Has there ever been a Super Bowl without a touchdown?
A look at the lowest-scoring Super Bowls and how close the NFL’s biggest game has come to a historic anomaly.
For all the pageantry, fireworks, and offensive firepower associated with the Super Bowl, the NFL’s championship game has occasionally delivered grind-it-out, defense-heavy games. Case in point, Super Bowl LX. The score of Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots game is 9-0 at halftime.
A no-touchdown Super Bowl?
This makes the fifth Super Bowl in which a touchdown has not been scored in a half. But has there ever been a Super Bowl without a touchdown at all? The answer is no.
In more than 50 Super Bowls spanning nearly six decades, every championship game has featured at least one touchdown. No Super Bowl has ever ended with both teams failing to reach the end zone.
While the streak remains intact, there have been a few moments when a touchdown-free Super Bowl felt very possible. The closest call came in Super Bowl LIII (2019), when the New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams 13–3.
The game entered the fourth quarter tied 3-3, making it the latest point in Super Bowl history that neither team had scored a touchdown. It wasn’t until midway through the final quarter that New England finally broke through, preserving the touchdown streak.
That game is often cited as the most offense-starved Super Bowl ever, and the best example of how close the league has come to an unprecedented result.
Teams that never reached the end zone
While no Super Bowl has been entirely touchdown-less, several teams have failed to score a touchdown in the game, relying solely on field goals, or failing to score much at all.
Notable examples include:
- Miami Dolphins (Super Bowl VI, 1972) – lost 24–3 to the Dallas Cowboys without a touchdown
- Los Angeles Rams (Super Bowl LIII) – held to one field goal in the 13–3 loss to New England
In these cases, the opposing team still managed at least one touchdown, keeping the overall streak alive.
Several factors make a completely touchdown-less Super Bowl extraordinarily rare.
- Elite offenses: Teams reaching the Super Bowl are typically among the league’s best at scoring.
- Rule changes favoring offense: Modern NFL rules protect quarterbacks and receivers, making sustained defensive dominance harder.
- Game script pressure: Late-game urgency often leads to aggressive play-calling that eventually breaks through defenses.
Even in the most defensive Super Bowls, a short field, a turnover, or a single breakdown has been enough to produce at least one touchdown.
So while fans have witnessed Super Bowls dominated by defense, missed opportunities, and long stretches without scoring, the ultimate line has never been crossed. Every Super Bowl in NFL history has included at least one touchdown, and the league’s most iconic game continues to avoid that statistical anomaly.
If a future Super Bowl ever ends without a touchdown, it wouldn’t just be memorable, it would be historic. We will see what the second half brings between the Seahawks and Pats tonight.
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