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When a tractor company played in the NFL | SCORIGAMI
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00:00A Scorigami is a final score in an NFL regular season or playoff game that happens for the
00:06first time ever.
00:07For example, if a team were to win a game by a score of 4-0 or 25-18 or 50-3, that would
00:14be Scorigami because it's never happened before.
00:17If your team is involved in a Scorigami, it tells you nothing about how good or bad at
00:21football they might be.
00:22Achieving a Scorigami offers a team absolutely zero benefits or advantages of any kind.
00:28Scorigami does not matter.
00:29It is inherently and completely meaningless.
00:34So why should you even care?
00:37You probably shouldn't, damned if you won't anyway.
00:43Sometimes you can see a Scorigami coming, usually you don't.
00:47On the evening of December 14th, 2020, everything seemed completely normal until the very last
00:53second of the game.
00:56This is the Scorigami board.
00:58Every column represents the winning team score.
01:00Every row represents the losing team score.
01:03Early this evening, the Cleveland Browns jump out to a 7-0 lead over the Baltimore Ravens,
01:06which places the score here.
01:08On the Z-axis, you see how many times every single score ever has happened.
01:127-0 registers pretty high here because a 7-0 final score has happened 93 times throughout
01:17the history of the NFL.
01:19But of course, the scoring tonight is far from over.
01:21The scoreboard stops in several places, 14-14, 28-20, 34-28.
01:25But as you can see, these are all scores that have happened many, many times before.
01:29Now, why is that?
01:30Well, in American football, the vast majority of scores come in chunks of either 7 or 3,
01:35with 7 being a 6-point touchdown and subsequent extra point, and 3 being a field goal.
01:39Early in the fourth, the score stands at 34-28.
01:42This and every score before it could be put together with nothing but 7s and 3s.
01:46It's just nothing new.
01:48It's not nearly weird enough to be Scorigami.
01:50It's about as eccentric as going to a John Legend show.
01:53As we play through the fourth quarter, though, the scoring explodes.
01:55The lead changes hands a couple of times, and with about a minute left in regulation,
01:59the score is pushed to 42-42, which has never been a final score in the NFL.
02:04If it stays put, this would be Scorigami, but we don't expect it to stay put, and it doesn't
02:08with the Ravens tacking on a field goal with two seconds remaining.
02:1245-42, once again a score that has happened before, and a score that can be built exclusively
02:17with 7s and 3s, but as you can see, this score has much less precedent than the others.
02:22That's because the score is just so weirdly high now.
02:25I mean, if you go to one John Legend show, you're about as normal as normal gets.
02:28If you go to, say, 45 John Legend shows, you're a deeply strange individual.
02:34Same deal here, it's rare on account of its volume.
02:37There are still two seconds left, the Browns have the ball at their own 25.
02:40If they score a miraculous touchdown here, that would be Scorigami.
02:44If they turn the ball over and the Ravens score a touchdown an extra point, that would also
02:48be Scorigami.
02:50Can it happen?
02:51Well, Scorigami is about the mystical as much as it is the mathematical.
02:55A Scorigami is often accompanied by some sort of ominous event that may or may not directly
03:00affect the score itself.
03:01This one did.
03:02The score tightened up in the first place because, earlier in the game, Ravens quarterback
03:06Lamar Jackson, one of the most uniquely talented quarterbacks to ever play, missed some action
03:11to head to the locker room.
03:12And many of us chirping about the game on social media believe that he did so because he had
03:17to poop.
03:18It happens, you know?
03:20It's nothing new.
03:21Here's Chargers kicker Nick Novak peeing live on national television back in 2011.
03:25Lamar possesses enough decorum to at least head inside first.
03:28He'll later claim that he was dealing with cramps and has never confirmed the theory that
03:31he had to make a doo-doo.
03:33But many of us watching on TV see this footage of him frantically waddling back to the locker
03:37room, even showing off enough mobility to juke out of the way of a staffer.
03:41A cramp bad enough to force a tough-as-nails reigning NFL MVP out of action should look a lot
03:47worse than this.
03:48I think he had to poop.
03:51Well perhaps one unexpected dispensing of a set of Browns will beget another two seconds
03:55left at the Browns 25-yard line.
03:57Any kind of score here is nearly guaranteed to be scorigami.
04:01Here we go.
04:02Baker Mayfield finds Kareem Hunt, short middle.
04:04As expected, this is a circus play.
04:06Desperation plays like this have been tried hundreds of times and by my count only two have
04:10ever actually worked.
04:11This is not going to be the third.
04:13A touchdown is not happening here.
04:15But you know what might happen given how backwards this play is turning out?
04:19A safety.
04:20Yes, a safety.
04:21The play is so unusual that half the teams in the NFL won't even score a single one all
04:24season.
04:25If the Browns are tackled or step out of bounds in their own end zone, that is a safety and
04:29the Ravens get two points and oh my god, this is exactly what's going to happen, isn't
04:33it?
04:34Foots on the line.
04:35There it is.
04:36Ravens 47, Browns 42, 47-42 has never before been seen in the NFL.
04:41Folks, we have a scorigami.
04:45People went crazy over it that night, too.
04:51The thing to understand about scorigami is that just about every other rooting interest
04:55in football, in sports, is by definition adversarial.
04:59It turns us against each other, that's part of the deal and part of the fun.
05:02Every team and every star player, no matter how great or cool or fun to watch, attracts
05:06legions of enemies and haters, but everybody roots for scorigami.
05:11And when it happens, those of us who care can all claim victory.
05:15We all win this absolutely meaningless stupid little thing.
