TUESDAY TIDBITS: "Apocalyptic Horsemen"

By TJ Troup

Jim Thorpe with the Giants

This past Sunday was an anniversary of a game that probably will never come close to being repeated. December 2nd, 1962, the Houston Oilers and Denver Broncos combined to intercept a record 13 passes in a game (97 passes attempted). Simply one out of every seven passes attempted was picked off. The sixteen games starting with last Thursday night and ending last night in Philadelphia there were 1,093 passes attempted and 28 were intercepted—2.5%.

Red Grange attempting to pass

The Chicago Bears and New York Giants began their rivalry on December 6th, 1925, i front of 68,000 in the Polo Grounds. That year the Giants a 38-year-old back at the end of his career— Jim Thorpe (he played in just three games). The Bears won the game 19-7 as the immortal Red Grange returned an interception for a touchdown.

Joe Maniaci

These two teams have played 51 regular season games and during the first 37 of those games only twice did a runner gain over 100 yards rushing (Joe Maniaci & Gale Sayers of the Bears). During the last fourteen games, the Giants have had six different runners gain over 100 yards rushing, including Saquon Barkley on Sunday (the Bears have had just two).

Gale Sayers

The first score of the game was the athletic interception touchdown return by Alec Ogletree. When a team has a 100-yard rusher and returns an interception for a touchdown, historically, that team wins 92% of the time. Thus, even though the Bears fought to put the game into overtime—Chicago had just an 8% chance of winning.

Saquon Barkley

The terminology I use for this 'double' is "Apocalyptic Horsemen". Fifteen times in their long impressive team history the New York Giants have achieved this "double", and oh yeah, they won EVERY TIME!

Alec Ogletree