Tag: Game-Winning Drives

The 2022 Vikings Are Young, Dumb, and Full of Comebacks

~ scottkacsmar ~ 3 Comments

It’s only fitting for a blog I named “Captain Comeback” that I would give proper respect to the largest comeback in NFL history. For a league that has been around since 1920, this is only the second time ever that a team trailed by more than 28 points and came back to win the game. That’s it. Twice in over 100 years.

Growing up in the 90s, I only heard about Frank Reich, Buffalo’s backup quarterback, leading a 32-point rally in a playoff game for the biggest comeback in NFL history. I got to watch it years later thanks to NFL Films. Then you read about how Reich also once held the NCAA record for a 31-point comeback with Maryland against Miami in 1984.

Truthfully, Reich may have been what piqued my interest in comebacks as a research project. This backup quarterback being the only person to lead a 31-point comeback in college and 32-point comeback in the NFL can’t just be a coincidence, right? There has to be something more to this stuff.

Speaking of eerie coincidences…

Oddly enough, Reich was fired this year as the head coach of the team (Colts) who ended up blowing the 33-0 lead to beat his old record. That 33-0 lead was also on the heels of a game in Dallas where the Colts were outscored 33-0 in the fourth quarter, the first team to do that since 1925. Oh, and the Colts had Matt Ryan at quarterback on Saturday, the only quarterback to blow a 25-point lead in a championship game in NFL history. Now he has the all-time blown lead in an NFL game. Unbelievable.

Am I little annoyed that the biggest comeback ever now belongs to a Kirk Cousins-led team I have called the worst 11-3 team in NFL history instead of it being a playoff game with a backup QB? Yeah, I am. But I got to watch this one live, and it was quite the experience.

As a holiday treat, and the nicest things I’ll probably say about the 2022 Vikings all year, here is my definitive recap of what happened on Saturday in Minnesota.

Colts at Vikings: The Biggest Comeback/Collapse in NFL History

It is not surprising to see the Colts and Vikings involved in an all-time comeback. They are two franchises who have been involved in several of the biggest comebacks ever, including famous and not so famous ones. I even wrote in 2014 about a preseason game where the Colts blew a 26-0 fourth-quarter lead to the Giants, which would be an NFL record for biggest blown lead in the fourth quarter.

Last December, I did a timely Twitter thread about big comeback attempts when these Vikings nearly blew a 29-0 lead in the second half against the Steelers. Pittsburgh got it to 36-28 (same score as Saturday at one point), but Pat Freiermuth was unable to hold onto Ben Roethlisberger’s pass in the end zone to end it.

Only a few teams have been able to come close to erasing a 30+ point deficit. Other than the 1992 Bills coming back from 35-3 down to beat the Oilers in overtime, the only other 30+ point comeback attempt before Saturday that didn’t end in a loss was when the 1960 Broncos were able to tie the Bills at 38 after trailing 38-7 in the third quarter. There was no overtime then.

Here is the updated chart for all comeback wins of at least 23 points in NFL history. Colts-Vikings is fittingly the 33rd game on this list, which highlights road games in yellow and playoff games in blue.

Minnesota’s comeback and Indy’s collapse puts each team in a tie for the most such wins or losses in franchise history:

  • The Vikings (3) join the Broncos, Eagles, and Patriots as the only franchises with three such comeback wins in their history.
  • The Colts (3) join the Patriots and Buccaneers as the only franchises with three such blown leads in their history.

The game also makes for some interesting history for Cousins and Ryan:

  • The last two teams to come back from at least 24 points down and win a regular-season game were both quarterbacked by Kirk Cousins, including a 2015 win over Tampa with Washington (the “You like that?” game).
  • Kirk Cousins joins Dan Pastorini, Neil Lomax, and Tom Brady as the only quarterbacks with multiple wins when trailing by at least 23 points.  
  • Cousins and Brady are the only quarterbacks in NFL history with multiple 24-point comeback wins in their careers.
  • This is only the eighth comeback from 25-plus points in NFL history, and Matt Ryan has been the losing quarterback for the last two instances (only quarterback with multiple losses).
  • Matt Ryan, Tony Romo, and Jim Plunkett are the only quarterbacks to lose multiple games with at least a 23-point lead.

With the Vikings down 33-0 at halftime, this is also a historic comeback for halftime deficits:

  • Minnesota has the largest comeback win from a halftime deficit (33 points) in NFL history.
  • The only other team with a comeback win from a halftime deficit of greater than 25 points was when the 1980 49ers came back from 28 down to beat the Saints.
  • Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs are the only team on this list of 33 games that led at halftime despite trailing by at least 23 points in the game. They were down 24-0 in the 2019 playoffs to Houston before storming back for a 51-31 win.

Down 33-0, the Vikings got their comeback going with a drive that started with 11:16 left in the third quarter. This was less time than the 1992 Bills, who trailed 35-3 when they got the ball with 13:15 left in the third quarter before they scored their first touchdown.

The Colts added a field goal to make it 36-7 with 4:53 left in the third. That means the Vikings made a 29-point comeback, which by itself would be the second largest in history, with just under 20 minutes left to play in regulation – a new gold standard. Near the 5:00 mark of the third in Bills-Oilers, the Bills were already driving at midfield down 35-17. They made it a very doable 35-24 game with 4:21 left in the third. By the 2:00 mark of the third quarter, Buffalo made it 35-32, so their record comeback happened very fast with four touchdowns scored in just over 11 minutes of action in the third.

