NFL: Terrible Performances Producing Wins

Last Sunday, two of the NFL’s worst teams, the Cleveland Browns and the Buffalo Bills, played out a grim fixture, resulting in a 6-3 win for the Browns. Three field goals was poor value for the long-suffering fans of both franchises, and the match was so devoid of skilful play that NFL Network pundit Steve Mariucci was forced to turn to the performance of Cleveland’s punter, Dave Zastudil, to find something positive to discuss (incidentally, the reference to Stanford towards the end of the highlights is a reference to this legendary play).

What did catch the eye however, was the performance of Browns quarterback Derek Anderson, who threw only 17 passes, and amazingly, completed only two of them, as well as being intercepted once. This is normally the sort of performance that would get a quarterback benched, and were it not for the fact that Anderson had only just won the job after previous starter Brady Quinn suffered that fate at the hands of head coach Eric Mangini, he probably would have been. What is even more remarkable is that the Browns were able to win a game where their quarterback completed only two passes for 23 yards. Yes, Jamal Lewis rolled back the years to rush for over 100 yards, but this must be one of the worst performances by a winning quarterback in the modern history of the league, and one of the worst performances by any winning team in top-flight professional sport anywhere.

If anything, the result testifies to the ineptness of the Bills, whose quarterback, the under pressure Trent Edwards, completed 16 passes (a more normal number), threw for 152 yards, and whose side racked up 297 yards of total offense to Cleveland’s 174, yet still lost. With some terrible teams in the league this year (Oakland, Tampa Bay, St Louis to name three), one is left wondering whether this will not be the worst performance by a winning side this year, since sudden-death overtime makes tied games so rare (last year’s Philadelphia – Cincinnati tie being the first in seven years). Reports of games from other sports where a terrible performance resulted in a win are very welcome.