Derek Carr and the Saints buck the NFL trend of early season offensive struggles

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The worst start to a season for passing offenses in years hasn't hit the New Orleans Saints.

While quarterbacks and offenses around the league have struggled to get going, Derek Carr and the Saints are clicking with an early efficiency that might not ever have been reached before in the NFL.

The Saints followed a 47-point outburst in the season opener against the Carolina Panthers by beating the Dallas Cowboys 44-19 on Sunday, becoming the fifth team to score at least 44 points in each of the first two games of a season.

New Orleans was the last team to do it in 2009 on the way to the franchise's only Super Bowl title, with the other three instances coming before the 1970 NFL-AFL merger. The Raiders did it in 1968, Detroit in 1962 and the Rock Island Independents in 1920 in the inaugural season in what is now known as the NFL.

The Saints, under new coordinator Klint Kubiak, scored on their first 15 drives of the season with Carr at quarterback, scoring on all nine drives in the opener before Carr was replaced by Jake Haener and then getting TDs on the first six possessions against the Cowboys before an interception ended that run.

Sportradar has tracked player participation since 2006 and no quarterback in that span had led 15 straight scoring drives at any point of a season. The longest streaks before Carr's for the Saints, excluding drives that ended with kneel downs at the end of a half or game, were a 13-drive streak for Drew Brees and the Saints in 2018 and streaks of 12 for Baltimore's Lamar Jackson in 2019 and New England's Tom Brady in 2007.

Carr and the Saints are the exception, with the 128 offensive touchdowns down 54 from the first two weeks in 2020 and tied for the second fewest in the last 18 seasons. The 193.6 net yards passing per game are the fewest through two weeks since 1996 (188.3).

While Carr has thrown for only 443 yards in the first two weeks thanks to blowouts that led to a heavy dose of runs, only five QBs have hit the 300-yard mark for the fewest 300-yard passing games in the first two weeks since 1996, when there were only three.

The situation isn't nearly so rosy for another NFC South team, with 2023 No. 1 overall draft pick Bryce Young having only 245 yards passing in two games combined, leading to his benching just two games into his second season.

Young was the 27th quarterback taken first overall in the common draft era and the first of those to lose his starting job in his second season for non-injury reasons.

Young's production has been anemic, with his career passer rating (70.9), touchdown passes (11) and yards per attempt (5.4) trailing the numbers through 18 starts of 2007 No. 1 overall pick JaMarcus Russell, who is the epitome of a top-pick QB bust.

Young's 2-16 record is the third worst of any quarterback who has made at least 15 starts, and he went four straight starts dating to last season with no TD passes and fewer than 165 yards passing in each game. Only four other QBs had done that since 2000, with at least 12 attempts in each game.

While Young has struggled in Year 2, the rookie QBs haven't fared much better, with Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Bo Nix combining for a 64.2 passer rating and no TD passes on 196 attempts.

That's the most attempts for rookie quarterbacks in the first two weeks without a TD since the merger, topping the 70 from 1970 when Terry Bradshaw was the top rookie.

Tough Tomlin

The Pittsburgh Steelers have more wins than touchdowns this season in what can best be described as Mike Tomlin football.

After winning the opener against Atlanta on six field goals by Chris Boswell, Pittsburgh got into the end zone once on Sunday in a 13-6 win over Denver.

The Steelers are just the third team since at least 1960 to win the first two games of a season while scoring only one TD combined in those games. Detroit did it in 2000 and Buffalo in 1988.

The wins the first two weeks improved Tomlin's record as a coach to 42-40-1 (.512) when his team scores one offensive touchdown or fewer in a game. The rest of the NFL has a .227 winning percentage in that situation since Tomlin was hired in 2007, with no other coach with at least 10 tries having a winning record.

How'd that happen?

The New York Giants scored three touchdowns on Sunday against Washington, allowed none and somehow came out on the losing end of a 21-18 score.

How rare is that?

Extremely, it turns out.

The last time a team scored at least three touchdowns, gave up none and lost a game came on Nov. 5, 1989. On that day, Minnesota got seven field goals from Rich Karlis in regulation and beat the Rams 23-21 in overtime when the Vikings blocked a punt for a game-ending safety.

In all, there have been 1,235 times since 2000 that a team scored three more TDs than the opponent. The Giants are just the second of those teams to lose, with the other coming Oct. 21, 2007, when Houston fell 38-36 to Tennessee. The Titans got a record eight field goals from Rob Bironas and two TDs that day, while the Texans scored five touchdowns.

Nearly as unlikely was the comeback for Atlanta against Philadelphia on Monday night. The Falcons had a 0.7% chance of winning when they trailed 18-15 with 1:56 remaining and the Eagles had a first down at the Atlanta 17, according to the NFL's Next Gen Stat model.

But two runs followed by the Falcons' final two timeouts and then a dropped pass by Saquon Barkley on third down gave Atlanta a chance. Philadelphia opted to kick a field goal on fourth-and-3 to go up six, setting the stage for Kirk Cousins to drive for the winning TD and the seventh-most improbable win as far back as NGS data goes to 2016.

800 club

The Green Bay Packers became the first team in NFL history to win 800 regular-season games when they topped the Indianapolis Colts 16-10 on Sunday.

The Bears franchise, which began as the Decatur Staleys in 1920, had been the winningest team in NFL history at the end of the league’s first 102 seasons before being passed by Green Bay in 2022.

Chicago is second with 794 wins. The only other team with at least 700 wins is the New York Giants with 721.

The Packers also have the most titles with 13, including three won in 1929-31 before the start of the playoffs.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Josh Dubow, The Associated Press