The Vikings still had plenty of work to do at the start of the fourth quarter, trailing 36-14 after Cousins took a sack to end the third.

By my records, the Vikings are the fifth team to come back to win from a fourth-quarter deficit of 22-plus points, joining these teams:

  • 1952 Rams vs. Packers (22 points, trailed 28-6, won 30-28)
  • 1985 Vikings vs. Eagles (23 points, trailed 23-0, won 28-23)
  • 1987 Cardinals vs. Buccaneers (25 points, trailed 28-3, won 31-28)
  • 2000 Jets vs. Dolphins (23 points, trailed 30-7, won 40-37 OT)
  • 2022 Vikings vs. Colts (22 points, trailed 36-14, won 39-36 OT)

No matter how you slice it, this was a historic comeback and collapse. If you’ve been following the Vikings and Colts this year, you could start to see it coming too around the time Justin Jefferson caught a touchdown with 12:53 left and the Vikings now down 36-21.

Colts-Vikings: Perfect Storm for a Record-Setting Comeback

In many ways, the ingredients for a record-setting comeback were present in this one:

  • The 2022 Vikings already had six fourth-quarter comeback wins (three from double digits) to lead the NFL as they have been living on the edge all season.
  • Colts were coming off a 33-0 fourth quarter in Dallas and we know they turn the ball over often.
  • Colts lost star running back Jonathan Taylor after his first touch, and his presence was missed on a few critical plays.
  • Colts have an interim coach (Jeff Saturday) who just doesn’t have much experience at this job.
  • Vikings were at home.
  • Matt Ryan is cursed.

On that last point, part of why I wanted to do a deeper dive on this game is to contrast it with Ryan’s other big blown lead with Atlanta against the Patriots in Super Bowl LI.

The truth is Super Bowl LI and 33-0 couldn’t be any more different as games.

In that Super Bowl, Ryan was playing an incredible game with the offense moving up and down the field, the defense jumped a Tom Brady pass for a pick-six, and the Falcons were rolling along at 28-3 in the third quarter. Then time after time, the Falcons failed to make the one last play they needed to put the game away.

When I wrote my 2017 NFL predictions, I highlighted eight breaking points where the Falcons just needed to do one good thing and the game was over. They were 0-for-8.

Obviously, you can take every play in a game like this and say “well, they should have forced a fumble and returned it for a touchdown.” But that is just silly talk ignoring the physics and reality of all these snaps. I’m just talking about things like don’t try to throw the ball on third-and-1 deep in your own end where your RB is going to miss the pass rusher and your quarterback fumbles. Or don’t drop a game-ending interception and help keep the ball alive in the air for Julian Edelman to catch it for a 23-yard gain. Stuff like that.

What breaking points did the Colts have that failed? We’ll get to that list soon, but the other important distinction I want to make for this game compared to Super Bowl LI is that the Colts didn’t actually play that well to earn such a big lead here.

Atlanta went from a dominant performance to playing dumb football with the lead and helping the Patriots get back into it. By the end of the game, the defense was tired, the Patriots won the coin toss, and the end was inevitable.

In this game, it’s not like Ryan had a great day with 19-of-33 for 182 yards and a touchdown. He took three sacks. The Colts averaged 4.0 yards per carry without Jonathan Taylor. They were 6-of-19 (31.6%) on third down, which is lousy. The Vikings ended up outgaining them 518-341 in yards.

While SB LI was Atlanta going from a beatdown to a meltdown, this game was more about the Colts trying to hang on to something they didn’t really deserve in the first place:

  • Minnesota started the game with a three-and-out, which led to a blocked punt return touchdown and 10-0 lead for the Colts. There’s always a lot of randomness to a blocked punt return TD (unless you’re the 2021 Packers).
  • On the next two drives, Dalvin Cook fumbled after a 40-yard run and was stuffed on a fourth-and-1 with horrible spacing and design at his own 31. The Colts settled for a FG and 20-0 lead on a 21-yard drive.
  • After another three-and-out, the Vikings ran the most expected fake punt ever and botched it at their own 31. The Colts again failed to move the sticks (or even gain a yard) and kicked a field goal for a 23-0 lead.
  • (7:03 left in 2Q) The officials hosed Minnesota by calling forward progress for Michael Pittman on a third-down catch when he was still fighting to get upfield, had the ball knocked out, and there was a clear scoop and score for the Vikings. But it didn’t count and the Colts got to punt.
  • (5:57 left in 2Q) On the very next drive, Cousins threw a pick-six intended for Jalen Reagor, who came in to replace an injured Justin Jefferson, who would return later. That made it 30-0 in a sequence where the Vikings defense should have made it 23-7.
  • (4:55 left in 2Q) K.J. Osborn appeared to make a 40-yard catch downfield, but only when you slow the replay down to a snail pace can you see the ball move out of his one hand, making it incomplete. The call was correct, but it’s just another example of how the Vikings were shooting themselves in the foot far more than anything Indy was doing to them.

After the Osborn drop, the Colts would have their last offensive drive of the game that gained more than 31 yards and two first downs. It led to a field goal and 33-0 lead at halftime, an incredible coincidence for a team that was outscored 33-0 in the last quarter we watched them play.

