Game Night: Stumping Stats Edition | The MMQB
In light of the Patriots’ unique statistical profile in a windy Monday night victory over the Bills in Buffalo, Jenny, Conor and Gary decided to unleash a new game show.
In it, each host asks for statistical leaders—sometimes players, sometimes teams—in three categories. Then, the other two hosts must collaborate and make their guesses. Each wrong answer scores a point for the host who asked the question.
Who is the NFL’s most accurate play-action passer? Which defense forces the highest percentage of three-and-outs? Who clocked the fastest speed as a ballcarrier this season?
Join us and play along (on your own, we can’t hear you and also podcasts are not live), enjoy the mind-blowing stats and learn a few life lessons along the way.
Have a question for the show? Email themmqb@gmail.com or tweet at @GGramling_SI, @JennyVrentas or @ConorOrr.
The following transcript is an excerpt from The MMQB NFL Podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Gary Gramling: Hello and welcome to the MMQ NFL podcast I'm Gary Gramling. Guys, we're doing something a little bit different today. We are doing the first of many ... or perhaps of no more ... 'Stat Game Show' — Show.
Conor Orr: Oooo
Gary Gramling: So to explain it, we have each identified three stats that we find illuminating, interesting, maybe a little bit mind blowing in some way. And also sets that have maybe a little bit of a deeper meaning, maybe something of a theme, maybe something that'll teach us something about ourselves. And we are going to quiz each other on them. See if we got to identify the player and or the team involved in each stat.
Jenny Vrentas: The impetus for this was the Bills-Patriots game on Monday night in which the Patriots only threw three passes. And it got us thinking—specifically, it got producer Shelby thinking. So thank you for the idea Shelby—about weird stats that we could pick and quiz each other on, that might say something about the season or the sport or a franchise in some cases.
Conor Orr: Also, this highlights the skills of Jenny Vrentas who I believe is a Quiz Bowl champion. Am I incorrect in saying that?
Jenny Vrentas: I mean, I participated in Quiz Bowl. I don't remember my record.
Conor Orr: But you were good at Quiz Bowl.
Jenny Vrentas: Yeah, we competed, we had like Knowledge Masters, and then there was like the NAQT Quiz Bowl. We also had Ocean Bowl, which was like all oceanography questions and Science Bowl, which was all science questions. So yes, I did a lot of trivia competitions in high school.
Conor Orr: I'm now concerned because some of my questions have a distinct 'Marine feel.' So I'm worried that you're just going to breeze through them and dominate.
Jenny Vrentas: Ooo all right...
Conor Orr: I'm just kidding.
Jenny Vrentas: I was like, I thought I read over your questions, but maybe there were some that you have hidden and I'm not sure. Maybe they're related to the Dolphins?
Conor Orr: Surprise! I didn't do the prompt, It's all about sharks!
Gary Gramling: I hope you just found the metrics on like what player can hold their breath underwater for the longest.
Conor Orr: You have to pay for that on football outsiders. So I didn't get that one.
Gary Gramling: So listen, this is how it's going to work. Each of us have three questions that we are going to pose to the other two people on the show. The way you accumulate points, is by getting wrong guesses from your colleagues, you're trying to stump them. Uh, so we will go up to five guesses per question. So a perfect score in this would be 15—if you're a historian for this game. 15 is what you really want to track here. We'll see if anyone can make a run at that. We're, uh, we're gonna throw these out. We are going to impart life lessons along the way, and I think we're ready to get started with my three.
Jenny Vrentas: Great.
Conor Orr: Let's do it it.
Gary Gramling: All right, question one. This is offense—I did offense defense, special teams. This is offense, who leads the NFL in completion percentage on downfield throws? Downfield defined in this case by pro football reference which is, "15 air yards or more" who leads the league this season in completion percentage on downfield throws?
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