Inside the Numbers analyzes NFL statistics, trends, and noteworthy performance each week, providing insight into the league’s unfolding stories.
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For many NFL teams, falling behind by double digits often spells disaster. However, for Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, such situations seem to fuel their fire.
In a recent matchup against the Denver Broncos, Mahomes and the Chiefs clawed back from a 14-3 deficit to secure a 16-14 victory, marking their ninth consecutive win and their second comeback from at least ten points this season, the first occurring in Week 4 against the Chargers.
With Mahomes at the helm, the Chiefs have a 19-14 record when trailing by ten or more points during both regular season games and playoffs, achieving an impressive win rate of .576 in these challenging circumstances. By comparison, the NFL overall has a historic win average of just .139 in such scenarios, with Mahomes’ performance since entering the league in 2017 yielding a .160 win percentage for those in similar situations.
No other quarterback who has experienced at least 20 double-digit deficits can claim a win rate above 40%; Tom Brady and Joe Montana follow with win percentages of .378 and .370 respectively. In fact, the chances of winning a game after falling behind by 10 points are greater for Mahomes than for other prominent quarterbacks, including Hall of Famers Dan Fouts (.503), Joe Namath (.500), Warren Moon (.493), former MVP Matt Ryan (.527), and two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning (.508).
A crucial blocked field goal helped wrap up the victory, extending the Chiefs’ winning streak to 15 games across regular and playoff seasons, a record not seen in the NFL since the Green Bay Packers’ 19-game win streak from 2010-11. As of now, Kansas City joins the league’s elite as the fifth defending Super Bowl champion to achieve a flawless 9-0 start to the following season. A win against the Buffalo Bills could see the Chiefs push their start to 10-0, which would only fall short of records held by the 2011 Packers (13-0) and the 1998 Broncos (13-0) for the most consecutive victories at the start of a season for a defending champion.
Meanwhile, the New York Jets and Giants both faced losses in their recent games, a trend that has become all too familiar for the teams representing New York.
This latest defeat marks the fourth occurrence in five weeks that the two franchises, each having struggled considerably over the last eight seasons, have both come up short. The Jets now stand as the NFL team with the most losses since 2017, tallying 86 losses—one more than the Giants.
Since the inception of the 2017 season, the Jets and Giants have both played during 116 weeks, with both teams suffering defeats in 59 of those weeks, in stark contrast to just 12 weeks where they emerged victorious together. The struggles of both teams stem primarily from underwhelming performances; for the Giants, it’s the stagnation of their 2019 first-round draft choice quarterback Daniel Jones. For the Jets, the spotlight falls on veteran quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who has failed to deliver since suffering an Achilles injury early in the season.
At 40 years old, Rodgers seems far removed from his MVP-winning form in Green Bay during 2020-21. Missing nearly all of his first season in New York due to injury, his ability to ignite the Jets’ offense this year has been minimal. Astonishingly, New York has failed to score an offensive touchdown in two of Rodgers’ last seven games—an unusual statistic considering he had just one such occurrence during his previous 239 regular-season and playoff starts.
Rodgers has now tied a record for the third-longest streak in two decades, having gone 33 straight starts in which he has failed to pass for 300 yards. The only players surpassing him in this category are David Garrard and Alex Smith, logging streaks of 39 and 35, respectively.
Meanwhile, Jones’ plight is equally dire, having gone without a touchdown pass in six out of ten games this season, joining Mike Glennon (2021) as the only quarterbacks for the Giants in the past 20 seasons with multiple games where they threw two interceptions without scoring.
In pursuit of history, Ja’Marr Chase has made headlines with his extraordinary performance against the Baltimore Ravens.
Chase amassed a staggering total of 457 yards in just two games against this opponent, breaking the previous record held by Art Powell, who recorded 428 yards during his encounters with the Houston team back in 1963. In fact, Chase becomes the first player in NFL history to achieve two games with at least 250 receiving yards and two touchdowns, having achieved this feat against Kansas City back in Week 17 of the 2021 season.
Despite his remarkable individual success, the Bengals were unable to secure victories in either matchup due to the prowess of Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who tallied a total of eight touchdown passes across these two games.
Combining for an astounding 148 points, the two teams accrued 1,541 yards passing and 17 touchdown passes throughout these games. This marks one of the highest-scoring season series in NFL history, tied for the most touchdown passes recorded between two teams in a single season series, with only Washington and New York Giants’ series in 1962 surpassing them.
On a positive note, Jim Harbaugh once again displayed his knack for being a coaching turnaround specialist with the Los Angeles Chargers.
With a commanding 27-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans, the Chargers moved to 6-3 on the season, surpassing their win total from last year and giving Harbaugh his 50th career regular-season victory.
Achieving this milestone in just 73 games places Harbaugh among a select group, with only six coaches since the merger reaching the 50-win mark faster. Interestingly, Harbaugh’s brother, John, achieved this feat in 72 games while coaching in Baltimore. The record for the quickest to 50 wins in the Super Bowl era remains with George Seifert, who led the 49ers to a 50-win milestone in his first 62 contests.
Historically, Harbaugh’s ability to effect meaningful change has been well-documented; he improved the win counts of San Francisco by seven in his debut season and enhanced Stanford’s performance in his first season there as well, along with a notable five-win jump in his first year at Michigan.
The greater part of the Chargers’ recent success can be attributed to a resilient defense, which is now the ninth team in Super Bowl history to restrict its opponents to 20 or fewer points in each of the first nine games of a season. They join an elite group, alongside the 2013 Chiefs, 1999 Jaguars, and the 1990 Super Bowl champion Giants.
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