05:20For once, just once, just for a minute, for all on the same team.
05:25Maybe that's why we love it so much.
05:39Before we continue, does anybody else need to use the restroom?
05:44This is your chance.
05:46Nobody?
05:47Okay.
05:48Let's begin.
05:50It's September of 1920.
05:57The run-up to what will be recognized as the first football game in NFL history.
06:03They're holding open tryouts.
06:05You want to play?
06:06You want to be one of the first NFL players of all time?
06:09Well, not so fast.
06:11You're required to know something about football.
06:13Oh, uh, you don't know anything about football.
06:16Alright, um, you're required to want to know something about football.
06:20How's that?
06:21Using these unforgivingly stiff criteria, the Rock Island independents assemble an unbeatable
06:26super team of guys who either know something about football or would like to and administer
06:30a 48-0 clobbering of the St. Paul ideals.
06:33Since a scorigami is a score that has never happened before and no NFL game has ever happened
06:37before, this is scorigami.
06:39But if you dispute that this is, in fact, the first ever NFL game, I'll concede that
06:43there is a little bit of room for debate here.
06:45For one, the league is for now called the American Professional Football Association or APFA and
06:50won't change its name to the National Football League until 1922.
06:54For another, the St. Paul ideals aren't actually part of the league.
06:58And this is why some maintain that the 14-0 game between the league official Dayton Triangles
07:02and Columbus Panhandles, which kicks off a week later and a half hour earlier than the
07:06rest of the games that day, is instead the first ever NFL game.
07:09In any case, since this Rock Island St. Paul game is generally considered to be the first
07:14and since it did count in official league standings, this is, in scorigami canon, the
07:18very first game.
07:20Our journey has begun.
07:21I'm John, the guy who invented scorigami.
07:24You're also going to hear from our own Alex Rubenstein.
07:26Together, we will be telling a selective history of the National Football League through the lens
07:30of scorigami.
07:31For the moment, we've found ourselves with a pretty weird-looking chart and a whole lot
07:35to explain, so let's explore this scorigami board in greater detail.
07:40Since the winning team score determines the column and the losing team score determines
07:44the row, that requires this huge triangle over here to be blacked out as mathematically impossible
07:49scores.
07:50You can't have a game in the 10th column in the 13th row, for example, because the winning
07:54team must have more points than the losing team, unless, of course, it's a moral victory.
07:59Let's just agree that all the moral victories live out here somewhere.
08:03This chart ends at the 73rd column because 73 is the most points a winning team has ever
08:07scored.
08:07Thank you, 1940 Chicago Bears.
08:09It ends at the 51st row because 51 is the most points a losing team has ever scored.
08:14Thank you, 2018 Kansas City Chiefs.
08:16Games that finish in a tie, although pretty rare these days, are possible and do happen
08:20if and when they occur, they're going to live along this diagonal line here.
08:24Now, the component of this board that tends to get the most questions, understandably,
08:27is this formation up here in the top left-hand corner.
08:30Under NFL rules, it is impossible for a game to ever have a score of 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 3-1,
08:364-1, 5-1, or 7-1.
08:38If you're not a football fan, you might wonder why if that's true 6-1 is possible.
08:43If you are a football fan, you might step back and ask how it's possible to score just
08:47one single point in the first place.
08:49The scorigami diehards among you already know the answer.
08:51It's a very strange answer that takes a while to fully explain, and we will do so toward
08:56the end of this series.
08:57For now, I will simply offer this.
08:59To ponder the possibility of ever seeing a single point on the scoreboard is to ponder
09:03the future of the NFL, of society, and of humankind at large.
09:07Let's not get into all that until we're good and ready, huh?
09:10In the meantime, I'm happy to tell you about the rest of the parts in the drawer a lot sooner.
09:14These are what we have determined to be the 9 possible ways to put points on the scoreboard
09:18in an NFL game.
09:19You already know that the 7 and the 3 are the most commonly used.
09:22To get an idea of how common, let's take a look at figure 1.
09:30Here are all 9 of those scoring types, charted by the percentage of scoring events they've
09:34accounted for throughout all 105 seasons of NFL history to date, from 1920 to 2024.
09:40Down here is the 7, the touchdown plus extra point.
09:43It once accounted for around three quarters of all scoring events before its territory
09:47was horned in on by the 3, the field goal.
09:49Throughout most of the league's history, at least 90% of all scorers have been one of
09:53these two.
09:54Resting on top of them is the 6, the 6 point touchdown followed by a failed conversion
09:59attempt.
09:59It's uncommon, but not rare, and it usually isn't very useful for producing scoragami.
10:04Since you can also easily make 6 points by kicking two field goals, you're highly unlikely
10:09to ride this thing into unexplored territory, but there are certain specific cases in which
10:13you really need one team to score one point fewer to achieve scoragami.
10:17And when you find yourself in those circumstances, you're going to be glad it's there.
10:21And now we turn to everybody's favorite little dude, the safety, which can happen if you get
10:26tackled in your own end zone, fumble, or carry, or snap the ball out of bounds in your own
10:30end zone, or get called for a penalty in your own end zone.
10:33They don't all look like a barnyard animal escape like that brown safety you saw, but
10:37there's no such thing as a normal looking safety.
10:39It's always at least a little bit funny, and it's always an outcome of something that
10:43went terribly wrong.
10:44I mean, it happens in your own end zone.
10:46It's like slipping on a banana peel in your own bedroom.
10:49How did you let that happen to you?
10:51Your opponent scored on you, and they didn't even have the ball.
