Watching tonight’s AFC playoff, the announcer made a comment that he had never seen so many negative plays in a single game. However, while I can find lots of records on sacks, I can’t actually find this record. What is the most number of negative plays recorded in a single NFL football game? And, if it’s not the same game, what is the most yards lost to negative plays in a game?
(Mods: I’m looking for a factual answer about a record, so I assume it goes here. If I’m wrong, please move it to the Game Room with my apologies.)
I don’t know about the largest number of negative yardage plays in a game, but I think the record for fewest yards of offense is held by the Seahawks. They “gained” -7 yards in a game against the Rams in 1979.
Turns out it’s an accurate post. Here’s the box score from the game:
At 9-7, the Seahawks weren’t a bad team that year. But, in this game:
Jim Zorn was only 2 out of 17 passing, for 25 yards
Zorn was also sacked 6 times, for a loss of 55 yards
They only ran the ball 12 times, for a total of 23 yards
Amazingly, the Seahawks only turned the ball over once (apparently a fumble)…they just couldn’t move it. (And, this game was indoors, in the old Kingdome.) They only had one first down for the game.
And then there was the Giants/Eagles game a couple of years ago in which McNabb was sacked a record 22 times in one game, and the Eagles finished at over 100 negative yards on the game.