Fastest NFL game of the century: Eagles win over Raiders was the shortest game the league has seen in decades

This game barely lasted 2.5 hours

With temperatures hovering around 30 degrees at kickoff on Sunday, it was a cold day in Philadelphia, but the good news for Eagles fans is that they didn't have to sit around in the cold weather for very long because they got to watch their team pull out a dominant win in what turned out to be one of the fastest games in NFL history.

The Eagles destroyed the Raiders, 31-0, in a game that took just two hours and 31 minutes, which made it the shortest game of the century. Since 2000, there have only been two other games that even clocked in at under two hours and 35 minutes. The last one came in 2008 when the Titans beat the Colts in a game that lasted just two hours and 33 minutes. In 2007, the Buccaneers took down the Falcons in a game that lasted two hours and 34 minutes. However, neither of those games was shorter than Eagles-Raiders. 

The Eagles win was the fastest that any game has been played since 1993 when the Cowboys beat the Cardinals, 17-10, in a game that also took exactly two hours and 31 minutes. 

If you're wondering why Eagles game went so fast, there were a few reasons. First, there were only six penalties called in the entire game. The clock stops any time there's a flag thrown and when the penalty number is lower that keeps the clock moving. 

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Another thing that slows down the game is incompletions, but the Eagles didn't have very many of those. Jalen Hurts and Tanner McKee combined to go 15 of 18. When you combine that with the fact that the Eagles ran the ball 47 times, it means that the clock almost never stopped when Philadelphia had the ball. The constantly moving clock allowed the Eagles to win the time of possession 39:25 to 20:35.

In his first start of the season for the Raiders, Kenny Pickett did throw 10 incompletions (15 of 25), but Pete Carroll helped speed things up by waving the white flag in the final two minutes. The Raiders had the ball with 1:55 left in the game and they could have tried to put a drive together for a possible score, but instead, they called three straight run plays so that the final 1:55 took exactly 1:55 (In close games, you'll sometimes see the final two minutes take up nearly 30 minutes of real time, especially if both teams have their full arsenal of timeouts). 

The win by the Eagles marked their biggest shutout victory since 1990 when they beat the Packers 31-0. They also held the Raiders to just 75 yards, which was the lowest total they've held an opponent to since 1955. 

On the Raiders' end, not only did they lose this game 31-0, but they also lost to the Chiefs 31-0 back in Week 7, which makes them the first team since the 1972 Colts to get shut out by both teams that played in the previous season's Super Bowl.