10:53They probably didn't even touch the ball.
10:55You scored on yourself.
10:57It's embarrassing, and as though to drive the point home, NFL rules dictate that this
11:01is the only type of score in which you have to kick the ball back to your opponent after
11:06they get points.
11:07The football gods are taking the ball away from you because you obviously don't know
11:10what to do with it.
11:11It's also the only way to unconditionally score exactly two points.
11:16Because of this, it's kind of a stutter step, capable of evading the well-worn paths,
11:21of the seven and three, and stumbling us into more exotic territory.
11:24Many, many scorigamis have been powered by safeties, in part because it's so rarely seen.
11:29They typically account for less than 1% of all scoring events, meaning that in modern times,
11:33you can only expect to see about 10 or 20 over the course of an entire NFL season.
11:37There are three other types of scores that, here in the year 1920, have not yet found their
11:42way into the NFL rulebook.
11:43Two are the eight-point touchdown and two-point conversion, and its wayward sibling, the two-point
11:48defensive touchdown conversion.
11:50That one's a favorite of mine.
11:52Another is the forfeit, a one-of-a-kind scoring event that automatically declares a final score
11:56of exactly 2-0 if a team officially forfeits the game.
12:00For now, though, nearly every score will be built out of the 7, the 3, the 6, and the 2.
12:05And nearly every team will be one you've almost certainly never heard of, even if you're
12:10the biggest football fan you know.
12:11In 1920, the APFA began play with 14 official or unofficial members based in or around the
12:16Great Lakes area.
12:17Two of them, the Chicago Cardinals and Decatur Staley, stuck around for the long haul and
12:21in our time are known as the Arizona Cardinals and Chicago Bears, respectively.
12:24The other 12 teams went out of business before the end of the decade, and you're about to
12:28get some idea as to why the product put forth by this proto-NFL was equal parts confusing
12:34and bad.
12:44These are the 71 scorigami the APFA threw on the board in the two seasons before they were
12:49renamed the NFL.
12:51You'd expect as many, of course, since the league was brand new, but scores that were
12:54both substantial and competitive are almost nowhere to be seen.
12:58Almost every game was either a 1 or 2 score slog, an absolute beatdown, or a disappointing
13:03tie.
13:04Let's suppose you were interested in watching a game in which A, both teams scored double
13:08digits, and B, somebody actually won.
13:10That's not a lot to ask, right?
13:12But of the 131 games played across these two seasons, just 7 met those criteria.
13:18I think this is what happens when you allow your teams to schedule official games against
13:23just whoever.
13:24And by whoever, I mean these jokers up here.
13:2735 football teams who were not league members, but did play a game or two that counted in the
13:31standings.
13:32Some, like those St. Paul ideals, were run-of-the-mill local or regional squads.
13:36Others were so strange that the mere fact that they are a part of official NFL history is
13:42inherently funny.
13:43Somebody once memorably contended that if the troops put together a football team, they
13:48could dominate the NFL.
13:49Well, in 1920, the troops stationed at Fort Porter in Buffalo, New York, did put together
13:54a football team.
13:55The result was the second worst beatdown in league history.
13:59The Rochester Jeffersons hung 66 points on them in a shutout.
14:03This is not only a scorigami, but something we have decided to call an eternal scorigami.
14:08That is to say, a score that happened once, and only once, and never happened again.
14:13We got our first 66-to-zip game three weeks into the history of the league.
14:18More than a century later, we are still waiting for our second.
14:22In November of 1920, the Rock Island Independents won a 48-to-7 scorigami over the Washington
14:27and Jeff Collegians.
14:29And it was not supposed to end up like that.
14:31Thousands of fans showed up in anticipation of the first pro vs college clash anybody could
14:35remember, with some believing that pro football, in its nascent state, was no match for the superior
14:40college game.
14:41Unfortunately, it would seem that the faculty at Washington and Jefferson College read the
14:46paper, and when they find out that their amateur student-athletes are about to play in a professional
14:50game, they threaten to expel them.
14:52Consequently, some college players are no-shows and have to be replaced at the last minute
14:56by random guys they just pull off the street.
14:58Others play under fake names to evade detection, but they forget what their fake names are and
15:03don't answer to them when their coaches try to coach them, so nobody really knows what
15:07they're supposed to be doing.
15:08It's a minor miracle that the score is only 48-to-7.
15:12Very little about this APFA era makes any sense to the modern football observer.
15:16For instance, you'd probably expect the offense to score more points than the defense, right?
15:21Well, even this was an open question.
15:23For that, let's hear from Alex.
15:25After the APFA's very first full Sunday on October 3rd, 1920, five players were tied atop
15:33the league's all-time touchdown leaderboard with three apiece.
15:36Comprising that quintet were Waddy Kuehl, Arnie Wyman, Joe Guyon, Dutch Sternemann, and
15:42Al Nesser.
15:43Kuehl warrants an asterisk as he had a second game under his belt, having scored a couple
15:48times in the league's lone inaugural game the prior weekend.
15:51Of the remaining four players, not one but two, Nesser and Wyman, scored none of their
15:58touchdowns offensively.
16:00In the 43-0 Scorigami, Nesser had two fumble return TDs and later completed the hat-trick
16:05on a blocked field goal.
16:07Meanwhile Wyman powered Rock Island to the 45-0 Scorigami thanks to two touchdowns stemming
16:13from blocked punts before eventually tacking on a kick return TD.
16:17Multiple players who, however fleeting, were all-time touchdown leaders without
16:21having ever done so from the side of the ball that's specifically deployed to do, you know,
16:27the scoring.
