2021 NFL Week 13 Score Report, and some season commentary before I go.

Yep, probably shouldn't have done the NFC Politicals on Sunday.  Gotta change them after the game tonight, even though the game was an AFC game.

• And now the annual late-fall/early-winter changes occur.  42.79 PPG for the week.  Season average for the 13 weeks:  45.83.  (Last year:  48.80 for 49,49)
• Home teams were 6-8 this week for 93-97-1.  I'm trying to recall the last time it was actually under .500 this late in the year.  (Last year:  5-10 for 96-95-1)
• And I'm an immediate idiot:  Last year through Week 14 was a game under .500.  The season actually ended a half game under .500.
• Over was 5-9, for 82-110-2 for the year.  (Last year:  6-8-1 for 94-93-5)
• Favorites were both 8-6 against the number and straight up this week -- same six losses on both ends.  No favorite who won failed to cover.  (Last year:  6-9 ATS, 9-6 SU)
• And none of the covers were less than -5 -- three were double-digits.
• Season:  ATS:  85-107-1  SU:  113-78-1.  (Last year:  ATS:  79-107-3  SU:  124-64-1)
• Team with more penalties was 5-6 this week, 76-90 for the season.  (Last year:  9-5 for 77-89)
• First big piece of news for the week:  Penalties way down.  Only 156 in the 14 games this week (11.1 per game).  For the 194 games so far this season, 2,389 (12.3 per game)  (Last year:  174 in 15 games for the week (11.6), 2,215 in 192 games through 13 weeks (11.5))
• Three Cliffhangers this week, 43 for the year.  (Last year:  3 for 36)
• Second piece of big news for the week:  Only FIVE of the fourteen games played finished within one score.  That means now only 90 out of the 194 games played so far this season have finished within one score:  46.4%.  (Last year:  9 for 104 out of 192 (54.1%))
• Every game which finished within one score was a Cliffhanger, a Last Chance Miss, or both.  There were 4 of the latter this week.  There have been 45 Last Chance Misses this year so far.  (Last year:  6 for 62)
• In something which popped into my head as interest:  Two of the four Last Chance Misses were also Cliffhangers.  There have now been sixteen games this year which have ended with both at least one Cliffhanger score and at least one Last Chance Miss.
• I'm separating the final part of this as part of the commentary I'm about to make now...

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Can we now all just concede that this "Biggest Season in NFL History" is also one of it's worst???

• There is one team in the NFL with fewer than three losses in 13 weeks.  Last year there were three.
• There is no team in the AFC with fewer than four losses, nor more than nine wins.
• There is only one team in the NFL with ten wins.
• As of the end of play in Week 13, 12 teams in each conference are either in the seven-team field per conference for the playoffs or within one game.  If you extend it to two games out of the playoffs with most of the league having five to play, only one team in the NFC and three in the AFC are outside that number.
• Yes, tonight's weather in Buffalo had a part to play in it:  The Patriots attempted the fewest passes in an NFL game since Week 3 1974 (3).  But it gives you an idea of just how ridiculous the NFL is getting.  (Hell, ESPN notes, even in the infamous Snow Plow Game in 1982, the Patriots tried five!).

The fact is, the NFL is covering for a LOT of shit football, shit players, and shit teams.

Want one final piece of evidence?  Let's go to a statistic I usually track and place with the rest above.

• A "non-competitive game", in my parlance, is a game in which, at no point in the fourth quarter, is the losing team eight points or within -- one score.
• Of the fourteen games played this week, EIGHT were non-competitive.
• (Last year's Week 13 had four.)
• And of the 194 games played so far this year, fully 75 of them -- almost 40% of the games played so far this season -- have had no margin eight points or within in the fourth quarter.
• (Last year, through 13 weeks, had only 57.)
• Some additional research:  Weeks with 8 non-competitive games are not that common, but they do happen.  I have charts on my computer back to 2014.  In the 7 2/3 seasons on those charts, a week in which 8 non-competitive games has occurred has happened eight times, and a 9-noncompetitive game week happened in Week 13 of 2014.
• What has aided in 75 of the games being non-competitive in this season so far is that two weeks this year have had six, two have had seven, and two have had eight.

The fact is, this is where the NFL's "parity" has become "parody" -- a lot of these teams ABJECTLY SUCK.