NFL Week 5 Score Report

OH ARE WE GONNA HAVE SOME TALKIN' TO DO ABOUT MONDAY NIGHT...

That Political Rankings post is gonna be BIG...

• This week ended up more like last year...  50.0625 PPG this week with that overtime touchdown winner for Baltimore, for a season PPG for the 80 games (5 full 16-game schedules, byes start next week!) of 47.725.  (Last year:  51.79 PPG for the week, 51.42 PPG for the first five weeks.)
• Home teams were 7-8 with the London Junior Varsity Special on the schedule as well.  38-40 for the year so far.  I figured that would be higher, given "FANS ARE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!"   (Last year:  9-5 for 40-36-1 -- byes started Week 5 last year with one bye, and two games had already been COVID moved to other weeks.)
• To little surprise with this being the first 50+ PPG of the year, the Over was 11-5.  Season:  37-43.  (Last year:  7-7 for 43-33-1.)
• Favorites:  9-7 against the spread, 12-4 straight up.  Good week to get some money back.  Season:  ATS:  35-45  SU:  49-31  (Last year:  ATS:  6-8 for 36-39-1  SU:  9-5 for 51-24-1.)
• Penalties:  Team with more was 9-6 this week and now the split is even at .500 for teams with more penalties (35-35).  (Last year:  5-8 for 25-38)
• But the bigger penalty news is that, during the Monday night game, the NFL had it's 1,000th accepted penalty of the season.  Total of 1006 (12.6 per game) for the season.  with 196 (12.25 per game) for the week.  (Last year:  164 in 14 games (11.7) for 885 in 77 games (11.5))
• It would take the late games of Week 6 before the NFL reached 1,000 penalties last year, after at least 8 games have been completed and the parts of three more contesting.
• Going to do the rest of these out of order for an obvious reason:
• Nine games finished within 8 points, for 39 out of 80 (48.75%) for the year.  (Last year, 6 for 39 (one-half game over 50%))
• Three non-competitive games for 26 total for the year -- the bad news for the league:  Two of them were Dallas winning and KC losing.  (Last year:  6 in Week 4 for 29 total)
• Last Chance Misses abounded this week, with five games for the week, same as last year's Week 4.  21 for the year so far, 30 last year.

The 5 LCM's:

• The Packer-Bengal madness was one of them, four times over.  Packer coaches are saying that the whole of the field goal situation needs to be worked on, and has taken some heat off of Mason Crosby.
• The Colts had a field goal in the air at the regulation gun go wide Monday night.
• Cleveland had a Hail Mary go awry against the Chargers.
• Denver was picked off in the Pittsburgh end zone with 11 seconds left.
• And the Jets actually gave London some false hope with an onside kick miss at 0:17

BUT THE BIG NFL NEWS OF OTHER THAN JUST TONIGHT:

(Hint:  The Gruden firing will get most of the Political Rankings post upcoming -- it'll be above this one by the time I finish them...)

• Five Cliffhangers this week for 21 for the season.  This means that, out of the 39 games which the NFL has kept within one score, TWENTY-ONE OF THEM were decided by a score in the final two minutes and overtime.  (Last year, only one in Week 5 for 16 total.)
• The NFL has made a lot of meat about this:  Nineteen of those twenty-one were scores within the final minute of regulation or overtime, an NFL record for five weeks.

In fact, I have charts going back to 2014 at least on the scoring.  For Cliffhangers, as far as my charts can find, through Week Five:

• 2019:  11
• 2018:  17
• 2017:  15
• 2016:  14
• 2015:  19, including 7 in Week 4 and 6 in Week 5.  17 of them were within the final minute or OT.  (To look ahead, Week 6 had three, all within the final minute, etc., so the league needs at least one next week this year (in both Cliffhangers themselves and within the final minute, etc.) to tie the record again.)
• 2014:  14