I'm glad someone put pen to paper to find out the stats behind 3 and outs this season. I wasn't going to do it. It felt like the Vikings had more than a lot of other NFL teams and now there's evidence to confirm my feelings.

See? This is what I be tellin' you guys!

While compiling the 3 n out stats, I ran across some other interesting tids regarding drive stats. The longest drive in terms of time since 2004, preseason, regular season, or post season, was exactly 13:00 by the New York Giants in week 9 game in 2010 at Seattle. 19 plays, 13 minutes, 76 yards, 6 first downs, annnnnnnnnd it ended at the Seahawks 7 yard line on downs haha. To be fair that was the 4th quarter and there were only 34 seconds to go, so it's not like they were trying to score. The Giants won 41-7. The Giants possessed the ball at total of 42:34 for the game.

To put that drive into perspective we need to talk about 41-donut for a second! We're over that one by now aren't we? Thought so. The Giants possessed the ball for the final 12:53 of that game in probably the most agonizing grind it drive I've ever seen. On 19 plays the Giants only gained 38 yards, which nearly consumed the entire 4th quarter. They picked up an additional 15 yards in penalties, and converted a total of 5 first downs. Joe Montgomery had 14 carries for 42 yards on that drive, and think every single one of them was exactly 3 yards. Felt like it. The Giants converted 6 of 8 3rd downs. The 2 they failed on, they picked up a 4th down on one, and on the other they were taking a knee. Good times! We did sack Jason Garrett (yep that one), on a 3rd and 9 earlier in the drive, but Bryce Paup drew a 15 yard face mask on the play, cuz Vikings!!! Yep when you lose 41-donut you get to find out who the other teams backup QB is.

And now that I've spoiled dinner, on with epic drive stats. The Vikings longest drive in terms of time came in 2008, week 3 vs Carolina. A 19 play, 90 yard drive that took 11:34 off the clock at the end of the 3rd/beginning of the 4th quarter. And you guessed it, we punted ... j/k, no we settled for a FG to put us up 20-10, which ended up being the final.

The longest drive against the Vikings came in a preseason game vs Cincinnati in 2016. Longest in terms of time and plays. A 22 play, 89 yard drive that took 12:24 off the clock. 3rd longest drive in the NFL overall in terms of time and yards. Unfortunately for the Bungles it was all for not as it ended on downs at the Vikings 3 yard line early in the 2nd quarter. Vikings won 17-16. If that wasn't crazy enough, the Vikings answered that drive with a 10 play, 103 yard drive, yes you heard that correctly, 103 yard (there were some penalties) TD drive that took 6:39 off the clock. Insult to injury for the Bungles. No shutout ruining INT's by Theodore in that one. In a twist of irony however, the next time he'd see the field would be 16 months later against the same Bungles.

No kneed to relive those painful memories however, so on with the show .... The longest drive since 2004 in terms of # of plays came in week 5 in 2007 by the Saints when they had a 24 play 68 yard drive that took 10:22 off the clock vs Carolina. It ended in a blocked FG in the 4th quarter xD. Saints would go on to miss another FG in the 4th that would have given them the lead with 2:14 to go. Carolina answered by driving down and kicking a buzzer beater of their own to win 16-13. Lucky for us, those Saints got those kicker problems figured out by 2009.

The Vikings longest play drive, was the same 19 play drive mentioned earlier against Carolina. They had an 18 play drive against Detroit in 2011 that suspiciously ended in a fumble at the Lions 1 yard line on the final play of the game .... because Joe Webb nearly had his head twisted off by a Lions defender and it wasn't called. Vikings lost 34-28. Amazing comeback by Webb in that game after Ponder gave up 4 defensive TD's or something like that in the 1st half before getting benched. It would never occur to Frazier to go to the backup QB again in any of Ponders future struggles. If only he had an example of how well that could work out. Nah, seems like a surprise you'd want to save for the playoffs.

The longest drive in terms of yards was by the Chargers earlier this year vs Oakland. In week 5 they had an 8 play 121 yard drive that ended in a TD. They began at their own 4 and accumulated 25 yards worth of penalties along the way. Goes in the books as a 96 yard drive, but they racked up 121 yards of offense, which was the most on a single drive.

The Vikings had a 5 play 106 yard TD drive in a preseason game at Atlanta in 2004. Their longest regular season drive was pulled off by TJack in 2008 at Arizona. His 4 TD game. A 12 play 105 yard TD drive that ate 7:06 off the clock. Vikings won 35-14.

Probably the oddest drive I saw came from the Steelers, or Browns, depending on how you want to look at it. The Steelers had a 6 play 3 yard drive that started at their own 13 yard line and ended with a FG at the Browns 7 yard line lol. Yeah you do the math on that one. The Browns committed back to back 39 and 38 yard DPI's. For those of you keeping score at home, that was essentially an 80 yard 3 n out as the only 2 first downs the Steelers picked up were via penalty.

The offense that racked up the most penalty yards was surprisingly not the Vikings, although it was close. The 49ers racked up 44 penalty yards on a drive in a preseason game against the Bears in 2004. The Vikings tied for 2nd when they racked up 40 penalty yards on a drive in a preseason game against the 49ers in 2013. A 12 play 83 yard drive that ended in a punt lol. Vikings! We lost 34-13. The Browns had a 40 penalty yard drive in a regular season game and still managed to kick a FG.