16:28So on the very first full week of action, two different players scored three non-offensive
16:33touchdowns in a game.
16:34In the 105 years and counting since, there have been over 1,500 weeks of play containing well
16:41over 35,000 team games.
16:43And throughout that century-plus, that feat has been replicated exactly zero times.
16:49Two guys pulled that trick off on the day the cloak was fully removed, and then poof, never
16:55again to be seen.
16:57It'd be wild enough if the only two such instances occurred on the same day, period,
17:02like at any point in history.
17:04But they occurred in what wasn't even the embryonic stages of the league.
17:07It was the grand opening.
17:09The league was a zygote, and still saw twice, right off the bat, that for which a third sighting
17:15has proven perhaps eternally elusive.
17:19By the way, this guy here scored the second touchdown in league history and was therefore
17:23tied at the top of the all-time touchdown leaderboard for at least a few minutes.
17:27If you look back at every person who ever held the title of number one all-time touchdown
17:31scorer past legends like Jerry Rice and Jim Brown, you will eventually encounter the name
17:36Fred Chicken.
17:39On October 17, 1920, the Chicago Cardinals, who we know today as the Arizona Cardinals,
17:44hosted Moline Universal Tractors.
17:46Named after the tractor manufacturer who promised to sponsor them, what they really meant was
17:50that the fellas down at the plant would pass around the coffee can and send them whatever
17:54donations they could rustle up, which turned out to be nothing.
17:57In response, the team quickly tried to change its name to Moline Athletics, but it didn't
18:01quite stick.
18:02The original name was what ended up in the record books, and the Moline Universal Tractor Company
18:06will receive free advertising until the end of time.
18:09Another thing the record books didn't get right, they list the Cardinals as having beaten
18:12Moline Universal Tractors by a score of 33-0.
18:16The next day's Moline Dispatch, however, has the score at 33-3, and I believe him, because
18:22the story specifically details when the Moline field goal was kicked as well as the man,
18:26Donovan, who kicked it.
18:28This game is scorigami whether it's 33-0 or 33-3, that's not the issue.
18:32The issue is to decide what I, perhaps the first person to ever notice that the score of
18:35this NFL game is almost certainly wrong should do about it.
18:38I might be the last chance this score has at becoming correct.
18:42In fact, I might be the last person to ever come around and notice this.
18:45It took me a century.
18:47This is coming.
18:48This is coming.
18:49What do I do?
18:50I have to do something.
18:52I have to do something.
18:53Hello, National Football League.
18:55My name is John.
18:56I'm not sure which of these floors corresponds with the Bureau of Statistics and Information
19:01for the Moline Universal Tractors football team.
19:03I'm sure it's one of these floors.
19:05I'm sorry if I'm yelling at the wrong floor.
19:06I would like to keep you apprised that on October 17, 1920, the Chicago Cardinals, now known
19:13as the Arizona Cardinals, beat Moline Universal Tractors by a score not of 33-0, as has been
19:20logged by various league sources, but instead by 33-3, with an individual named Donovan having
19:28kicked a field goal and avoiding the shutout.
19:30And they just stood there.
19:37Nobody cares.
19:38Also, I think it should be worth a point if you just throw the ball through the goalposts.
19:43Nobody in a position to ever do so is ever going to lift a finger to put a 105-year-old
19:47field goal on the books, especially not one that didn't change the result of a game.
19:51Nothing left to do but open up the parts drawer and reach for this guy.
19:57Inaccurate Scorekeeping The most mysterious of all scoring types.
20:02How does it happen?
20:03How come that game win in the books is 33-0 and not 33-3?
20:06Who knows?
20:08Maybe somebody tapped a dot instead of a dash on the telegraph in 1920.
20:11Maybe somebody compiling records mistyped it in 1962.
20:15Maybe someone using Excel accidentally dragged over the wrong cell in 1997.
20:19Whoever they were, this anonymous interloper found a way to score negative three points for
20:23a team they did not play for in a game that may have been played decades before they were
20:26born.
20:27The mystery only begins there.
20:29How many points could this accidental method add to or subtract from the scoreboard without
20:33anybody noticing?
20:347?
20:3510?
20:36And now that we have one virtually confirmed instance of errant score keeping, how many
20:39more do we think there might be?
20:42It's doubtful to impossible that any scores from the Super Bowl era were wrong given the
20:46massive in-person attendance, TV viewership, video evidence.
20:50But I imagine it's somewhat likely that at least one more of these scores from the pre-television
20:54era is somehow inaccurate.
20:57Which one?
20:58Who knows?
20:59Whether evidence even exists that could one day lead us to the correct score?
21:01Who knows?
21:02Who knows?
21:03But we do at least see you, Donovan, place kicker who scored the only NFL points in the
21:08history of Moline Universal Tractors.
21:10You know, I tried to look you up and find out more about you, but I couldn't even find
21:14your first name.
21:15It may have taken much longer than you would have liked in decades after you've surely
21:19died, but I want you to know that eventually, we did see you.
21:29It might have caught your attention that yep, someone achieved just about the saddest
21:33Scorigami one can imagine, a 0-0 tie.
21:36This honor belongs to the Cleveland Tigers and Dayton Triangles, whose game kicked off at
21:402.30pm Eastern Time on October 10th, 1920, and ended without any scoring at all from
21:46either team.
21:47It stood as the only scoreless tie in all of league history for about 90 minutes.
21:53Approximately an hour and a half later it happened again, with the Chicago Tigers and
21:57Chicago Cardinals, sometimes called the Racine Cardinals, kicking off at 3pm Central and finishing
22:01with a score of 0-0.
