MASTERS OF DISASTER- The Pick-Six Gods

MASTERS OF DISASTER

or "Just Throw it Up There, Someone Will Score"

  

What do Blake Bortles, Brett Favre, Matt Schaub and the Manning brothers have in common?  They all make a great tuna mac.  No, wait:  They've all shown savvy ability to throw the Pick-Six. 

Ah, the Pick-six:  the most efficient Doormat play an offense can run. Less risky than allowing a punt return for a TD (too much can go wrong). Often overlooked in a quarterback's statistics, here at the Doormat Division we take this tally with all due seriousity.

Brett Favre, dangerously confident hero of the frozen north, is the all-time pick-six leader with a seemingly insurmountable 31- 186 magnificent points for the other team. However, Brett, our NFL interceptions leader at 336, took 19 seasons to get those lofty totals.  

Over in Jacksonville, though, Jaguar Blake Bortles (who inspired this article), has been in the league only 3 years, and already has 11. Should he bamboozle someone into letting him start for 6 more years, he'll have 33 in only 9 seasons. Now that's working it. Blake has thrown 3 pick-sixes in the last 4 games. He's on fire. I'll bet Charles Woodson wants to come out of retirement for whoever is playing the Jags next- he's only 1 pick-six score behind Rod Woodson, the career leader with 12 (this stat is not helping us keep straight which Woodson is which). 

If Bortles keeps this up, he gets to grab a clipboard and be a back-up for the rest of his career, like the illustrious Matt Schaub.  

For one season,  Peyton Manning has the record with 6 (2001) before he stopped trying to squeeze passes through 4 defenders. After that, it was only 3. 

Tied with Peyton is, of course, the Chicago Bear's Rudy Bukich in 1966. But you knew that. Rudy, a 12 year back-up, got handed the job with the Bears in '65, beating out the gassed Billy Wade, who was two years Bukich's senior at 35. Both of them came up with the Rams, with Wade a #1 pick. The Bears went 9-5, but Bukich was mostly handing the ball to Gale Sayers.  The next year, though, Rudy got his chance- 21 interceptions against 10 TDs. Sadly, no pick-six data for that year.  

For one game, it's Peyton's long-bomb brother Eli (and slew of others) with 3.

For one QUARTER, it's the legendary Ed Baker (3). Baker's moment of glory was his only start for the Houston Oilers in 1972. He went 4 for 10, with four interceptions, so he spread it around, however telegraphed they may have been. He was a Doormat machine. It is notable that the Oilers won the Moldy Carpet that year, going 1-13.

Most consecutive games with a Pick-Six:  4, Matt Schaub, 2013 (Houston Texans). Seems like only 100 years ago when Schaub was considered one of the best in the league and went to the Pro Bowl twice (amassing a whopping -9 yards at Aloha Stadium, showcasing his 2012 talents admirably).  Then the wheels came off: in 2013 Schaub threw 14 interceptions to a measly 10 touchdowns, and ran off the 4 straight games with a pick-six, thus ending his career as a starter (giving way to budding Doormat pro Case Keenum). With his Pick-Six reputation at it's most shining, Matt landed the back-up job with the still-struggling Oakland Raiders in 2014, leading to perhaps his greatest Doormat moment, in the infamous game vs. the St. Louis Rams.  Entering the game at a Doormat Division leading 1-11, the Raiders hit rock bottom in this one, somehow ultimately losing 52-0.  It was the second worst defeat worst game in Raiders history, though possibly the worst game.  [Read our inspired wrap-up:  http://doormatdivision.blogspot.com/2014/12/doormat-week-13-raiders-take-charge.html  ]

Raider rookie Derek Carr was getting shellacked, and, throwing in the towel, interim coach Tony Sparano (who had replaced Dennis Allen in game 5) told Schaub to put on a helmet and do something.

Wasting no time, Schaub responded by throwing his first pass for a pick six. When you aren't getting many opportunities any more, you gotta pad your stats.  Throwing only 9 passes, Matt also fit in 3 sacks and 2 fumbles.  The Silver and Blacked out finished the season 4-12- ironically being beaten out for the Moldy Carpet by the Houston Texans, who went 2-14.  

Schaub is now plying his clipboard trade for the Atlanta Falcons, the team that originally drafted him.  Falcon fans pray every morning, over their beer and cornflakes, that Matt Ryan plays every single down.  

The Pick Six: a chance at immortality for the man willing to take chances.

-wacko

NFL WEEK 6: AFC Those Potholes are Really Canyons

IT'S WEEK 6!!!!!!!!

Let's have a visit with our Loss Leaders, and view the rough road ahead.   Today, the AFC

AFC

CLEVELAND BROWNS  (0-5)

Can the Brownies keep losing every week?  They have done something few 'losing culture' teams do- they've flipped the method.  Instead of decent defense and zero offense, they've gone with atrocious defense and wide-open, error-prone offense.   It's impressive.  The only team left with a perfect record, the Brownies are holding a bake-sale this Sunday against the always schizoid Cincinnati Bungles, who are coming off their worst game of the year, losing to the Floppers.   Brownies nearly pulled off a comeback in the first game against the Bungles, and Brandon Weeden had his best game of the year.   652 Tickets still available for you masochists out there.

