As many readers know, Pro-Football-Reference.com produced remarkable search tools that let readers access that remarkable database to answer all sorts of trivia questions. PFR has now migrated that function to Stathead, and I thought I’d help my readers get use to the Stathead tools, too. So let’s go around the NFL and use the Stathead player and team tools to examine some of the interesting stats through three weeks of the 2020 season.

Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen is having a breakout month. He already set the Bills record for passing yards through 3 games, and tied the record for passing touchdowns.

What if you want to look at Allen’s combination of passing and rushing stats?  How about this search query, which looks at all players in NFL history with 20+ rushes and 800+ passing yards through three team games.  There are just five:

Or maybe you want to focus on the fact that after three team games, Allen already has 10 touchdowns and also has 75 rushing yards. That has to be rare, right? Well it never happened before 2020, but that doesn’t mean Allen is the only to do it:

Julian Edelman

You might not have noticed it, but Edelman has had the biggest receiving yardage game so far this season, with 179  yards in week two.  He also did it at the age of 34, which is, well, pretty old.  In fact, just 11 players (and nobody more than once) have hit the 175+ receiving yard mark after their 34th birthday.  The first 10 players include 7 Hall of Famers, another likely one, an arguable HOF snub, and one of the best undrafted players in NFL history.

Justin Jefferson

If you clicked on the Edelman link of the best receiving yardage games this season, you might have noticed that Vikings rookie Justin Jefferson has the second best game this year, which happened on Sunday against Tennessee. Jefferson turns 22 next week, and he’s the third youngest player in NFL history to hit the 175+ yard mark in a game:

Nick Chubb

If you like watching old school players, Browns third-year running back is something special. Through 35 career games, he’s rushed for well over 2,500 yards while topping 5.1 yards per carry. If you don’t think that’s rare, consider only five players had done since 1970 before Chubb, and they were five of the most talented young backs in history:

Of course, on the other end of the age spectrum is Frank Gore. Two weeks ago, he became the second-oldest player to rush for at least 55 yards in a game. Then this past week, he… once again became the second-oldest player to rush for at least 55 yards in a game.

The Jets

The Jets are currently last in the NFL in points differential.  That -57 points differential is bad, but not quite the worst in Jets history.  But it is the second time in as many seasons under their offensive mastermind that they are at the bottom of this list.

The Comeback Bears

From 2007 to 2014, not a single team came back to win a game after trailing by 16 points after three quarters.  In back to back weeks, the Bears pulled that feat off.  Remarkably, Chicago is now the first team in NFL history to do so twice in a single season.

Nick Foles came off the bench to lead the Bears to victory.  He threw multiple TDs, came back in the 4th quarter, and led his team on a game-winning drive.  Since 1999, that has only happened 13 times.  And the list of these 13 QBs is too special to ignore.

What fun queries can you run with the Stathead toolkit? Let me know.