22:03Yes, you have that right.
22:05There are two different teams playing in this league who are both named the Tigers and both
22:09play in different 0-0 games on the exact same afternoon.
22:15Would you believe that these were only two of many 0-0 ties?
22:18Happened again about a month later between the Rock Island Independents and Decatur Staley's.
22:22The local paper called this 0-0 game sensational, which it was, for reasons that a scoreboard
22:27can't really communicate.
22:29In the days leading up to the contest, Rock Island fans cornered Staley's center George
22:32Trafton in a hotel lobby and told him he wouldn't even last the first quarter before getting
22:36knocked out of the game.
22:37Trafton said, fine, let's put some money on it and bet all the cash he had on him that
22:41he'd stay in the game, which he did while throwing around the Decatur defensive line
22:44all afternoon.
22:45Rock Island fans, apparently furious at Trafton for, um, not suffering an injury, started a
22:51riot after the game, chasing and throwing bottles at his taxi as he tried to flee the
22:56scene.
22:57Even being a fan who attends this game, you don't get to see any scoring of any kind from
23:01either team at all, but you do get to see a riot and perhaps even participate in it.
23:06Uh, unless, oh yeah, I forgot to mention this, you were one of the thousands of fans who fell
23:10to the ground after an entire section of bleachers collapsed.
23:13It happens smack in the middle of the game and indications are that they didn't even momentarily
23:17pause the game when this happened.
23:19That's the NFL fan experience, baby.
23:21Okay, well, surely this won't be a 0-0 tie.
23:24On paper, at least, this is easily the wildest mismatch in NFL history, the Canton Bulldogs
23:30led by the legendary Jim Thorpe, by universal acclaim, one of the most transcendent athletes
23:35who's ever lived against the Washington Glee Club.
23:39Listen, we're used to getting an earful from more reactionary types whenever we visit the
23:43history of the Washington Commanders franchise.
23:46Don't call them Washington, you woke coward.
23:48Respect our history and tradition.
23:50They're called the Washington Glee Club.
23:52Respect our beautiful, precious Glee Club.
23:54Well, what they failed to understand is that this was an entirely different squad that was
23:58actually based in New Haven, Connecticut.
24:00The blog Football Archeology has a great piece on this gang, which did start as a
24:05real Glee Club before venturing into athletics and lining up with a football team that was
24:09actually pretty solid.
24:11So solid that they held Jim Thorpe's Canton Bulldogs to a scoreless tie.
24:16If that matchup can end up 0-0, any game can.
24:20In fact, many did.
24:22In fact, across the APFA years of 1920 and 1921, there were 15 scoreless ties.
24:30Significantly more than any other type of score.
24:33That's right, 0-0 was literally the very most likely way for a game to end.
24:40Thanks to subsequent innovations such as overtime and, you know, offensive football, a modern
24:45American football game has no business ever finishing 0-0 unless it's being played at the
24:50bottom of Lake Michigan.
24:52If you introduced a sports league in the year 2025 that put forth this product, it would
24:57fold in a month because we have the privilege of standards.
25:01We spent 20 minutes flipping through menus to figure out which movie to watch.
25:05The people of a century ago had the movie shown at the movie theater and they could go see
25:10the movie or not see it.
25:12This is how they seem to have perceived football as well.
25:14They kept buying tickets and showing up and supporting the league because it was the ballgame.
25:21And today's NFL exists because they did.
25:31In 1921, eight more teams show up, but with the exception of the Green Bay Packers, they
25:35all fade from history pretty quickly.
25:37In 1922, the league officially adopts the name National Football League and spends the
25:42next decade watching many more teams wander in.
25:45Two of them stick around for the long haul, the New York Giants and Portsmouth Spartans,
25:48who soon become the Detroit Lions.
25:51The rest of them are either short-lived or very short-lived, but I'd like to dole out
25:55a few superlatives before they go.
25:57Most endearing, Providence Steamroller, who nestled right in here to win the NFL's first
26:02ever 5-0 game.
26:045-0 is such a scorigami score, it just looks so fundamentally weird.
26:08And there has never, ever been a better team name than Providence Steamroller.
26:12Optin' for the singular there instead of the plural makes it 10 times better.
26:17Most prolific, the Frankfurt Philadelphia Yellowjackets, who in their eight seasons were
26:21involved in 20 scorigami.
26:23Here let's go ahead and push up the z-axis to reflect how many scorigami each team has
26:27played a part in.
26:29Obviously the five modern day franchises tower over everybody on account of how long they've
26:33been out there, but among defunct franchises, Frankfurt stands far above all the others of this
26:38era.
26:39In November of 1924, for instance, there were 10 scorigami league-wide, Frankfurt was involved
26:43in six of them, and they won them all.
26:46And a super-duper special scorigami lifetime achievement award goes to the Racine Wisconsin
26:51Legion, owners of perhaps the most unique scorigami ever achieved to this day.
26:56On November 25th, 1923, leading the Cardinals 10-2 with three minutes left in the game, Racine
27:01quarterback Shorty Barr opted to kill as much time as he could in the backfield and was willing
27:05to eventually score an intentional safety on himself to do so.
27:10This is not the only intentional safety in NFL history, but it's almost certainly the
27:14first.
27:15The Legion thereby secured a 10-4 scorigami.
27:19As of 2025 and probably for ages beyond 2025, this remains the only game in NFL history in
27:25which a team finished with four points, which can only be accomplished by exactly two safeties
27:30and no other scoring.