Into the second half, now I’m going to look at the breaking points for the Colts. The moments where if they just did one thing better that was in their control, they likely win the game. I had eight for Atlanta in SB 51, but that was just going by memory of a game that ended seven months before I wrote that. This one is a bit fresher in mind.

  • 10:41 left, 3Q (IND leads 33-0): Every comeback needs a starting point and Minnesota’s was when Dayo Odeyingbo was penalized 15 yards for taunting after he tackled Reagor on a run that lost 5 yards. Not only did it give the Vikings a first down, but it negated a 2nd-and-15 situation. It looked like a lame call, but just make the tackle and don’t stare down the opponent, and maybe that drive ends in another three-and-out. Two plays later, Osborn burned them for a 63-yard gain and finished the drive with a touchdown. Game on.
  • 0:25 left, 3Q (IND leads 36-14): This is at least the third time I’m criticizing Matt Ryan for throwing incompletions in a game with a big lead he went on to lose. Just burn some clock, my guy. Ryan threw an incompletion on second-and-7 with 25 seconds left. Run the ball there, get a couple yards, and take this thing into the fourth quarter. Ryan then threw another incompletion on third down, so the Vikings got the ball back and ran a play in the third quarter. It’s bad clock management, though this is probably more on Saturday’s inexperience than Ryan.
  • 8:09 left, 4Q (IND leads 36-21): After another minor injury knocks Jefferson out of the game, Cousins goes deep for Reagor, who stopped on the route and it was intercepted, though the Colts went out of bounds at their own 2 to give them poor field position. This is another case of the Vikings (namely Reagor) shooting themselves in the foot and the Colts catching a break with a Jefferson injury. But after the pick, Ryan again throws two incompletions on first and third down. The drive burns 56 seconds and the Vikings are already back at the 50 with the ball. This is probably where not having Taylor at RB hurt, but again, I hate the way Ryan continuously throws multiple interceptions on drives like this. He did it against the 2020 Bears too for another blown 16-point 4Q lead.
  • 3:28 left, 4Q (IND leads 36-28): Here is where the Colts definitely missed JT in a one-score game where you need first downs to end it. Deon Jackson got a first-down carry and he fumbled, which should have been returned for yet another Minnesota touchdown, but for the second time (and this was more egregious) the refs blew it and whistled the play dead. So, the Colts actually got lucky here that it wasn’t a fumble return touchdown, but just hang onto the ball and put this game away. Awful job by Jackson.
  • 2:52 left, 4Q (IND leads 36-28): After the Colts tackled Cousins on a 4th-and-15 scramble (ha), they needed to make the Vikings burn their four clock stoppages. But on the very first play, they run a toss which is more likely to get the runner out of bounds, which is bad. Zack Moss tried to slide down after picking up 11 yards and a first, but they ruled him out of bounds. He got a meaningless first down and only burned 7 seconds. Bad play.
  • 2:31 left, 4Q (IND leads 36-28): You knew it was coming, the biggest breaking point in the game. After three more Moss runs, it was 4th-and-1 at the Minnesota 36. One yard and the game is over with the Vikings out of timeouts. Do you go for a 54-yard field goal with a suspect kicker to make it 39-28 and likely wrap it up? Do you just go for the 1 yard on a QB sneak? Again, not having Taylor here didn’t help, but I can’t argue with the call for a QB sneak. Unfortunately, Ryan just couldn’t get any push and he failed to convert it, the most unstoppable play in the book.
  • 2:15 left, 4Q (IND leads 36-34): After Dalvin Cook embarrassed the defense on a screen that went 64 yards for a touchdown on a one-play drive, the Colts could essentially end it by stopping the two-point conversion. But Cousins remained calm in the pocket and found tight end T.J. Hockenson with a mismatch in the end zone to tie the game.

So, those are seven breaking points, but several are just me complaining that the Colts didn’t burn clock more efficiently, and they even got lucky with another Reagor-aided pick and the refs hosing the Vikings on a fumble touchdown.

Minnesota was the better team, and we saw it the rest of the way as Ryan took a sack on the very next play after the tie, and that short-circuited that drive. The Colts were so shook they even looked like they were going to go for a fourth-and-1 at their own 34 with 1:22 left, but a false start killed that idea. I feel like that was a game saver because I don’t see them converting there. That would have been super ballsy.

You would think the Vikings would march right down the field in overtime, but Cousins took a sack inside the Indy 40 and that killed that idea. More pressure on Ryan nearly led him into a devastating fumble, but the Colts were able to recover the ball as the clock moved under 3:00. The Colts were unable to get the ball deeper than their own 44 before punting.

Cousins had 1:41 left, and after already leading six game-winning drives this season, a seventh was not an issue. All three wide receivers had a big catch as Osborn completed his career day (157 yards), Adam Thielen had a good game (earlier touchdown), and of course Jefferson came up with the dagger for 13 yards to get into field goal range. The Colts were so blatant and aggressive at keeping Jefferson on the ground after his catch that they were penalized for delay of game, making the kick 5 yards easier. Thanks, guys. Minnesota kickers need all the help they can get.

