Games with deceptive final scores

[conace21]

1964 Oilers at Buffalo with George Blanda completing 37 of 68 passes for 393 yards. This was a record in attempts and completion that lasted 20 years.
Final Bills 24 Oilers 10.

1977 Vikings at Packers. Walter Peyton gain 275 yards for an NFL game record. Minnesota's only score was on a blocked punt. Viks had for ball for just 23 minutes. Final Bears 10 Packers 7.

Amazing how Walter Payton gained 275 yards in a Vikings-Packers game, when he never played for either team.

[conace21]

While not in these categories, I also find interesting when a team having a big lead insert their backups late in the game, and they keep scoring.

One game that I remember was the 1981 Cowboys-Colts game at Baltimore. In that game both Glenn Carano and David Humm made the only start of their careers at quarterback. Late in the game. with the Cowboys having a 30-13 lead, they put James Jones instead of Tony Dorsett to run out the clock, and Jones scored on a 59-yard TD run (by far the longest run of his career and also his only rushing TD).

A couple other examples

2017: Saints are up 37-3 on Buffalo in the 4th quarter when they start giving 3rd string RB Trey Edmunds the ball for his first NFL carries. They kick a FG, and on their next possession, Edmunds breaks away for 41 yards, the only score of his NFL career.

1999: The Jaguars give Jimmy Johnson and Dan Marino an inglorious end to their careers with a 62-7 win. Jacksonville pulled starting quarterback Mark Brunell with 13 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, up 38-0. Backup Jay Fiedler threw a pair of touchdown passes. 3rd string RB Chris Howard had 15 carries in the last 15:31 of play, and scored the final Jaguars touchdown.

[Brian wolf]

Too bad the 1999 Jag-offs had nothing for the Titans! ... haha

[CSKreager]

Speaking of the Jags:

1996 AFC-CG

The score was 20-6, but JAX twice had a chance to tie the game

They were driving to make it a 13-13 game with 4 minutes left until a Brunell endzone INT

Then they had another chance and got to around midfield until a fumble was returned for a touchdown with under 3 minutes left

So they had 2 realistic chances to tie the game despite a 14 point final margin

[CSKreager]

Too bad the 1999 Jag-offs had nothing for the Titans! ... haha

One of the worst SB teams ever. TEN was a smoke and mirrors 13-3 team with a weak schedule and nonexistent passing game. They were basically the Eddie George/Jevon Kearse show

[conace21]

Too bad the 1999 Jag-offs had nothing for the Titans! ... haha

One of the worst SB teams ever. TEN was a smoke and mirrors 13-3 team with a weak schedule and nonexistent passing game. They were basically the Eddie George/Jevon Kearse show

Pretty harsh assessment, and also pretty unfair (except for the part about the nonexistent passing game.) Tennessee did win 6 games against teams that went 5-11 or worse (Falcons, Saints, Bengals 2x, Browns 2x.)

But on the other hand, there were 5 other teams that went 11-5 or better that year: Buffalo, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Jacksonville, and Tampa Bay. The Titans went 6-1 against them. (3-0 in the regular season, and 3-1 in the playoffs.) That's pretty darn good

[Brian wolf]

In fairness to the 1999 Titans, yes, their passing game was nothing to write home about but this was a very tough team.
McNair didnt have a decent wide receiver until Derrick Mason emerged, which started with his plays in this postseason, but McNair liked to throw to Wycheck at tight end anyway. Once they had their "Miracle" playoff win against the Bills--the team admitted they played too tight--they settled down with easy wins over the Colts and Jaguars. They just couldnt complete their comeback against St Louis.

[ShinobiMusashi]

1999 is such an oddball season and I've always been obsessed with it. With the talk of that 99 Titans team being overrated and pointing out their weaknesses despite 13-3, I've always been super critical of that 99 Rams team that beat them and how they played one of the easiest schedules of any Super Bowl team. Then look at the schedule the Jaguars played that year, even bigger cake walk with them losing all 3 of the games they played against legit competition(all 3 just happen to be against the same team).