And I know you're wondering who picked up the most first downs on a drive. Well I got you covered on that too. 9 teams picked up 9 first downs on a single drive since 2004. And I know mathematically that seems like the maximum you could pick up on a drive, but you can technically pick up an infinite number of first downs on a drive if you include penalties. Like DPI on the goal line. In fact you can pick up 2 first downs on a single play if you pick up a first down and draw a personal foul. Also offensive TD's count as first downs if you didn't know.

The last team to pick up 9 first downs on a drive was the Redskins earlier this year against the Ravens in the preseason. The Saints were the last team to do it in a regular season game, at Carolina in 2015.

The Ravens are the only team to pick up 9 first downs on a drive without the aid of a penalty. On a 16 play 102 yard opening TD drive against Houston in 2011 that started from their own 3. That was one hell of a script Harbaugh.

The fastest drive of 15 plays or mare was pulled off by the Texans in 2014. 16 plays in 1:55. Final drive of the game. It ended on downs and them losing 22-13. A blistering 7.19 seconds per play. The Vikings pulled of a 16 play 82 yard drive against Washington in 2012 in 2:21. It ended in an INT on the final play of the game however. Yay Ponder! Vikings lost 38-26 anyway. Not going to win many games when you're giving up 76 yard TD runs to QB's in the 4th quarter.

And yep, this is so Browns!



Okay, this has some ugliness, too.  And, yep, I remember that play like it was yesterday.

I'm sure Nemmy was livid with how that game ended. What a freaking waste.

Like with the Bills game earlier this year, some things are just so bad, they can't be forgotten unfortunately. That drive will haunt my memories until the end of time just because of how bad I wanted to get a garbage TD and avoid the shutout lol. It was sickening how we couldn't get off the field. 19 plays, only 38 yards, but it took 12:53 off the clock. It defies reality. 2 yards and 40.68 seconds per play average. Death by a 1000 paper cuts. 2nd longest drive in terms of time since 2000, out of a possible 145,000 drives. Vikings!!

I'll see what I can do. I don't have any of the coaching data, or QB, but I should probably add it. The QB data might be a little more difficult since QB's sometimes come out of games. I'm trying to expand the database as well. I got all the gamebooks back to 1998 so it would be good to see how the 98 Vikings compare to some of these modern day offenses. That project will take awhile however.

I got some time of possession data formatted now too. Fun fact, no team has possessed the ball for an entire quarter (since 2004), but the 2008 Steelers came close in a divisional playoff game against San Diego. The Steelers opened the 3rd quarter with a 7:56 TD drive and on the Chargers ensuing possession, they threw an INT on the first play. It would be their only play of the entire quarter. The INT would lead to a 4:44 drive by the Steelers that led to a punt. A punt that the Chargers muffed lol. The Steelers would keep the ball until 4 seconds into the 4th quarter. The Steelers ran 24 plays in the 3rd quarter to the Chargers 1. Out gained them 122 yards to 0, and picked up 8 first downs. The Steelers would win 35-24, and they'd end up beating the Cardinals in the Superb Owl.

The Vikings had an interesting 1st quarter against the Jets in a 2007 preseason game. The Jets possessed the ball for a total of 14:02 of the 1st quarter. Sounds pretty bad doesn't it? *spoiler alert* It wasn't, unless you're a Jets fan. The Jets opened the game with a 5 play 3:14 drive that ended with a Pennington pick-6 to convicted rapist Darren Sharper. On their following drive they went on a 5:33 drive that ended in a FG. The Vikings with future Super Bowl winner TJack under center, opened with their patented 3 n out strategy, and only managed to take a whole 58 seconds off the clock in the process. Which was probably a bold strategy by offensive guru Chilly dog based on the way Pennington was playing. 3 plays later it would pay off when Pennington would throw another pick-6, this time to a guy who hasn't been convicted of Cosbying women, Chad Greenway, who for all we know might just be better at getting away with it. The Vikings wouldn't see the ball again until 14:21 in the 2nd quarter, but led 14-3 despite the Jets running 24 plays to the Vikings 3 and out gaining them 112 yards to 4. The Vikings won the game 37-20.

For those of you who didn't know, the time of possession on a turnover belongs to the offense, so even though we possessed the ball on defense for about 15 seconds on those 2 INT's, it went to the Jets because the NFL doesn't know what possession means.


The most time of possession a team had in a single non OT game since 2004 belongs to the Atlanta Falcons. In a week 9 game at Oakland in 2008 the Falcons racked up 45:15 of TOP. That's 3 whole quarters for those of you who need things put into perspective. The Raiders began the game with 4 straight 3 n outs to remind us that it's not just the Vikings who can look woefully unprepared for a game. While the Falcons began with 4 long scoring drives that ended with 3 TD's and a FG to take a 24-0 half time lead, which would end up being the final score. The Falcons out gained the Raiders 453 yards to 77, and had 30 first downs to 3. Jamarcus Russell (remember him?) was 2/7 for 9 yards in the 1st half. He finished 6/19 for 31 yards and was sacked 4 times for 21 yards, which meant the Raiders finished the game with 10 net yards passing, which is the 8th lowest total in a game since 2004. Meanwhile the Falcons rolled up 252 rushing yards with the law firm Turner, Norwood, and Snelling.