But kicker Greg Joseph has been almost perfect from 40 yards and under in his career, and he was good from 40 here to put the official bow on the largest comeback in NFL history. That concluded a Saturday afternoon game that took four hours to play.

Almost took me four hours to recap as my ass has been slacking with some of the comeback data, but I got it all together for this rarest of games.

Love them or hate them, these 2022 Vikings are already a memorable, historic team. Their scoring differential may only be +2, but they have already given us the modern day equivalent to The Miracle at the Meadowlands by turning Josh Allen on a QB sneak into Joe Pisarcik. Now they have given us the largest comeback in any NFL game ever played. We still have at least four more games (playoffs included) to watch what this team does next.

Cousins only needs one more game-winning drive to tie 2016 Matthew Stafford for the single-season record:

Monty Python voice: And now for something completely different (the following is mostly satire and fiction. Mostly).

Did Kevin O’Connell Pull Tom Brady’s Lucky Horseshoe Out of His Ass?

Don’t blame Gisele taking her witch powers with her in the divorce for Tom Brady struggling with a 6-8 record and the worst offense of his career.

I think I know what’s really going on here.

When I wrote my Buccaneers-Bengals recap, I mentioned Joe Burrow pulled the remaining piece of lucky horseshoe out of Brady’s anal cavity at halftime. But without writing about this Vikings-Colts game first, that may not have made sense.

My new working theory is that Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell is actually the person who got to Brady last January and stole the LOAT’s source of incredible luck. But O’Connell has been trying to get to Brady’s luck for almost 15 years now.

For those who do not know, O’Connell was a quarterback and third-round pick by the Patriots in the 2008 draft. You know what happened in 2008, right? O’Connell shows up, and suddenly Brady tears his ACL in Week 1 for the only major injury of his 23-year career. Suspicious to say the least.

But the Patriots bypassed O’Connell and went with high school QB Matt Cassel to replace Brady and earn a huge contract from Kansas City. After struggling in a preseason game in 2009, the Patriots unexpectedly cut O’Connell and his quarterback career fizzled from there.

But as the Rams’ offensive coordinator, O’Connell had success in Tampa Bay’s building in 2020 and returned there in 2021 for the divisional round game this past January. If O’Connell stole Brady’s lucky horseshoe that day, he must have only gotten the offensive half of it, explaining this pathetic offense we have seen for 15 games now from the Buccaneers.

We still see Brady with a top 10 defense and one that forced four Rams turnovers to almost steal back in that game.

But going back to that divisional round game, O’Connell as the Rams coordinator and Vikings head coach has done this:

  • 13-0 in close games
  • 10-0 at game-winning drive opportunities
  • 9 fourth-quarter comebacks (five when trailing by 10+ points)
  • First team in NFL history to win three straight playoff games by 3 points
  • The most improbable fumble return TD since Joe Pisarcik and the Miracle at the Meadowlands
  • Largest comeback in NFL history (33 points)

The NFL hasn’t seen a run of luck like this in close games since, well since the 2003-04 Patriots won 21 straight games with a 17-0 record in close games.

Meanwhile, since that January playoff loss, Brady has botched a 40-day retirement, lost his marriage, has been outscored 35-0 and 34-0 in the last two weeks, and he’s stuck at 6-8 in the worst division in the NFL with the worst offensive performance of his career.

Yeah, O’Connell stole that shit, and we’ll see if Burrow grabbed the D/ST piece at halftime on Sunday, because that Gio Bernard fake punt got everything rolling for the Bengals.

Kevin O’Connell: LOAT Slayer.

Conclusion: Pouring One Out for Matt Ryan

Guess we’ll end on the sad note, but I really do feel bad that Matt Ryan has secured this legacy of being the guy who blew the biggest lead in NFL history and the biggest lead in Super Bowl history.

When people talk about Warren Moon the last three decades, they talk about him being a prolific passer and a pioneer for the Black quarterback. No one really talks about him blowing a 32-point lead, which wasn’t the only lead those Oilers blew in the postseason during that run. But when it comes to Ryan, that is going to be the focus barring a miracle.

As I led off with Frank Reich, Ryan holding this distinction may not be a coincidence, but it is hard for me to say he was ever the leading cause of either loss. He was barely a supporting actor in Saturday’s game, and he should have been a hero in LI if Kyle Shanahan had any common sense and ran the ball. Or Robert Alford wins Super Bowl MVP with his second pick. Fuck Edelman.

But if Ryan’s career only bombs from here or if he retires after this season, I think this season may have seriously damaged his chances at the Hall of Fame. We’ll see how things go with Eli Manning and Philip Rivers in the upcoming years, but it’s going to be hard for people to overlook these blown leads and a quarterback who hasn’t been to the postseason or had a winning record in any season since 2017.

To paraphrase my football friend Vinny Lospinuso, Ryan may go down as the Ken Anderson of his era.

Someone who won an MVP and took an unsuccessful franchise to a Super Bowl only to lose to a dynasty, but he isn’t in the Hall of Fame, and only stat nerds really appreciate him.

Ever since the Falcons blew that 2012 NFC Championship Game lead, Ryan has spent the last decade as Sisyphus, the character in Greek mythology whose punishment was to roll a heavy boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down every time he got near the top.

After Saturday’s game, I’m not sure how Sisyphus still finds the joy to continue working towards inevitable failure. Ryan is too old to be like these Vikings. Look at them. Young, dumb, and full of comebacks.

