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The NFL has been on a race to the bottom this season.
A record-tying nine teams already have lost at least six games in the first eight weeks of the season, and many fan bases already have turned their focus from playoff races to draft prospects and positioning.
The only other season when nine teams lost at least six times in the first eight weeks came in 2000.
Miami can join that group with a loss on Sunday in Buffalo after having an early bye in Week 6, which would tie the 2000 season with 10 teams starting 2-6 or worse.
The AFC East has three of the bottom dwellers, with the New York Jets and New England Patriots at 2-6 and the Dolphins at 2-5. That has allowed the Bills (6-2) to become the eighth team since the 2002 realignment to have at least four more wins than every other team in the division after the first eight weeks.
There are two other divisions with two teams with at least six losses, with Jacksonville (2-6) and Tennessee (1-6) at the bottom of the AFC South, and New Orleans (2-6) and Carolina (1-7) at the bottom of the NFC South.
The Saints are there despite winning their first two games of the season, becoming the ninth team in NFL history to follow up a 2-0 start with at least six straight losses.
The other struggling teams are Cleveland (2-6), Las Vegas (2-6) and the New York Giants (2-6).
How'd that happen?
The Detroit Lions blowing out the hapless Tennessee Titans was hardly a big surprise.
How it happened was extremely unusual.
The Lions beat the Titans 52-14 on Sunday despite being held to 225 yards of total offense and 61 net yards passing. That's the fewest yards of offense for any team that scored at least 50 points in a game since at least 1948 and the fewest net passing yards for a team in a 50-point outburst since the New York Giants had 51 in a 55-20 victory over the Baltimore Colts on Nov. 19, 1950.
Detroit scored on a 90-yard punt return by Kalif Raymond and had five of its six TD drives on offense start inside the Tennessee 30 following three turnovers, another long punt return by Raymond and a 72-yard kickoff return by Khalil Dorsey.
Jared Goff had three TD passes on his 15 attempts that went for 85 yards (four sacks lowered Detroit's net yards passing total). It was the fewest yards passing a three-TD game since New England's Steve Grogan did it with 83 yards against the Jets in Week 11 of the 1976 season.
For the game, the Titans outgained the Lions by 191 yards — the largest yardage advantage for a team that lost by at least 26 points since at least 1948.
Cousins cruises
Kirk Cousins must be sad to see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers off the schedule.
Cousins picked apart the Bucs for a second time this season in a 31-26 win on Sunday that gave the Atlanta Falcons a series sweep.
Cousins followed his 509-yard, four-touchdown performance in an overtime win at home in Week 5 by throwing for 276 yards and four TDs in the rematch on Sunday.
Cousins became the fourth player on record to throw for at least 750 yards with at least eight TD passes against one opponent in a season, joining Hall of Famers Joe Montana, Dan Marino and Y.A. Tittle.
Montana did it in 1990 for San Francisco against Atlanta with 874 yards and eight TDs, two years after Marino had 874 yards passing and eight TDs for Miami against the Jets.
Tittle had his outburst in 1962, when he had 761 yards and 10 TDs for the New York Giants against Washington.
All or nothing
The Indianapolis Colts are putting a halt to the all-or-nothing experiment with Anthony Richardson.
The Colts benched the No. 4 overall pick from the 2023 draft, according to two people with knowledge of the decision who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday because the team had not announced the change.
The move came after Richardson went 2 for 15 in the first half last week against Houston. Richardson finished the game 10 for 32, dropping his completion percentage this season to 44.4%.
Only one player has posted a lower mark for an entire season in the last 20 years with at least 100 attempts, with Josh Freeman completing 42.9% of his passes in 2013 with Tampa Bay and Minnesota.
But Richardson was able to deliver big plays; he is tied for the league lead with four pass plays that gained at least 50 yards, with seven completions thrown at least 25 yards downfield.
That has contributed to a 16.2 average yards per completion that would rank second-highest of any player since 1990 with at least 100 attempts in a season, behind Chris Chandler's 16.6 in 1998.
Go for 2
Converting 2-point conversions has never been harder in the NFL than it has so far this season.
Teams are converting a record-low 31% of their tries for 2 — a precipitous drop from the 55% rate last season. This season is on pace to be the first since 1999 that the 2-point conversion rate drops below 40%.
For the last 20 seasons, the conversion rate was at 48.3% — making it essentially a coin-flip decision about whether going for 2 will work.
The rate this year is even lower if it’s limited to plays that start at the typical spot of the 2-yard line as opposed to following penalties when the line of scrimmage has moved up to the 1 or back to the 7. Teams are converting only 28.6% of standard tries, down from 55.8% last season.
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AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi and AP Sports Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Josh Dubow, The Associated Press