LOOKING AHEAD down the Pothole Highway:    

Colts (L),  

Chargers (L), 

Ravens (L), 

Dallas (w), 

 Steelers (L), 

Raydurz (?),  

Cheaps (w),  

Redskins (L),  

Broncos (L), 

 Steelers (L)

Predicted Finish:   3-13  somehow, they'll get 3.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS  (1-4)

Like a lot of our leaders this week, the Gaguars have the week off and Blaine Gabbert is busy studying the HOW TO THROW A TD PASS TO  YOUR OWN TEAM booklet.  It was discovered he'd been reading HOW TO THROW A TD PASS TO THE OTHER TEAM (by Brett Favre $9.95 on Amazon), which explains why he threw 2 of them last week.   Now that that has been cleared up, the Gags can look forward to this:   Organized, institutional losing.

down the Pothole Highway:  

 RAIDERS (L)- gonna be tough to blow this one.  Gags will have to really hunker down and make Carson Palmer look like a 'franchise' player instead of the guy who took most of the Bunglonian Fog with him when he left Cincinnati.   If they concentrate on getting the Raiders running game going, they got it.

GREEN BAY (L)- only the Gags can make the Packers look like world champs again, and they'll be up for it.

DETROIT (L) - the reeling fur balls from Purr City get to make like...Lions.

COLTS  (L)-  Andrew Luck has figured it out.  The Gaguars have too.

TEXANS (L)-  right about here all the air will be gone

TITANS (?)-  Nov. 25th This game will be huge in the doormat, where the Gags and Titanics will duke it out for first place in the AFC, as Cleveland will have at least 1 win by this time.

Then, the murderer's row:  

BUFFALO, NY JETS AND MIAMI.   Can they lose to all of them?  What an accomplishment if they do.  The Nils, Jets and Flops couldn't pull it off.  

NEW ENGLAND (L)

TITANICS:  final game of the year for all the marbles in the Doormat AFC

PREDICTED FINISH: 2-14

TENNESSEE TITANICS  1-4

The surprise team of the Doormat in the AFC this year, the Titanics are giving up 36.2 points a game, narrowly edging Beefalo.   Buffalo.  Sorry.  And now they roll out Matt Hasselbeck for an encore performance tonight against the Steelers.  The Steelers are no piece of cake for the loss-  despite the Titanics anemic running game, the Steelers boast an anemic rush defense and if you have a poor defense against the rush then I don't recommend putting a paper bag over your head and having a buddy supercharge it with a massive hit of mind-bending smoke.   

Where were we? 1973? The Steelers lost to the Raiders, for God sake, and made their running game look great (Darren McFadden is a great RB, but the blocking 'schemes' are something you'd see out of Mr. Bean or My Name is Earl).   If the Titanics can lose tonight, they are on their way.  But just like the Jags, they have to contend with the BILLS, JETS, DOLPHINS trifecta.

Down the Pothole Road:

BUFFALO (L)  a million points in this one?  Can the Titans accept the largesse?

COLTS (L)

BEARS (L)  

DOLPHINS (?)

GAGS (?)

TEXANS (L)

COLTS (?)

JETS (L)

PACKERS (L)

GAGUARS-   as above, potential AFC Championship game

PREDICTED FINISH  3-13

KANAS CITY CHIEFS (1-4)

We've certainly got parity in the Doormat- we've got EIGHT teams with one win.  SOMEBODY has to win a second game, and the Cheaps are up against it with the Buccaneers (1-3) this weekend.  Doormat legend Brady Quinn steps onto the gridiron to start a game for the first time in three years, as Matt Cassell sits this one out, still woozy from his concussion and ringing in his ears from the fans cheering like crazy when they realized he was not getting up.   The Cheaps defense is helping immensely, though, to insure losses, and I think they should make it through this one.  Barely.  The Bucs are may be chopped liver, but the Cheaps are toast.  I actually think Quinn will play better than Cassell just long enough to bring it down to a field goal.  Cheaps still horrible in the red zone.

Down the Pothole Road:

BYE (W)

RAIDERS (??)

CHARGERS (L)

STEELERS (L)

BENGALS (L)

BRONCOS (L)

PANTHERS (W)

BROWNIES (L)

RAIDERS (??)

COLTS (?)

BRONCOS (L)

PREDICTED FINISH 4-12

OAKLAND RAYDURZZZZ  (1-4)

The perennial under-achievers of the AFC West, the Raydurz are way under .500 and haven't played well ever since Jason Campbell was unceremoniously thrown to the bench and under the team bus after Carson Palmer arrived.  Campbell may not have been Andrew Luck, but he had figured out how to play smart and they were winning games they should win.  Palmer has no idea. He has an arm. They are not even close to playing smart with Palmer at the helm, but you can never, EVER blame losing on a player when it comes to the Raider way.  It appears to not matter that Al Davis is dead.  Amazingly, it's IRRELEVANT.  This kind of losing is done by coaching it.  I've heard that Darren McFadden is the most exciting RB in football so many times that I just sit and stare at my blacked-out TV and listen to Greg Papa on the radio tell me he's been stuffed for a 1-yard gain.  Nice blocking, guys.  Also, the Raiders fired their entire defensive secondary and replaced it with guys who are no better (and yes some injuries), and maybe worse.  

Lucky for the Silver-and-Blacked Out, they had the week off, so a real team can win a game at the Oakand Coliseum (the A's!!), but now they get to LOSE an easy one to the Falcons.  However, their schedule contains the cream of the Doormat and it's going to be hard to lose them all and take the MOLDY CARPET.  

Down the Pothole Highway:

FALCONS  (L-L-L)

GAGUARS (w)

CHIEFS  (?)

TAMPA (L)

BALTIMORE (L)

SAINTS (L)

BENGALS (L)

BROWNIES (?)

BRONCOS (L)

CHIEFS (?)

PANTHERS (W)

CHARGERS (L)

PREDICTED FINISH 5-11

aaaAAAND THAT'S THE VIEW FROM THE BASEMENT!!