But their day is coming soon too. That inevitable playoff loss where the boulder flattens their run of close-game success. Enjoy it while it lasts, Minnesota. You already got a few for the lifetime highlight reels and record books this year.

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Quarterbacks: Most Fourth-Quarter Comebacks and Game-Winning Drives by NFL Team

~ scottkacsmar ~ 1 Comment

Lost even on me in Sunday afternoon’s chaos was the fact that Tony Romo moved past Roger Staubach for the most game-winning drives in Dallas Cowboys history. He has 24 now. Last season Romo took the lead in fourth-quarter comeback wins (21 now) in Cowboys history as well.

That’s newsworthy by itself, but what about the other 31 NFL teams? Who are their all-time leaders in fourth-quarter comeback wins and game-winning drives? I compiled the table, which will be added to the NFL STAT TABLES section I plan to do much more with in the near future.

TM4QCGWD

As usual, playoffs are included. How typical of the Jets to feature three different quarterbacks here. Not much else surprised me, but I’ve been working with this data for years so that’s to be expected. Let’s just say the bar is really low in Tampa Bay, but I doubt Mike Glennon will ever step his big ass over it.

Matt Ryan needs two more 4QC wins to move past Bartkowski for the outright Atlanta lead. He would be the 9th active quarterback to hold the lead in 4QC and GWD for his team, which just goes to show how impressive this current crop of quarterbacks really is.

All nine of the active leaders have been with their team since at least 2009. That’s when Jay Cutler was traded to Chicago and Matthew Stafford was the No. 1 pick in the draft.  If we think about that season some more, Marc Bulger (STL), Jake Delhomme (CAR), Donovan McNabb (PHI) and David Garrard (JAC) were still on their teams, so that’s 13 quarterbacks who went on to become their team’s GWD leader all active in 2009. Peyton Manning (IND) and Matt Schaub (HOU) were still on their teams too, so that’s 15. Brett Favre was in Minnesota, but he was already Green Bay’s all-time leader, so that kind of makes it 16, which is half the league.

So in 2009, there were 16 active starting quarterbacks who have eventually led an NFL franchise in career game-winning drives.

Some people disagree that this is a really special era of quarterbacks, but I keep finding evidence to support that it is. When teams like Cleveland, Oakland, Tampa Bay and St. Louis keep going through quarterbacks, I gain more respect for the players who keep starting year after year.

Even Flacco and Eli.

him

Game-Winning Drive Progress for FOX?

~ scottkacsmar ~ Leave a comment

On November 13, 2011, the Saints and Falcons were playing in overtime. This was the game where Mike Smith went for it on 4th-and-1 at his own 29 and failed. This graphic from FOX came up about Drew Brees and his game-winning drives:

vlcsnap-2011-11-14-13h41m36s22

The fact I have this saved in a folder means I probably ripped them for this in Captain Comeback that week. For one, the semantics are ugly as “game-tying” should never appear in the text. As for the number, it even says including postseason, yet it should have been 27 instead of 25.

Indeed, Brees picked up his 28th game-winning drive that day. Flash forward to Sunday between the Saints and Buccaneers, and FOX had this graphic at the end of the game:

brees

Now it’s up to 31, and Brees was in fact going for his 32nd game-winning drive, which he got after a dagger to Marques Colston to set up the field goal.  Notice it also kept the language much simpler and accurate.

So it took a few years, but maybe FOX has it sorted out now. Or maybe I’ll just watch a different game with a different production staff next week that tries to use the same “game-tying” mess I’ve seen in the past.

But I’ll try to be optimistic for a change.

My 3-Year Story of NFL Comebacks: Crusade Over Conspiracy

~ scottkacsmar ~ 1 Comment

In light of the three-year anniversary of my first ever article, I have decided to share the ride’s ups and downs in my attempt to rewrite NFL history by blowing open a statistical conspiracy on the Denver Broncos and the use of fourth quarter comebacks.

Thursday’s article was basically the 8th chapter in the story (first seven are notably linked throughout here), but today is a perfect time to summarize the last three years, while also providing even more new evidence of a Denver comeback clusterfudge.

Documenting this process has been very important to me, and I hope it has been an entertaining and eye-opening look into the dark side of record-keeping and history.

The irony is I never had any intentions of being a journalist or anything of the sort, but this story has basically been my form of investigative reporting, and my angle to breaking into the business.

Please pass this link along and help spread the truth.

2009: The Rookie

August 6, 2009. Three years ago today, I crossed over from the world of internet forum/Excel-worshipping stat nerd to writer. I posted my first ever article.

Actually Doug Drinen of Pro-Football-Reference posted it, but it was my writing, and it was called “Guest Post: Quarterbacks and fourth quarter comebacks, Part 1.” (Chapter 1)

I thank PFR for giving me that first platform to turn my researched data into words, and I can only wish I would have written a better two-part article (Chapter 2) than I did. But that was my first time, and after hundreds of thousands of words later, I think I have a much better grip on this writing thing.

On that same day three years ago, Mike Tanier gave me a boost into the sports writing world by infusing my piece into his great Walkthrough column at FootballOutsiders. That helped spread the word and was phase one of my crusade. Thanks again, Mike.

