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NFL football over numbers
The NFL managed to play 16 games in Week 1 without two of them finishing with the same margin of victory, which apparently had never happened before in league history. Detroit won by one, Jacksonville won by 24, and every number in between that actually appeared belonged to exactly one game.
Kansas City completed the statistical masterpiece Monday night by beating Denver 31-10, producing the one 21-point margin the weekend still needed. As Yahoo Sports details, the first 15 games had already produced 15 different margins, tying the previous NFL record before the Chiefs pushed the total to 16.
Week 1 Somehow Avoided A Duplicate For 16 Straight Games
The final list looks less like football results and more like someone randomly selecting numbers from a bag.
The margins were 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22 and 24 points.
Detroit supplied the smallest margin by beating New Orleans 31-30. Philadelphia won by two. Seattle won by three. Buffalo won by five. Cincinnati won by six. Pittsburgh won by seven. The Giants won by eight.
Then things started spreading out.
Arizona beat the Chargers by 12, the Jets beat Tennessee by 13, Las Vegas beat Miami by 14, and Minnesota beat Green Bay by 17. Baltimore added an 18-point victory before San Francisco, Kansas City, Chicago and Jacksonville occupied four different spots in the 20s.
The Jaguars’ 34-10 demolition of Cleveland created the largest margin at 24.
The previous record came only last season, when Week 7 featured 15 games decided by 15 different margins. That was already statistically ridiculous.
The NFL then added a 16th game to the trick on the very next opportunity.
Andy Reid Nearly Ruined The Entire Thing With A Field Goal
The best part is that the record remained alive because Kansas City did not score again.
With roughly 40 seconds left Monday night, the Chiefs faced fourth down at Denver’s 17-yard line while leading 31-10.
A field goal would have made the final score 34-10, which would have matched the difference in Jacksonville’s game against Cleveland.
Instead of kicking, Andy Reid had Patrick Mahomes kneel and end the game.
There is no indication Reid was protecting one of the dumbest and most beautiful statistical accomplishments in NFL history, but that is exactly what his decision did.
This is the kind of record nobody could realistically plan for, and probably nobody inside an NFL building cared about while the games were actually happening. It required close games, blowouts, and everything in between to land on different numbers for an entire opening week.