27:32It's the only traffic on an otherwise perfectly clean and empty lane.
27:36So far, the only proven method of putting a four in the box score is to score on yourself
27:41on purpose.
27:42Speaking of giving your opponent completely free gifts out of the goodness of your heart,
27:46here again is Alex.
27:49On November 22nd, 1925, Rock Island dismantles the Milwaukee Badgers in the league's first-ever
27:5540-7 ballgame.
27:57What catches my eye about this one is that I've noticed in the Pro Football Reference
28:01box score that the Independents have a fourth-quarter kick return touchdown that isn't preceded
28:05by an opposing score.
28:08So then, what's the genesis of said kickoff to Rock Island?
28:12Why that would be their own score from moments earlier.
28:15You see, in the archaic days of yore, teams that just allowed a score would often prefer to
28:21kick off to their opponent who just scored on them in lieu of exercising their inalienable
28:26right to receive the ensuing kickoff, which is the ubiquitous consolation prize we know
28:31today.
28:32And it wasn't even a rare occasion for teams to willingly forfeit their god-given right
28:36to possess the ball after allowing a score.
28:39In fact, in this very game, Milwaukee chooses to kick to Rock Island after the latter scores
28:44touchdown number one, and after they score touchdown number two.
28:49Rock Island joins in the lunacy by choosing to kick off after Milwaukee's touchdown, while
28:53the Badgers again choose to do so after Rock Island touchdown number three.
28:58It's after the Independents' fourth TD that they score number five on a kick return stemming
29:03from their own score, and yet even that doesn't deter Milwaukee from wanting to kick off again.
29:10With the Badgers somehow having still failed to learn their lesson, Rock Island quickly and
29:14easily tacks on another final touchdown.
29:18It's at this point Milwaukee finally gets the brilliant epiphany to actually be the recipient
29:23of the subsequent kickoff, and it's only taken until they surrendered their sixth touchdown.
29:29Even in the 30s we're still seeing this inexplicable phenomenon unfold.
29:33In October 1931, when Providence takes their steamroller to Green Bay to face the dynastic
29:38Packers, not surprising is Coach Curly Lambeau's squad relegating the steamroller to a steamrollee
29:45in a decisive and score-a-gomic 48-20 win.
29:49More surprising?
29:51After Wirt Engelman hauls in a touchdown to cap each of Green Bay's first two possessions,
29:55Providence saying no thanks to the ball, opting to instead kick off to Engelman, who proceeds
30:00to take said kickoff to the house.
30:03We know of two other post-score kickoff decisions.
30:06One is the aforementioned Wyman kick return touchdown that followed his own team's field
30:10goal on the first full week of play, and the other from a run-of-the-mill non-scorigami.
30:16In their 1925 maiden voyage, the Giants lost 14-0 after allowing touchdown number one when
30:22they were steamrolled by Providence on a punt before deciding to give their kick coverage
30:26units another shot, only to immediately allow their second special team's touchdown in seconds.
30:33I'd like to say we as a society would eventually become smarter than that, but even in recent
30:38decades we've seen teams voluntarily forfeit a possession for no reason whatsoever.
30:45They'd come in a slightly different form, in what amounted to choosing to kick to start
30:49both halves as opposed to choosing to kick after allowing a score, but the fundamental decision
30:54is the same, voluntarily and deliberately kissing a possession goodbye for absolutely no reason.
31:01Dan Reeves did it in a playoff game against the Vikings in January 1994 when his Giants kicked
31:07off to start both halves.
31:09As recently as 2004, Herm Edwards' Jets did so in Buffalo.
31:13The apparent logic in those instances was driven by reasons related to the elements and
31:18this cuckoo belief that choosing at the start of a game a specific goal to defend should somehow
31:23supersede the precious possession of the football.
31:26But here's the thing about that quote-unquote logic.
31:30Even if conditions are such that make a particular direction that much more appealing than the
31:34other, the bottom line is it still makes exactly zero sense when the fact is the two teams
31:40flip directions after the first and third quarters.
31:43It's not as though you get the good side for the entire game.
31:46Any way you slice it, you still only get it for 30 of the 60 minutes.
31:51It makes my brain hurt.
31:57Personally, the period of NFL history stretching between the 30s and mid-40s is my least favorite to revisit.
32:03But the slipshod goofiness of the 20s has given way to a league-wide stagnation, punctuated
32:07on both ends by the Great Depression and World War II in which those of the margins struggle
32:12to just hang on.
32:13In one case, it does look pretty funny when the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles
32:17have to temporarily merge to become the Steegals, but elsewhere, our beloved scorigami heroes,
32:22the Frankfurt Yellow Jackets, are unable to survive financially and close up shop.
32:27Same for the Cincinnati Reds, one of a whole mess of teams who tried unsuccessfully to coast
32:31off the success of Major League Baseball by naming themselves after baseball teams.
32:35During these years, the size of the league generally floats between 8 and 10 teams without even
32:39any cameo appearances by the local post office or whatever to make it interesting.
32:44Scorigami slows down, as we can observe over here in Figure 3, which illustrates the total
32:49number of scorigami achieved league-wide in every individual season.
32:53It was a mathematical inevitability, of course, that the first season would produce the most
32:56scorigami.
32:57I would not, however, expect the frequency to fall off a cliff quite like this.
33:02Nobody cares in this time, of course, because the term scorigami does not yet exist, but we
33:06can think of scorigami as a means of taking this league's blood pressure.
33:11It can tell us a lot about how vibrant and dynamic this league is, and in the mid-30s it gives
33:15us a reading.