I have said before I am not the first person to reject or disprove Elway’s mythical “record” of 47 fourth quarter comebacks, but I am the first to create a standardized system of fourth quarter/overtime wins so that we can track the real all-time leaders.

Though in my first articles you can see I was still caught up on trying to bunch all of these wins together, I soon after realized the best method is to make them two stats, and say “QB X has Y fourth quarter comebacks and Z game-winning drives in his career.” This continues to catch on, which I greatly appreciate.

Not long after those first two articles, I sold my database to Pro-Football-Reference and we put the comeback tables on every quarterback’s page for all to use. I added a part three (Chapter 3) to the series during the playoffs to explain the nuances of the data on the site. The data started showing up in writers’ coverage of the NFL.

I talked to Pittsburgh’s best sports writer, Ed Bouchette, for a story after game one of the 2009 season, and it made the front of the Sports’ section in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which had me excited as a local guy. Later that season I contributed data to articles which appeared on Forbes and The Wall Street Journal.

2010: The Plot Thickens

For a newcomer, things were going pretty well, though not once had I heard anything from the Denver Broncos. E-mails to the head of PR went unanswered, as did any phone call attempt. I can’t even get Woody Paige or any Denver-related media person for that matter to slay the dragon. Are they afraid they’ll lose their job or something?

I was also ill-prepared in the instance that Peyton Manning, who pulled to 35 comebacks, one shy of Dan Marino’s record 36, broke the record. I never could get into contact with the Colts on this matter either, despite the fact Manning and Johnny Unitas are two of the most prolific QB’s ever in this area. I will be over-prepared this season in the event that Manning finally ties and then surpasses Marino.

In the summer of 2010 I contacted NFL spokesman Greg Aiello after reading a 1996 article in which he stated the league would look into making comebacks a standard stat. I figured I have already done so much of the necessary work, so why not push him on it?

He eventually got me into contact with another NFL employee, and from there it was passed to the Elias Sports Bureau, who handles the league’s statistics. I must admit I was poorly prepared in adding a professional proposal, and basically just went off the three articles I had written at that point. Had I sent them something along the lines of what I have to work with today, things may have been much different.

Instead, the response was basically that teams are going to keep doing what they want in their media guides and press releases, and Elias, who only uses game-winning drives and never comebacks, was not changing anything.

The one time I tried to call Elias myself, a Spanish woman answered, creating a Consuela from Family Guy-esque moment, and I just hung up out of frustration. If you’re not familiar with the ESB’s website, it is basically an ad for buying a baseball book. It would be easier to reach the CIA for information or discussion.

I recently found this great article by Michael Weinreb, which talks about researcher John Turney’s similar plight with career sack totals. The NFL only made them official in 1982, but obviously sacks occurred for decades prior to that. With NFL Films having every game, why not go back and create the historical record of sacks? I of course fully support Turney’s position.

Weinreb’s characterization of dealing with Elias was classic:

So I called the Elias Sports Bureau, which keeps all the official statistics for all the major sports leagues in this country. I spoke to a man whose name I cannot use because he never gave it to me, and whom I cannot quote because he declined to be quoted, and who didn’t want to be forced to repudiate my premise. At times, I felt like I was engaging in a semantic discussion with the Comic Book Guy from “The Simpsons.”

To summarize: The Elias Sports Bureau feels as if there is no need to revise the history before 1982 because it would be impossible. They claim it would be impossible because there is no uniformity, because there was no standard definition of a sack before 1982, because then you fall into that statistical booby trap of comparing generations, and therefore, to go back to the play-by-play sheets and videotapes is both time-consuming and useless. In fact, Seymour Siwoff of Elias told Pro Football Weekly a couple of years ago that the only reason sacks were adopted as an official statistic in 1982 is because an increased number of incentive clauses and bonuses were built into contracts. This led to increased complaints and queries about statistics, which essentially, Siwoff said, “forced our hand.

It’s not impossible when people like Turney and me are willing to do the work. We may not be the Elias Sports Bureau, but I dare you to check the research and try and question the validity. It doesn’t take a genius to find mistakes in the “official” record.

In the 1990s, George Halas and Fran Tarkenton each held NFL records for most wins as a head coach and starting quarterback, respectively. But go figure, they each had one more win than they actually earned.

In 1992, Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Joe Horrigan found an error in Halas’ total based on a game he won despite having already left for World War II. Horrigan had the total changed from 325 wins to 324 twenty years ago, and it came at an important time as Don Shula was nearing the NFL record.

Sound familiar to anything? I tried contacting Horrigan recently, but he did not return the call.

When I was researching QB starts, I made note of this 1963 game that Fran Tarkenton could not have possibly started, as evident by his lack of any pass attempts or runs, and the fact that every newspaper archive said it was Ron Vander Kelen making his first career start. So I took it away from Tarkenton, which moved his record down from 125 wins to 124, and I put that total on PFR. I also changed it on Wikipedia, and before long, noticed some teams like the Patriots and Colts changed it in their media guides.

Last year I passed it along to the Minnesota Vikings’ PR and they agreed and made the change. They were very courteous about it, unlike some teams would be. Note: the Denver Broncos still have Tarkenton at 125. Gasp.

We’ll get another look next month when Tom Brady (124) takes the field. Right now he’s tied with Tarkenton, and the next win should surpass him.

