What is Scorigami? The odds of a never-before-seen score in Super Bowl LX

If an NFL game produces a scoreline that has never happened, the internet goes wild and shouts Scorigami! But what is scorigami?

Jon Bois coined the term Scorigami to describe every possible final score in an NFL game that has never occurred before.

In American football, there are several ways to score points. The official scoring rules of the NFL award two points for a safety, three points for a field goal, six points for a touchdown, seven points for a touchdown plus one extra point, and eight points for a touchdown plus two extra points. In 2015, a new rule allowed teams to score one point. Before this, one-point scores were impossible because extra-point plays were ruled dead, and the referees would stop the play.

Despite the various scoring possibilities, many score combinations have never occurred in NFL history. The highest possible score is considered to be 70-70. Some of the basic score combinations that have occurred are 2–2, 4–0, 4–2, 4–3, 4–4, 5–2, 5–4, 5–5, 6–4, 6–5, 7–4, 8–2, 8–4, 9–4, 11–2, and 11–4. After that, the numbers ending in digits 2, 4, 5, and 8 repeats constantly.

Impossible scores in NFL

It is important to note that specific score outcomes are impossible due to the scoring rules in place. Specifically, results such as 1-1, 1-0, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, 5-1, and 7-1 are not viable.

This is because a score of 5-1 can only be obtained through a field goal and a conventional safety, which is highly unlikely. Similarly, a score of 7-1 is impossible as a team can only reach 7 points by scoring a touchdown and successfully kicking a PAT.

One frequently asked question is: “Why is 6-1 not impossible?”

6 to 1 was unviable until the one-point safety was introduced in 2015. However, it’s such a rare situation under NFL rules that it likely won’t happen any time soon. For the result to be achieved, the winning team has to score a touchdown and, in the following one-point safety attempt, somehow make such a poor play that they end up getting scored against.

Scorgami at the Super Bowl

While scorigamis happen a few times every regular season, they are incredibly rare in the Super Bowl.In nearly 60 years of Super Bowl history, it has only happened three times:

XXI (1987) 39–20: NY Giants vs Denver Broncos

XXIV (1990) 55–10: 49ers vs Denver Broncos

XLVIII (2014) 43–8: Seattle Seahawks vs Denver Broncos

The Betting Market: Because of its cult following, sportsbooks now offer odds on whether the Super Bowl will end in a scorigami. It’s usually a long shot (around +2000 to +3000).

Last year’s Super Bowl LIX between Kansas City and Philadelphia almost had a scorgami as late in the game, the score was 40–12, which would have been a scorigami. However, a late touchdown changed the final to 40–22—a score that had happened once before in 2004, “ruining” the scorigami.

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