33:16Not very.
33:17There aren't very many teams, hence there aren't so many games available to make scorigami.
33:21And the games we do have tend to produce the same old stories, the same old final scores.
33:26Even when it picks back up, the scorigamis are often aggressively normal by today's standards.
33:30For instance, in 1940, we finally see our very first 10-3 game, which is weird only because
33:36we should have seen it 20 years ago.
33:38It's a touchdown, extra point, and two field goals.
33:41That's about as likely as it gets, especially in a time when the scoring is often so low.
33:45And yet its next door neighbors, the very difficult 10-2 and near impossible 10-4, both of which
33:51are eternal scorigami that have happened once and only once ever, happened years and years
33:56before we ever saw a single 10-3.
33:59Equally astounding.
34:00On October 15th, 1944, the Cleveland Rams beat the Detroit Lions 20-17, who cares, right?
34:0620-17 is an incredibly common score.
34:09Exactly my point.
34:10Let's time warp back ahead to the present day because there's something I'd like you
34:14to take a look at.
34:16Across the entirety of NFL history, 20-17 is not only a very common score, not only the
34:22most common score, but the most common score by a dramatic margin.
34:26It's happened 297 times entering the 2025 season.
34:31It surpasses all the other most common scores handily.
34:34Less common scores are rendered ant-like in comparison.
34:37We've set aside figure four to illustrate exactly how common 20-17 has been throughout
34:41most of the league's history.
34:43In our time, you typically see somewhere between four and eight 20-17 games per year.
34:48For the last 61 seasons running, there's always been at least one, usually several.
34:53And yet, throughout the first 24 seasons of the league, 20-17 never, ever happened.
34:59This startling absence is mirrored by the other four most common scores in history, 27-24,
35:0423-20, 17-14, and 24-17.
35:08These scores are all incredibly common and incredibly achievable scatterings of touchdowns and field
35:13goals, but the first of these to ever occur, 17-14, wasn't seen until 1933, the 14th season
35:20of play.
35:21Suppose you come from an alternate universe in which football exists but the NFL does not.
35:26If you were shown this chart, you'd probably draw the conclusion that the NFL wasn't founded
35:29until the 1930s.
35:31This total failure to register any of the five most common NFL scores is a perfect illustration
35:37of just how alien those early seasons were.
35:40It's as though they were playing a different sport.
35:42And although the NFL is finally beginning to resemble the sport we know in the 1940s, it
35:47remains unfamiliar for other reasons.
35:49Another damage to this already wobbly 8-10 team league is entirely self-inflicted by an
35:54unofficial yet unmistakable policy of segregation.
35:58Although there weren't many black NFL players in the earliest days, Boston Braves owner George
36:02P. Marshall upon entering the league as an owner in 1932 leverages his influence to prevent
36:06the league from signing any black players at all.
36:09Marshall is so dogmatically segregationist that in his will, he'll specifically forbid his
36:14charitable organization from contributing to integrationist causes of any kind after he dies.
36:19This is a spiritual and societal ill that a single football game cannot solve.
36:23However, when such a man is made to feel bad, sad, mad, and comprehensively humiliated,
36:29it's worth enjoying.
36:30It's the 1940 NFL championship between the Chicago Bears and Washington.
36:34Okay, alright, I'll say the full name.
36:37Washington Glee Club.
36:38Weeks prior, Washington beat Chicago 7-3, after which now Washington owner George P. Marshall
36:43declared that Chicago wasn't tough, couldn't play from behind, quit before the game was over.
36:48The Bears heard this and were determined to make him pay for it.
36:51Now in this time, there's a scoring rule in the books that's extraordinarily obscure
36:55because it almost never requires indication.
36:57It states that following a touchdown, the offense is allowed to try for a second one-point
37:02touchdown instead of kicking the extra point.
37:06Since it's worth one point either way and kicking is a lot easier, this would only make
37:09sense if, say, your kicker's hurt or if there's a botched hold on the kick that requires the
37:13holder to tug and run with it, something like that.
37:16This rule will very quietly remain on the books all the way up through 1993.
37:21Toward the end of this game in 1940, we see what has to be the only time an NFL team with
37:26a healthy kicker intentionally lined up to try to run or pass for the extra point.
37:30The Bears did this in response to an issue that has never come up before or since.
37:36They ran out of footballs.
37:37In an era before they ran netting behind the goalposts, it was likely that a short-range
37:41extra point kick would go flying through the uprights and straight into the crowd, never
37:45to be seen again.
37:46This had never been a problem until today, because today, the Chicago Bears score 11 touchdowns.
38:06Chicago 73, Washington 0, the most extreme of scorer gommet, entering the 2025 season, still
38:16the most severe beatdown the NFL has ever seen.
38:20And the Bears wanted even more than that.
38:22In the game's final seconds, already up 73-zip, Chicago's Joe Maniaci hauls in his team's
38:27seventh interception of the game and is then rude enough to actually pitch a lateral to a
38:31teammate to extend the play.
38:3273 was not enough, they wanted to hang 80 on it.
38:36This is probably the one and only scorer gommet that's built entirely of spite.
38:41There have been far worse beatdowns in other levels of the sport, the greatest outlier being
38:45the 1916 incident in which Georgia Tech dematerialized Cumberland College by a score of 222-0.
38:53If that had been a scorer gommet eligible NFL game, it would live all the way out here on
38:57our scorer gommet board, but that was the result of, among other things, a criminally irresponsible
39:02mismatch between a national powerhouse and a terrified gaggle of random law students.