But back to comebacks, because 2010 was when some really interesting stuff went down.

I wrote this article about the chronology of the records (Chapter 4), which expressed some of the stunning semantics blunders that went on between Elias, Denver and the Miami Dolphins in the mid-90s. That clued me in that this has been a problem that’s been going on for nearly two decades without a correction.

In late November, I put together an article that shines some of the sweetest irony you’ll ever see in life. Do you know what John Elway really did 47 times in his career? (Chapter 5)

47 is the number of times he had the ball in the fourth quarter, trailing by one score, and did not win the game.

46 losses and a tie. How unbelievable is that? I found similar results for Roger Staubach, who was falsely considered to have 23 comeback wins (real number: 15), yet 23 ended up being the number of losses in his career opportunities.

Speaking of Staubach, I experienced an incredible moment of success followed by disgust in the fall of 2010. The NFL Network aired a great NFL Films series called Top 100: NFL’s Greatest Players. During Staubach’s video, the narrator said that Staubach had 15 fourth quarter comebacks in his career.

15, which is my number I put out there in the second article I wrote. Someone had to see it, because you wouldn’t get that number anywhere else. Remember, I was in contact with the NFL that summer, making them aware of the issue. It was a sense of accomplishment. If they use the right number for Staubach, then what was to come for Elway and Marino?

What came next was the first moment I thought there might be a conspiracy that goes beyond the Broncos’ botching the stats for their star quarterback. With Marino aired and no mention, they teased before commercial break about the “king of comebacks” coming up next.

It was Elway, and the first line out of the narrator’s mouth included “a record 47 comebacks.” I could have broken my TV if it wasn’t so expensive. How do you use the factual number for Staubach, ignoring the Cowboys in the process, but then go and use Denver’s falsified number for Elway? It’s absurd.

I contacted NFL Films about it, but nothing came of that either. Could not get in touch with someone that had a clue of what I was talking about.

On the field, Peyton Manning was less than a minute away from that record-tying 36th comeback in the playoffs, but a long kick return by Antonio Cromartie put a damper on the ending with the Jets getting the walk-off field goal win. After seven straight comebacks to get to 35, Manning lost his next six opportunities and hasn’t played a game since that Wild Card loss.

2011: Captain Comeback Begins

Last year I had full intentions of doing a weekly column where I go over all the fourth quarter comebacks and game-winning drives of the week. This would provide an undisputable account of each week’s games, and with lots of exclusive data.

With PFR moving away from blogging, I joined the new site Football Nation last July and one of my first articles (Chapter 6) was about the news I received from the NFL that their Record and Fact Book for 2011 was going to feature game-winning drives. They only limited it to since 1970 and listed the top five, but it was accurate, had Dan Marino at the top, and it was a step in the right direction.

From Football Nation, I quickly got involved with the Cold, Hard Football Facts brand. That would be the destination of Captain Comeback, which had a very successful first season. By midseason I found a format I love, and will continue to provide this type of analysis each week during the season.

Last summer I refined my database of fourth quarter/overtime wins, which allowed for me to have good information done in a timely manner for my articles. I focused more on writing and building a brand rather than trying to get the Broncos or NFL to change anything.

It was a great season with plenty to write about in this area.

Even with Peyton completely gone in 2011, his brother Eli picked up the slack with a record-tying seven comebacks of his own. Tony Romo’s “clutch vs. choker” persona being questioned was good to write about. There was also the Tim Tebow story, which meant good news for me. Even got to correct Elias again on stats related to Tebow’s game-winning drives. And of course the whole Green Bay Packers/Aaron Rodgers mystery of how they’re such an anti-comeback team (3-18 record) continues to be a key story for me.

Getting the @CaptainComeback name on Twitter and networking/promoting there has been a huge boost as well. Interacted with a lot of cool people the last 12 months.

2012: Big Plans

This offseason I have been hammering away at completing an even bigger database in the hope that I can get the information people have been looking for the last three years: full comeback/GWD opportunities. I have been teasing some of the information here on my blog and in some articles lately, and hope to have results during the season.

I also have thought about writing a book in the future on this topic. A complete guide, from going over this history of how screwed up the semantics and use of comeback stats have been, with full tables of stats on teams and quarterbacks, and numerous case studies that you would expect from analysis of thousands of the close finishes in NFL history. So much great stuff could come from these databases. I’m excited about just the possibilities alone.

Peyton is back this year, so hopefully that will lead to a lot of attention over this Denver story. You can say I haven’t done enough to get it out there, but I always thought on-field action backed with indisputable research would always speak louder than anything I do by myself. But admittedly, I could have done (and do) more to get it out there.

I called ESPN’s Outside the Lines on Saturday to pitch a show idea about this story, and I should probably not stop at that one voice message.

I cannot rely on Peyton alone. I thought him joining Denver would do the trick (Chapter 7) by itself, but  of course the Broncos have gone with a defense that makes it look like Manning’s comebacks never existed by not mentioning them once in 678 pages of their media guide.

And these are the days of searchable PDF files, so they can’t say it’s in there and I just missed it. If they try and add it in now, I have the original copy saved and the revision date of 6/24/12 listed inside.

