.

The Vikings (11-3) come back from a 33-0 deficit for 39-36 overtime victory over the Indianapolis Colts at U.S. Bank Stadium left coach Kevin O’Connell nears near tears as he addressed his team in the postgame locker room.

“I’m absolutely exhausted right now,” O’Connell said after watching his team get booed off the field at halftime and then score five touchdowns in the final two quarters before Greg Joseph hit the game-winning, 40-yard field goal with 3 seconds remaining in overtime. A tie also would have given the Vikings the division crown, but the win gave them the biggest comeback in NFL history.

That record had been held by the Buffalo Bills, who rallied from a 32 points down to beat the Houston Oilers in the AFC wild card round in January 1993. That Bills team was led by quarterback Frank Reich, who was fired by the Colts as their coach earlier this season and replaced by Jeff Saturday.

The fact the Vikings won a close game was no surprise. This was their 10th win by one score this season, tying the 2019 Seattle Seahawks and the 1978 Oilers for the most in NFL history, according to ESPN Stats and Information.

But this one was hard to comprehend, even by the Vikings’ standards. Consider that teams leading by 30 points at any point of the game had been 1,548-1-1 in the regular season and playoffs since 1930, according to ESPN. The Bills had the lone victory and the tie came in a 1960 game between the Bills and Broncos in which Buffalo led by 31 points in the third quarter before Denver rallied to tie it at 38.

The Vikings played their 1,000th game in their 62nd season on Saturday and had never done anything like this. Their biggest comeback had come in December 1977 when they erased a 24-point deficit for a 28-27 victory over San Francisco at Met Stadium. Kramer also led that comeback.

“I will never discount this team’s ability to overcome, and continue to play for each other,” O’Connell said. “Sometimes the culture stuff gets challenged in our league, but you don’t win a game like that without it. Now, we’ve got to continue to work and continue to improve to be the best possible football team we can be through the rest of the month of December and, we know, into January.”

O’Connell made it clear he wasn’t satisfied with much of what he saw. The Vikings, coming off a loss at Detroit in which the defense gave up 400-plus yards for a franchise record fifth consecutive game, played about as poorly as a team can play in the opening 30 minutes. Embarrassing might not have been a strong enough word to describe the Vikings’ performance.

The offense looked clueless, the special teams was awful and the defense gave up 19 points and 209 yards. There was absolutely no reason to believe the Vikings were capable of rebounding.

But in the locker room at halftime, O’Connell heard veteran cornerback Patrick Peterson make his way over to the offense with a message that would have made many laugh and roll their eyes.

“I’ll never forget it as long as I live,” O’Connell said, “I walked out to address the team before we went back out there and I just overheard (Peterson say), ‘We’re going to get stops, you just need five touchdowns and that’s nothing.’ It was a nice little moment for me to lead in off of.

I said, ‘Pat, you’re exactly right.’ That’s what we needed at the time and it was probably the most motivated I’ve been to kind of challenge our players. Just so they knew, regardless of the outcome today, that first half was not good enough and will never be acceptable to have that kind of performance, regardless of the outcome today.”

The Vikings responded with touchdowns on their second, third and fourth drives of the second half as the 4-8-1 Colts began to tighten up and the opportunistic Vikings pounced. Veteran Matt Ryan, who had played well for the Colts in the first half, began to resemble the quarterback who had played a role in the Falcons being part of the biggest blown Super Bowl lead. The Falcons led 28-3 at halftime of Super Bowl LI over the Patriots but ended up with a 34-28 loss.

The Vikings, of course, are nowhere near the Super Bowl and won’t be if they continue to play like they did on Saturday. As impressive as the comeback might have been, it wouldn’t have happened against a good team and you can bet O’Connell will spend plenty of time focusing on what went wrong.

But that will come starting on Sunday. On Saturday, O’Connell’s voice cracked as he told his players how much he loved them and how they had reached their goal of an NFC North title in his first season.

They had done it in one of the most improbable and historical ways possible. How far these Vikings can go remains up for debate — Saturday’s game isn’t going to cause their doubters to believe — but this much is certain: This group of players, just like their 1980 counterparts, now have a memory that will be celebrated for years to come.