Is there a case that the quality of competition was way down in the NFL in 1999? One of the most wide open seasons in NFL recent history? We are talking about the 99 Titans not being all that great but I've always felt like the 1999 Rams weren't all that great. I feel like the 2001 Rams were legit, and way better. But the 1999 team I feel was a 10-6 or 11-5 team had you taken them back in time to 97 or 98 NFL. Also feel like the Seifert Panthers of 1999 was coming up on them if not for the blizzard in Pittsburgh that cost them that game could have been bad news for St. Louis in those playoffs. That offense had really caught on and Beuerlien was red hot. Then look at how the Panthers swept St. Louis the next season in 2000. I don't believe St. Louis beats that Panther team 3 times in 1999 and that blizzard saved their championship.

[CSKreager]

1999 is such an oddball season and I've always been obsessed with it. With the talk of that 99 Titans team being overrated and pointing out their weaknesses despite 13-3, I've always been super critical of that 99 Rams team that beat them and how they played one of the easiest schedules of any Super Bowl team. Then look at the schedule the Jaguars played that year, even bigger cake walk with them losing all 3 of the games they played against legit competition(all 3 just happen to be against the same team).

Is there a case that the quality of competition was way down in the NFL in 1999? One of the most wide open seasons in NFL recent history? We are talking about the 99 Titans not being all that great but I've always felt like the 1999 Rams weren't all that great. I feel like the 2001 Rams were legit, and way better. But the 1999 team I feel was a 10-6 or 11-5 team had you taken them back in time to 97 or 98 NFL. Also feel like the Seifert Panthers of 1999 was coming up on them if not for the blizzard in Pittsburgh that cost them that game could have been bad news for St. Louis in those playoffs. That offense had really caught on and Beuerlien was red hot. Then look at how the Panthers swept St. Louis the next season in 2000. I don't believe St. Louis beats that Panther team 3 times in 1999 and that blizzard saved their championship.

Had Carolina got in, are we sure they even win their first playoff game? They would have had to beat Minnesota or Washington (who had already came back from a 20 point deficit in week 4)

[SeahawkFever]

1999 is such an oddball season and I've always been obsessed with it. With the talk of that 99 Titans team being overrated and pointing out their weaknesses despite 13-3, I've always been super critical of that 99 Rams team that beat them and how they played one of the easiest schedules of any Super Bowl team. Then look at the schedule the Jaguars played that year, even bigger cake walk with them losing all 3 of the games they played against legit competition(all 3 just happen to be against the same team).

Is there a case that the quality of competition was way down in the NFL in 1999? One of the most wide open seasons in NFL recent history? We are talking about the 99 Titans not being all that great but I've always felt like the 1999 Rams weren't all that great. I feel like the 2001 Rams were legit, and way better. But the 1999 team I feel was a 10-6 or 11-5 team had you taken them back in time to 97 or 98 NFL. Also feel like the Seifert Panthers of 1999 was coming up on them if not for the blizzard in Pittsburgh that cost them that game could have been bad news for St. Louis in those playoffs. That offense had really caught on and Beuerlien was red hot. Then look at how the Panthers swept St. Louis the next season in 2000. I don't believe St. Louis beats that Panther team 3 times in 1999 and that blizzard saved their championship.

The thing I notice about 1999 is that the teams are very bunched up as a group. 13 of the 31 teams were 7-9, 8-8, or 9-7 with a further six teams at 6-10 or 10-6.

It’s the anti-1975 in that sense (look at how many teams won or lost 10+ games in that 14 game season.

As for the 1999 Rams, really good team; especially the offense of course, but they had the privilege of not only playing the easiest schedule of any Super Bowl champion, but by opposing win percentage they played the second easiest schedule by opposing win percentage of any team in the NFL, AFL or AAFC since 1929 with the 1975 Vikings being the only easier schedule (before 1936 of which not every team played schedules of the same length if I’m not mistaken).

That opponent win percentage being .332.

I’ve seen people here mention how the 90’s Niners or 91 Skins played easier schedules. Well those teams have nothing on what the 99 Rams had the privilege of playing (at least as far as regular seasons go).

For reference the lowest 90’s Niner team is 1990 who had an opposing win percentage of .446, and the 91 Skins had a schedule of .504. Statistically their schedules would be on a different percentile, perhaps closer to the bottom, but not as easy as the 99 Rams regardless.