Jacksonville Jaguars QB Blake Bortles’ beat the Buffalo Bills with his legs, not his arm

Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles ran for 88 yards against the Buffalo Bills on Sunday and passed for just 87 yards. Those numbers are pretty historically bad, but not as bad as you might think for the winning team.

Bortles became just the eighth player since the AFL-NFL merger to record fewer than 90 passing yards with more than 80 rushing yards in a game. It’s been done 12 times by those eight players and teams are 6-5-1.

Michal Vick and Kordell Stewart each won playoff games with similar stat lines in 2005 and 1996, respectively. Bobby Douglass did it four times in 1972 and was 1-2-1 for Chicago. Terry Bradshaw and Steve Grogan both won their games that fit the mold in the 1970s as did Terrelle Pryor in 2013. Bills current backup quarterback Joe Webb is on the list, too, but he lost in his game with the Vikings.

None of those players had the sheer volume of attempts Bortles did except one. Vick was the only one with more passing attempts (24) than Bortles (23) and at least he rushed for 166 yards in his team’s 18-point loss.

Bortles averaged a paltry 3.78 yards per attempt on his 23 attempts. He’s only the second quarterback since 1950 to throw for fewer than 88 yards on at least 23 pass attempts and win a playoff game. (You’re going to hate this.) It turns out those were the Bills last two playoff games, too. Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair won his playoff game in January of 2000 throwing 24 passes for 76 yards. Perhaps you remember the ending of the game better.