Patrick Mahomes set the NFL record for worst sack

Within the second quarter of his sport towards the Miami Dolphins, Patrick Mahomes took an uncommon sack. How uncommon? This uncommon:

We solely have detailed play-by-play knowledge going again to 1994, nevertheless it doesn’t appear to be there’s a 30+ yard sack within the books from earlier than then, so I believe we’re going to must name this an NFL report. It’s no 87-yard loss, however going from third and 12 in your 33 to 4th and 42 in your 3 is a powerful play irrespective of the way you slice it.

I assumed I knew what an enormous negative-yardage sack appeared like. The pocket breaks down, go rushers fly in all places, and the poor quarterback bounces backward from menace to menace till the pack lastly manages to carry them down. It seems to be rather a lot, in different phrases, like this Tim Tebow calamity, or this special treat from Joe Flacco.

Mahomes’ 30-yarder, nonetheless, fails to comply with any such conference. He begins out in a reasonably secure-looking pocket, then Emmanuel Ogbah and Jerome Baker shed their blocks concurrently, and Mahomes decides to simply run the hell away.

Mahomes appears to be playing on somewhat change of path on this backwards run being sufficient to squeeze round Baker and permit him to flee to the left, however as I think you all know from the truth that this play resulted in a 30-yard sack, this didn’t work in any respect. He was introduced down on his personal three-yard line:

In case you paid consideration to the Alex Rubenstein-generated chart on the prime of the article, you’ll discover* that Mahomes is merely tied for the NFL unhealthy sack report with then-Cardinals quarterback Stoney Case, who gave up a 30-yard sack again in 1997. Curious in regards to the Case, uh, case, I assumed it is perhaps attention-grabbing to dig in on what occurred there.

*You may additionally discover that 4 of the highest eight sacks for misplaced yardage occurred within the 19 or 20 seasons, inside a yr and 12 days of one another. Which is bizarre.

Right here’s what I discovered: Case was solely in that sport as a result of Arizona’s beginning QB Kent Graham acquired himself completely annihilated by the Giants’ defensive entrance and was withdrawn within the second quarter with what appeared like an ankle harm. He was not notably prepared for sport time, and the Giants smelled (extra) blood. The poor man ended up taking 5 sacks in two-and-a-bit quarters of motion.

Getting thrown right into a meat grinder is one fairly good excuse for giving up one of many all-time nice sacks. Case has one other: there was a fumble concerned. To cite the indispensable Pro-Football Reference: “Stoney Case sacked by Scott Galyon for -30 yards. Stoney Case fumbles, recovered by Joe Wolf”.

So far as I can inform there’s not a lot archival footage of this play. The spotlight package deal from the sport exhibits plenty of Graham getting crushed up however little or no Case. However the papers afterward counsel that a lot misplaced yardage was executed submit fumble. Right here’s the Yonkers Herald Statesman:

Hit: Linebacker Scott Galyon’s sack on Stoney Case that created a fumble and an eventual 30-yard loss [emphasis mine] within the third quarter.

Within the absence of video, I believe it’s affordable to make use of this as a kind of tiebreaker and say that whereas Mahomes’s sack wasn’t worse than Case’s per se, it was positively sillier, and due to this fact deserves the primary spot on the unhealthy sack rankings.

Moreover, it’s simply extra enjoyable to have Mahomes occupy prime spot. He’s a very transcendent expertise, the sort of participant who makes for appointment watching, and so it’s way more amusing when he makes large goofs. He can shrug them off. He’s Patrick Mahomes. Case’s profession, in the meantime, lasted six begins, and he threw 11 extra picks than touchdowns. Celebrating that dude getting blown up 23 years after the actual fact can be imply.

Mahomes, in fact, did shrug off the large sack and two first-quarter interceptions, coming again to beat the Dolphins 33-27. Man’s so good at soccer that he can set a literal report for soccer ineptitude and nonetheless choose your protection to shreds a number of performs later.

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