Roob's Eagles Stats: The craziest blocked field goal stats ever assembled
Roob's Eagles Stats: The craziest blocked field goal stats ever assembled originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
In this week's Roob's Eagles Stats, we've got more blocked field goal stats than have ever been assembled in one place in the history of blocked field goal stats. We think. Probably.Yeah, let's go with that.
We'll also take a look at some historic streaks that the Eagles are riding, an amazing A.J. Brown stat and where Sunday's comeback ranks in franchise history.
If you're looking for Jalen Hurts stats, they're all in a separate post here.
It's a heck of a week for stats!
1. Maybe it happened before. If it did, nobody knows about it and nobody ever will. Because some stats just can't be looked up. They don't exist. Has any team in NFL history ever blocked two field goal attempts in a fourth quarter? Here's what we know. It hasn't happened since at least 1978. The Eagles on Sunday became the first team as far back as available records go to block two field goals in a fourth quarter. Unfortunately, there are no play-by-plays from games before the early 1980s, so it's literally impossible to research non-scoring plays in the early years of the NFL. The data was never kept. We can be sure that the Eagles became the first team to block two kicks in the same quarter in 25 years, since Mike Vanderjagt of the Colts had field goal attempts of 46 and 25 yards blocked in the first quarter of a 38-17 loss to the Patriots at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. Last time the Eagles blocked two field goals in the same game was exactly 50 years before Sunday's game - Sept. 21, 1975, vs. the Giants at the Vet. Bill Bergey blocked 36- and 39-yard field goal attempts by George Hunt. Bergey also blocked a PAT in that game, which the Giants won 23-14.
2A. Jordan Davis's 61-yard walk-off blocked field goal return touchdown was the second-longest ever by a defensive tackle and longest in 59 years. On Nov. 13, 1966, Jim Dunaway of the Bills blocked a 38-yard field goal attempt by Jim Turner of the Jets and returned it 72 yards for a touchdown in a 14-3 win at War Memorial Stadium in downtown Buffalo. According to a story in the Nov. 14, 1966 Buffalo News, Dunaway was 285 pounds at that time. Davis is 330. Davis's 61-yarder was the longest touchdown return of any kind by an interior lineman since Linval Joseph of the Vikings had a 64-yard return of a Carson Wentz fumble in 2018. Joseph later joined the Eagles and Wentz later joined the Vikings. Davis's return was the longest of any kind by an Eagles interior lineman in 19 years, since Mike Patterson scooped up a Frank Gore fumble at the Eagles' 2-yard-line and returned it 98 yards for a TD in the Eagles' 38-24 win over the 49ers at Monster Park in San Francisco in September 2006 (that's what Candlestick was re-named for about a week in 2006). That remains the longest return of any kind in NFL history by an interior lineman.
2B. The only previous walk-off blocked field goal on record happened in 1996 at the Kingdome in Seattle. The Oilers led the Seahawks 16-9 late in the fourth quarter when the Seahawks tied it at 16-all on John Friesz's 14-yard touchdown pass to Joey Galloway with 3:30 left. The Oilers drove down to Seattle's 20-yard line as time wound down and Al Del Greco lined up for the game-winning field goal with 16 seconds left. But defensive end Michael McCrary blocked the kick and recovered it at the Seattle 32-yard-line. He ran seven yards to the 39 and lateraled to safety Robert Blackmon, who ran the final 61 yards for the game-winning touchdown. The big difference there was that the Seahawks needed the touchdown. The Eagles didn't. And there were four seconds left, so it wasn't technically a walk-off? But close enough. We'll claim it.
3. The Eagles have now won 12 straight home games, their longest home winning streak in 76 years. From 1947 through 1949, they won 14 consecutive home games at Shibe Park. Their 12-game streak is tied with the Bills' 12-game home winning streak for longest currently in the NFL. The last longer streak was the Cowboys' 16-game home winning streak over the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
4A. The win over the Rams was the Eagles' ninth straight, just one shy of the franchise record of 10 set last year. The loss to Washington that ended that streak is also their last loss before the current streak. The Eagles have had nine winning streaks of at least eight games, and Nick Sirianni has been the coach for three of them.