The use of their media guides against them was fun to compile last week, and I went even deeper over the weekend to look at their material from the Jake Plummer era. It further proves how badly the Broncos are botching comeback records and fabricating Elway’s legacy in the process.

This is from a 2006 press release:

There’s a lot going on here. First, it’s very interesting to see Denver focus on only comebacks, as evident by the 21 and the table. Note: in the 2006 media guide, it even calls them “pure” comebacks. What’s awkward is the table saying since 1995, yet Drew Bledsoe’s total is listed since 1997. Something wrong with the five comebacks he had in 1995-96?

I know that for Bledsoe’s career (since 1993), he had 24 comebacks, but I bet my life they are not the same 24 games Denver had in mind here. Peyton did in fact have 19 comebacks then, which gives me a good idea of what number, if any, they will try and say he has this year. Hint: it will be about a dozen off what they have for Elway.

Plummer’s 21 is a farce. They include this 2002 game against Seattle as a comeback/GWD for Plummer, even though it consisted of Arizona blowing the lead to start the fourth quarter, and MarTay Jenkins returning the ensuing kickoff 95 yards for the game-winning touchdown.

“Pure” comeback, baby. Plummer was so good he got the offense the 4QC/GWD without even taking the field. The masters of comeback deception have outdone themselves here, as I have never seen any team credit their quarterback for a fourth quarter win like this when the return score did all the work.

One could argue Plummer started his career in Arizona, so maybe they were working off bad information. A logical argument, but I have the evidence this isn’t the case.

This is the Denver Broncos’ 2006 media guide claiming in Plummer’s player bio that the Seattle game was Plummer’s 17th comeback. Note the list of games here. That game, listed appropriately in “other games of note” at the bottom, was on 9/15/2002.

If you put the game in chronological order, it would be the 17th game on that page. This is Denver calling all of Plummer’s fourth quarter wins comebacks, even though three of the games (4, 9, 15 on PFR) were just game-winning drives where Arizona never trailed in the fourth quarter. And of course counting the Seattle game is pure lunacy. Plummer never even took the field for the opportunity, let alone do anything to deserve the comeback/GWD.

The Denver bio goes on to say Plummer finished 2002 with 21 comeback victories, even though six of them weren’t actually comebacks for him.

Plummer joined the Broncos in 2003, and his lone comeback/GWD of the season was noted by Denver as being his first for the team and the “22nd of his career.”

In 2004, Plummer had four game-winning drives, but only one of them involved a comeback (Carolina game). This time Denver says that Plummer led “four fourth quarter or overtime game-winning or game-tying drives on the year” to increase his total to 26.

Where they really blow it is when they give Plummer credit for his 19th comeback victory twice in two different seasons (2002 and 2004). Fancy that with both coming against Carolina, but they are two different games set over two years apart.

What does it show? When he was with Arizona, Denver refused to consider the difference between a comeback and a GWD, and just called them all comebacks. When he joined the team, they tried to get cute with “pure” comebacks, but outsmarted themselves when it came time to keep track of the stuff.

The 10/10/2004 game against Carolina was not Plummer’s 19th comeback. It was his 17th. Even if we get dumb about it and count the 2002 Seattle game, then that’s 18, which still comes up one short.

In 2005, Plummer had a comeback (9/18/2005 vs. San Diego) and two game-winning drives, though nothing specifically mentions them.

If the 10/10/2004 Carolina game was the 19th “pure” comeback of Plummer’s career, and he had 21 through 2005, then that means Denver is counting either the 12/12/2004 game against Miami or 11/24/2005 game in Dallas as a “pure” comeback, despite the fact Denver never trailed in the fourth quarter either time.

That would explain the bogus 21 comebacks at the beginning of 2006. However, that means there was another change when Plummer actually did have a comeback in Week 2 over Kansas City, but the number remained at 21 comebacks. Game-winning drives went up to 29.

Sticking with 2006, after a game-winning drive over Baltimore, the Broncos now went with 22 comebacks and 30 game-winning drives.

Even though the graphic clearly states the teams were only tied 3-3 in the fourth quarter, they add one to Plummer’s comeback total. The 0-point “deficit” is a popular thing for the Broncos.

And that is one of the core factors in how they were able to fabricate a record for John Elway, and get away with it all these years. If they can’t even handle a few Jake Plummer games from the digital media era, then it’s no wonder they had such ridiculous numbers for Dan Marino the 1990s.

That is why pure ignorance like the following from the Denver Post in 1996 has been allowed to exist: “Despite what you’ve heard and saw again Monday night, Elway is the NFL’s king of comebacks, not Dan Marino. Elway has 41, Marino has 32.”

Why is this so hard for people? In the words of Denver’s own PR man Jim Saccomano from a 1996 Denver Post article:

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you’re either ahead or behind and you either won or you didn’t.

Nope, it doesn’t take a genius. It takes Captain Comeback. It takes someone willing to put in the effort and call out a team when they are indisputably wrong.

From the confines of my home, I have done my part to rewrite NFL history. My history does not stand for one team winning the semantics battle to falsify a record to make their Hall of Fame quarterback look better.

For once, I feel very optimistic about this 2012 season, and the next chapter in the crusade over comeback conspiracy. The darkest days are behind us. The hardest work has been finished. Now we wait for new history to unfold, and put the past behind us.

Pass the link, and spread the truth my friends.