Table of Contents
When it comes to professional sports, the NFL is like no other. Teams play one game a week. The point of the sport is to generate contact, not avoid it. And then there’s the scoring.
There are scoring plays of one point (extra points), two points (safety), three points (field goal) and six points (touchdown). Most scoring possessions result in three or seven points, so you see many of the same scores week-to-week.
Skim through any week’s box scores and you’re bound to find several games that finished 20-17 or 27-24 — the two most common scores in NFL history.
But sometimes, there’s just enough weirdness (and offense) to generate a score that’s never been seen before, something called a scorigami.
The term scorigami, created by SB Nation’s Jon Bois in 2014, refers to any football game that ends in a score that hasn’t happened before.
In the time since Bois invented the phrase, he’s created nflscorigami.com, which is the premier source for information regarding scorigamis.
On the site, Bois tracks every score in NFL history in a sortable chart, allowing for anyone to figure out whether a score has occurred before.
In the chart, the x-axis has the score of the winning team, while the y-axis has the score of the losing team.
From there, users can click on any green cell in the chart (a score that’s happened before) to see how often such a score has occurred and the first and last occurrence of the score.
Any cell that’s left white means that such a score has never occurred and would be a scorigami if/when it happens.
Here’s a look at the scorigami’s history.
What is an NFL Scorigami?
A scorigami is an NFL score that hasn’t happened before.
Scorigamis usually occur in a high-scoring game, although there are some recent examples of low-scoring scorigamis (more on that in a minute).
As mentioned, the NFL is unique regarding its scoring. It’s the sport best suited for scorigamis.
In 2022, Deadspin’s Jesse Spector created a scorigami chart for the NBA, which showed that most of the scores yet to be achieved in NBA history are either historically low-scoring affairs (which will likely never happen) or incredibly high-scoring affairs that will need to be decided by one or two points.
And then there’s baseball. In 2020, the Braves defeated the Marlins 29-9, marking the sport’s first scorigami since the Reds beat the Rockies 24-12 on May 19, 1999.
In every NFL game there lies a hidden potential — to achieve a score that's never happened before.@Jon_Bois breaks down the art of Scorigami. 📊#NFLFilmsPresents pic.twitter.com/98PndqiT7W
— NFL Films (@NFLFilms) December 22, 2021
How Often Do Scorigamis Occur?
Not often, otherwise they wouldn’t be special.
In the 2023 regular season, there were nine scorigamis of the 272 games played (3.3%). The most recent was the Baltimore Ravens’ 56-19 win over the Miami Dolphins in Week 17.
The Philadelphia Eagles and Tampa Bay Buccaneers combined for a 25-11 scorigami in Week 3, one of the lowest scorigamis in recent history.
MIA 19 – 56 BAL
FinalThat's Scorigami!! It's the 1084th unique final score in NFL history.
— Scorigami (@NFL_Scorigami) December 31, 2023
Week 17’s scorigami was the Dolphins’ third time being involved in a scorigami in the 2023 season, which is a bit unique.
That said, they still hold nothing on the Seattle Seahawks, who had a scorigami every season from 2010 to 2018 under former head coach Pete Carroll.
While Carroll joked that he had his team practice scorigamis in the offseason, he did develop a coaching style conducive to unique scores.
Starting from his time at USC, Carroll never shied away from taking risks on fourth down and in the red zone. He also tended to zig when others would zag (in 2016, he became the first coach to go for two while up seven in the fourth quarter), which would sometimes result in Seahawks scores ending in “2” or “9” as opposed to “0” or “7”.
Has a Scorigami Happened in the Super Bowl?
A scorigami has happened in three of 58 Super Bowls (5.2%), with the most recent coming in Super Bowl 48 when the Seahawks defeated the Denver Broncos 43-8.
That game was kind of a scorigami perfect storm, as it still would have been a scorigami even if the Seahawks hadn’t scored their last touchdown (36-8) or if the Broncos had scored late (43-15, 43-16).
Before that, there had been a scorigami in Super Bowl 21 (New York Giants 39, Broncos 20) and Super Bowl 24 (San Francisco 49ers 55, Broncos 10).
That means the Broncos have been involved in all three Super Bowl scorigamis.
As you can see, a Super Bowl scorigami is usually associated with offense. The 49ers set a Super Bowl record with 55 points in Super Bowl 24, while the Giants set a Super Bowl record by scoring 30 points in the second half of Super Bowl 21.
Can You Bet on a Scorigami in the Super Bowl?
Yes, but it’s a long shot.
For Super Bowl 58, FanDuel had “Yes” at +2500 and “No” at -10000.
Depending on the odds, that’s an implied probability of 4-5% – in line with the 5.2% Super Bowl scorigami rate.
Super Bowl 58’s Over/Under was 47 – the lowest Super Bowl total since Super Bowl 50 in 2016. That also explains why the scorigami odds were so long, as less offensive potential means fewer chances for a scorigami.