4B. The Eagles are only the third team in NFL history to start two separate winning streaks of at least nine games in the same year. Their 10-game winning streak started in Week 6 last year with a win over the Browns, and their current nine-game streak started in Week 17 with a win over the Cowboys. The Bears started two 12-game streaks in 1985 and the Colts started streaks of nine and 12 games during the 2006 season.
4C. The Eagles are 19-1 in 20 games since the 10-game streak began. The only team in NFL history with a better 20-game stretch is the Patriots, who had consecutive 20-0 stretches over the 2003 and 2004 seasons. The Eagles' best previous 20-game record was 18-2 in several stretches over the 1948, 1949 and 1950 seasons, once over the 1960 and 1961 seasons, and once in 2004 and 2005.
4D. The Rams are 9-3 in their last 12 games. They're 0-3 vs. the Eagles and 9-0 against everybody else.
5. The Eagles have allowed 49 points in the first half of their three games and 14 in the second half. That's their largest 1H-2H point differential after three games since 1943, when they allowed 62 points before halftime and just 13 in the second half. The Eagles are only the seventh team since 1944 to allow at least 49 points before halftime through Week 3 and 14 or fewer after halftime.
6. The Eagles failed to win the turnover margin Sunday for the first time in 10 games, but they did extend their streak of games where they didn't lose the turnover margin to 10 in a row, their longest since a 16-game stretch over the 1987 and 1988 seasons. They also tied a franchise record with nine straight games with one or fewer turnovers.
7. A.J. Brown had 109 receiving yards Sunday, all in the second half. He's the first Eagle with a 100-yard receiving game after being blanked in the first half in 14 years, since Jason Avant did it in a 38-20 loss to Tom Brady and the Patriots at the Linc on Nov. 27, 2011. Avant caught eight passes for 110 yards and a touchdown from Vince Young, all in the second half.
8. Sunday's game was the Eagles' first in 77 years in which they both scored and allowed at least 26 consecutive points. After the Eagles took a 7-0 lead, the Rams scored 26 straight points. The Eagles responded by scoring the last 26 points of the game to win 33-26. The only other time that happened was in 1948, also against the Rams. At L.A. Coliseum, the Eagles scored the game's first 28 points on two Tommy Thompson touchdown passes to Pete Pihos, another to Neill Armstrong, and a 52-yard Bosh Pritchard TD run. But the Rams scored the next 28 points on a Bob Waterfield TD pass to Jack Zilly, one to Bill Smyth, a TD run by Bob Hoffman, and another to Zilly with 32 seconds left.
9. The comeback from 19 points down was the Eagles' biggest ever at the Linc, second-biggest ever in Philadelphia and biggest at home in 37 years. Their previous biggest comeback at the Linc was 17 points, which they did twice - against the Jaguars in 2014, when they trailed 17-0 and won 34-17, and against Washington in 2019, when they trailed 17-0 and won 32-17. The comeback was their biggest in Philly since 1988, when the Eagles trailed the Cowboys 20-0 in the second quarter before scoring the final 24 points and winning 24-20 behind a couple Anthony Toney touchdowns. Overall, it was their greatest comeback since the 2010 win over the Giants at MetLife Stadium, when they trailed by 21 points at 31-10 early in the fourth quarter but scored 28 unanswered points and won 38-31 on DeSean Jackson's 65-yard walk-off punt return. It was the eighth-biggest deficit the Eagles have ever overcome.
10. With touchdown drives of 79, 87 and 91 yards in the second half, the Eagles recorded three second-half TD drives of at least 75 yards for the first time going back as far as drives charts are available, which is 2001.