The Win Column: Weird stats from a dumb game
Hello again, friends, and congratulations. We’ve just about made it through Unsettling Political Ads During Sports Broadcasts season!
Your reward: Reliving the Falcons’ most impressively unimpressive performance yet.
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There are no normal Falcons games. You know this.
Yet every once in a while, a contest comes along that is so intrinsically odd, so breathtakingly bizarre, so utterly … Falcon-y that even the hardest-hearted Atlanta fan has to stand up and salute.
Sunday’s rain-soaked 16-0 loss at Tampa Bay was that game.
0: That’s how many passes Tampa quarterback Baker Mayfield completed. Zero. No team had done that and won since 1974. No team had done that and won by double digits since 1945, per ESPN/NFL research.
The third and final pass Mayfield even attempted came about 90 seconds into the second half.
4: Interceptions thrown by Falcons quarterback Michael Penix — one for every six pass attempts on the day. He’d previously thrown just one pick on the season, and that was in his debut against Green Bay more than a month ago.
The Falcons offense also failed to convert a single third down, going 0-for-12.
“It’s tough,” Penix told reporters afterward. “I had a lot of family in the stands, so for them to see that performance — a performance I have never had in my life — it kind of sucked. But we’re going to shake back.”
324: Total rushing yards for Tampa Bay, its highest single-game total ever. It also included career highs for Bucky Irving (170 yards) and Kenneth Gainwell (140), who became just the second pair of Buccaneers to both rush for 100-plus in the same game. The other: Warrick Dunn and Mike Alstott.
The Falcons, by the way, entered the game with the NFL’s fourth-best rush defense … but Jessie Bates III’s touchdown-saving “peanut punch” in the first quarter may have been the day’s only defensive bright spot.
“That was probably the craziest game I’ve ever been a part of, (at least) in the first half,” Bates said.
Sounds about right.
And guess what? The Falcons get the Bengals in Madrid on Sunday — with pass rusher James Pearce Jr. expected to return from suspension.
Feels like the recipe for another totally normal week.
SO WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING THIS WEEK?
⚾ MLB’s initial free agency quiet period ends at 5 p.m. today. If the Braves want to extend one-year qualifying offers to guys like Mauricio Dubón, Raisel Iglesias and Tyler Mahle, that’s the deadline. (But qualifying offers are set at $23.15 million so, uh, maybe not.)
- Also: Congrats to Dubón and first baseman Matt Olson, who won Gold Gloves on Sunday night.
📺 The season’s first College Football Playoff rankings show at 7 p.m. Tuesday on ESPN. AJC/DawgNation’s Mike Griffith offers his best guesses for where the committee will land.
- There’s also an incredible Saturday of college football on tap; more on that momentarily.
👋 Hawks rookie Kingston Flemings is suspended for tonight’s game at the Pacers (7:30 p.m., Atlanta News First) after an elbow-related incident over the weekend. After that, Atlanta plays consecutive games against Trae Young and the Wizards — Wednesday in Washington and Friday in Atlanta.
🏀 College basketball’s back! The Georgia men host North Carolina Central tonight, right after the Bulldog women welcome West Georgia.
- The Georgia Tech women got things underway this morning (yup, 10:30 a.m. tip time) with Hofstra. Scott Cross and the men start Tuesday night against Hampton.
🚨 The final week of the high school football regular season is upon us, with 29 teams already locking up region titles. They include Conyers’ Heritage, whose shocking turnaround under first-year coach Quincy Carter (yeah, that one) makes for one heckuva story.
- That’s today’s gift link. It’s by Ken Sugiura, and it’s very good.
⚽ Atlanta United wrapped up its home slate with a Sunday night win over Toronto. Their otherwise dreadful season ends Saturday at New York Red Bulls.
MORE WILD CFB ACTION ON TAP
Winner winner, Wildcat dinner: Our Oregon-Northwestern selection — the inaugural Win Column Upset Pick of the Week — was a good one. The beleaguered Ducks got off the deck to defeat the country’s then-20th-ranked team.
Well done.
We’ve got one heckuva slate to choose from this week, and it goes beyond No. 2 Georgia’s big matchup at No. 12 Ole Miss (in which the Bulldogs opened as 3.5-point favorites).
The schedule is so stacked, in fact, that I’m gonna make you pick one of the ranked matchups:
- No. 7 BYU at No. 3 Utah (noon, ABC)
- No. 10 Texas and No. 19 Missouri (noon, ESPN)
- No. 9 Alabama at No. 15 LSU (3:30 p.m., ABC)
- No. 8 Kentucky at No. 16 Tennessee (6:15 p.m., ESPN)
- No. 1 Miami at No. 4 Notre Dame (7:30 p.m., NBC)
- No. 2 Georgia at No. 12 Ole Miss (7:30 p.m., ABC)
Check out the fancy form or shoot me an email to weigh in on this week’s upset pick. (I’d personally lean toward Mizzou finishing off the Longhorns’ playoff hopes at home, but you do you.)
🔗 Bonus CFB linkage: Does Georgia Tech do anything well?; Son of a Southern legend forges own path
REQUIEM FOR THE DREAM
The Dream lost Game 7.
Golden State’s defense made things very hard for Atlanta again, and Gabby Williams took over in the second half, leaving our fair city’s professional championship count at three (two Braves, one United).
“We’ve got to go back and figure out how we can make our offense more efficient,” head coach Karl Smesko said, “and be in a situation even when you go against a great defense, we can kind of dictate the shots that we want a little better than we did consistently in this series.”
Yup. But the future remains plenty bright.
In fact, columnist Michael Cunningham thinks there’s a pretty good chance Atlanta’s back in the Finals ASAP.
- From his Weekend Reflections: “Six of the seven Dream players who logged the most minutes in the playoffs are under contract for next season. The exception is veteran DeWanna Bonner, who signed with the Dream in August after securing a buyout from Phoenix.”
And not to be all Pollyanna about it, but the city showed up and showed out for the team over and over again. As Official Friend of the Win Column Gavin Godfrey writes, that counts for something:
- “Everyone has something to say about Atlanta — fandom, culture, our big-city chops — but this WNBA Finals run showed we are a team and city comfortable speaking for ourselves.”
Well done, y’all. And next season?
NEXT SEASON IT’S OURS
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of the Win Column. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact me at tyler.estep@ajc.com.
Until next time.