Judd Zulgad is co-host of the Purple Daily Podcast and Mackey & Judd podcast at www.skornorth.com

Vikings complete largest comeback in NFL history, win NFC North

Kirk Cousins is the new comeback king in leading a 33-point comeback against the Colts

There is no sugarcoating it. The Minnesota Vikings were atrocious in the first half against the Indianapolis Colts. They made every mistake possible in going down 33-0. Even though nothing went right in the first half, the second half looked like a completely different team.

The second half was much different, as the Vikings outscored the Colts 36-3 and forced overtime where the Vikings completed the greatest comeback football has ever seen with a 39-36 victory

The Vikings outscored their opponent in the third quarter for only the third time this season, shrinking the lead to 36-14 before Justin Jefferson put Stephon Gilmore in a blender for a touchdown.

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The fourth quarter became exciting after that. The Colts struggled massively to move the ball which continued to give the Vikings a chance. However, they were shot in the foot multiple times.

Right after Jefferson was sent off to be evaluated for a concussion, Jalen Reagor stopped running on a deep crosser and the ball was intercepted. Both times Jefferson had to come off the field resulted in interceptions due to mistakes by Reagor.

This was a weird game by quarterback Kirk Cousins. He started off playing incredibly conservatively and robot-like. He does this every so often when things aren’t going well. Once they got the first touchdown, he settled in and played great football in the second half. His only two interceptions were the fault of Reagor and his stat line was superb. He went 34-54 for 460 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions

The key play in this game was once the Vikings got the game within one score. On fourth and one, Matt Ryan attempted a quarterback sneak and was stopped short. Dalvin Cook scored on a screen pass on the first play from scrimmage from 64 yards out. Cousins found T.J. Hockenson for the two-point conversion to tie the game.

One of the underrated elements of this game was the absence of Jonathan Taylor. He re-injured his ankle on the first possession and did not return. That stunted the Colts’ rushing game which only netted 4.0 yards per carry on 43 carries.

The comeback is the largest in both NFL history and regular season history, as the Buffalo Bills’ 32-point comeback in the 1992 wild card game against the Houston Oilers where the Bills were down 35-3 ended up winning 41-38 in overtime.

The Vikings’ defense deserves a lot of credit here. They only allowed one offensive touchdown, forced the Colts into five field goals and got that crucial aforementioned fourth down stop.

Next up for the Vikings is the New York Giants, as they host them on Christmas Eve afternoon.

Amon-Ra St. Brown sets NFL’s combined receiving/rushing mark to start a career

St. Brown is the first player in NFL history to hit the marks in his first 30 games

Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown was touted for his versatility even as a draft prospect. Coming out of USC in the 2021 NFL draft, St. Brown was known to play all the WR spots (X, Y, Z) and even take some reps as a motion FB. He also got a few carries for the Trojans and showed he knew how to handle the ball.

So it’s no surprise that St. Brown has had a lot of success using his versatility in his first two seasons with the Lions. However, he’s proven to be the first player in NFL history to pull off one statistical pillar of multi-use weaponry.

St. Brown is the first to notch 150 career receptions and also top 150 rushing yards in his first 30 games. The “Sun God” hit exactly 150 rushing yards with his six-yard carry in the Week 14 win over the Minnesota Vikings. He’s pulled down 172 receptions in a Lions uniform.

Deebo Samuel of the 49ers came close, but he only made it to 139 receptions in his first 30 NFL games.

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Jack Fox sets the NFL mark for best punting to start a career

A preemptive strike against the snarky comments: Fox is 31st in the league in punt attempts in 2022. He was 12th in attempts in 2021 and 13th in 2020, his first NFL season. 

With his second punt of the game on Sunday, Lions punter Jack Fox hit the 150 career attempts mark. His 51-yard punt in the third quarter established Fox in the NFL record books.

Fox set the NFL marks for the highest gross average for punts on the first 150 attempts of a career, at 49.2 yards per punt. His 43.0 net punting average is also better than anyone else has done to start a career, per the Lions PR department.

Ironically, Fox set the record on a day when he launched what was arguably the worst kick of his career. Punt No. 151 was a worm-burner that traveled just 30 yards.

A preemptive strike against the snarky comments: Fox is 31st in the league in punt attempts in 2022. He was 12th in attempts in 2021 and 13th in 2020, his first NFL season.

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