The entire NFC East is a combined +33.5 today.

— Mike Tanier (@MikeTanier) October 4, 2020

Let’s take a quick look at the point spread for the NFC East games today:

The Cowboys are 3.5 point home favorites against the Browns.
The Football Team are 14-point home dogs against the Ravens.
The Giants are 13.5-point underdogs in Los Angeles against the Rams.
The Eagles are 9-point road underdogs tonight in San Francisco.

Yes, indeed, Mr. Tanier is correct: the NFC East are underdogs of 33 or 33.5 points today (the Baltimore/Washington line has fluctuated between 14 and 14.5 points). That sounds like a lot. It is a lot. But how much of an outlier is that?

As it turns out, there has been just one week since 1978 (which is as far back as PFR’s points spread database goes back) where the collective points spread for Dallas, Washington, New York, and Philadelphia was worse: week 13 of the 1998 season. That was the week that Randy Moss had three 50+ yards touchdown catches on Thanksgiving against the Cowboys, Washington was 2-9 under Norv Turner but upset the Raiders, the Giants under Kent Graham were 13-point dogs against a high-powered 49ers team (and lost by 24), and the Eagles and Koy Detmer were 18-point dogs against the two-time defending NFC Champion Packers.

And that’s it. Week 4 of the 2020 season is the second-worst week in history, at least as far as perception relative to opponent goes, for this quartet of teams. ^[1]Note that I am not saying NFC East history, as I am excluding the Cardinals from this post. Here’s the average points spread over the course of each season since 1978 for the Giants, Cowboys, Eagles, and the WFTFKATR. Remember, when looking at point spreads, it’s the reverse of points differential: a positive number indicates a weaker team.

As you can see, 1998 was in fact the worst time in modern history for these teams. Will 2020 top that?

Some of this is a function of him leading the NFL in pass attempts (he’s also played 15 games, while most teams play their 15th game today).   But Winston is also just extreme in almost every fun stat, which is why I decided to revisit my Fun QB Index with some tweaks.

Here are the rules for being fun:

• Passing a lot.
• A high yards per completion average.
• Touchdowns.
• Interceptions.

So here’s the simple formula I came up with:

Fun = [ (Yards per Completion – 10.0) * Completions, plus 45 x INTs, plus 45 x TDs ] / Games Played

This isn’t a rate stat, which means you get more credit for passing more often…. except when it comes to yards per completion.  There, you only get credit for your yards per completion above 10.0.

Let’s use this formula for Winston.  He’s completed 367 of 602 passes for 4,908 yards, a 13.37 yards per completion average.  So he gets credit in the YPC component of the formula for (3.37 * 367), or 1,237 yards.  With 59 combined TDs/INTs, that gets him another 2,655 yards.  That gives him 3,892 fun yards, which is an average of 259.5 yards per game of fun.

Now, that probably means nothing to you in the abstract. But here is how the 2019 quarterbacks look when you run them through the same formula:

The table below shows the top 50 or so quarterbacks in this metric during the Super Bowl era, sorted by year. Winston has the highest grade of any quarterback since 1984.  As an aside, while Winston is extremely fun, it’s noteworthy that Tampa Bay’s quarterback last year, Ryan Fitzpatrick, was also really fun (Winston was pretty fun last year, too; he had a 185.2 grade).  The full list, below:

Finally, here are the 100 most fun quarterback seasons by this metric. The most fun season belongs to Houston Oilers quarterback George Blanda. You may recall that in 1961, Blanda had one of the best statistical seasons of all time; in fact, he remains the last player to lead his league in passing yards and win the title in the same season, which he did in the ’61 AFL (admittedly a watered down version of pro football). That year he produced the most fun season ever by this metric, as he averaged 17.8 yards per completion, and threw 36 TDs and 22 INTs in a 14-game season.

What do you think?