39:07Meanwhile, the nearest neighbor on the left is that 66-0 game in which the troops in Fort
39:11Porter rounded up a ragtag squad and got destroyed.
39:14An annihilation like 73-0 has no business happening between two official NFL teams in good standing,
39:21not even the best team versus the worst team.
39:23But this was the NFL championship, the Proto Super Bowl, a match between the best and second
39:28best teams.
39:29It might stand forever as the most humiliating loss an NFL team has ever been dealt.
39:34And it happened to Washington, and to George P. Marshall.
39:38Marshall did not take it well.
39:39In the third quarter, after the third pick six of the day made it 54-0, fans started heckling
39:44and throwing trash at him.
39:46Marshall tried to fight him, but after police intervened, he turned around and left the stadium before
39:50the game was over.
39:51Later, he again accused players of going soft and giving up, this time his own players.
39:56Much later, John F. Kennedy strong-armed him into making his franchise the last one to finally
40:01racially integrate.
40:02And much, much later, his family, horrified by the illegal segregationist garbage he'd written
40:06in his will, ignored it entirely.
40:13In 1941, the NFL offers Chicago Tribune sports editor Arch Ward, the genius behind the Major League
40:18Baseball All-Star game and Golden Globes boxing tournament, a boatload of money to serve as
40:22league commissioner.
40:23He turns it down.
40:25In the NFL, Ward sees a small-time minor league football association that's stuck in the past.
40:30Though he does recognize the NFL's potential, he believes it can't be improved from within,
40:34and that external pressure is the only means of dragging it into the future.
40:38So Ward turns around and founds competition in the form of the All-America Football Conference,
40:43which begins play in 1946.
40:45It is new.
40:46It is, unlike the NFL, willing to expand far away from the Great Lakes and plant teams in
40:50places like Florida and California.
40:52It pays players better, it's more than happy to sign black players to its rosters.
40:56And although it'll only last four years, it's a formidable enough competitor to compel
41:00a merger with the NFL in 1949.
41:03A couple of its teams, the Browns and 49ers, will still be playing in 2025.
41:07The rest either fold or merge into other teams, but either way, the AAFC's historical records
41:12will be accepted and merged into the NFL's.
41:16This means, all their games are Scorigami eligible.
41:19Consequently, between 1946 and 1949, Scorigami explodes.
41:34In 1947 alone, there are 27 separate instances of Scorigami.
41:39And to this day, that's still more than any other single season has seen aside from the
41:43debut 1920 season.
41:45This revival is due in part to the fact that there are canonically many more teams now,
41:49thus many more Scorigami eligible games.
41:51But it's also because in the AAFC, things can get a little bit crazy.
41:56On September 25, 1946, just the third week of action in AAFC history, 20,000 fans pack into
42:02Soldier Field to watch the Chicago Rockets take on the Buffalo Bisons.
42:06Just moments before kickoff, the news is broadcast over the loudspeaker.
42:10Rockets head coach, Dick Hanley, has quit the team.
42:13In a delightful twist on you can't fire me, I quit, Hanley claims he was fired with
42:17the team insisting he quit.
42:19In any case, three Rockets players are asked to coach the team together on a moment's notice
42:23while also playing in the game.
42:25The result, somehow, is one of the wildest, most thrilling pro football games that fans
42:30have ever seen to this point in history, with the Rockets finally winning the back and forth
42:34affair 38 to 35.
42:36This is Scorigami.
42:38It's also the first game ever in which both teams scored at least 35 points.
42:42This is the kind of riveting shootout that we're likely to see 5 or 10 times per season
42:46in the modern era.
42:47It's something that the NFL never accomplished once in more than a quarter century of play.
42:52The AAFC did it in three weeks.
42:58About a month later, the Rockets travel to Buffalo for a sloppy rematch where both teams
43:03turn the ball over seven times.
43:06The Bison's defense scores on four of their takeaways, a couple of regular fumble recoveries,
43:11a third fumble recovery that includes a lateral, and a pirouetting, over-the-shoulder, one-handed
43:18beauty of a pick that also includes a deft lateral and nimble zigzagging.
43:23As wacky as this game is, and Chicago's still being coached by three players in the final
43:28game before they'll decide on promoting to be coach, you know, a coach, still refreshing
43:33to see the normalcy of teams choosing to say, yes please, we'll accept the football, after
43:38allowing a score, which enables the Rockets to answer a Buffalo TD when Crazy Legs Hirsch plows
43:44through the Bisons on the ensuing kickoff.
43:47Nevertheless, Buffalo's scoring outburst sets a new AAFC record while the game's five
43:52non-offensive touchdowns help unlock Scorigami, the second time in 33 days these two squads
43:59have do-si-do-ed their way to such glory.
44:02These Chicago and Buffalo franchises folded in 1949, having played each other only eight
44:07times, but incredibly, they still found room to collaborate on a third Scorigami in 48,
44:12with Buffalo winning 39-35.
44:15Despite it operating only four seasons and securing the long-term survival of only two
44:19of its franchises, the AAFC changed the NFL, permanently, and for the better.
44:24The days of the 0-0 tie are fully dead and gone.
44:27The future is here.
44:32By the end of the 1950s, the NFL hasn't yet fulfilled Arch Ward's vision of a sports
44:36league that can stand toe-to-toe with Major League Baseball, but it's the strongest it's
44:40ever been.
44:41Having added the Baltimore Colts to its ranks, the league now numbers 12 teams, all of whom
44:45will still be here in 2025.
44:47Scorigami, however, drops off dramatically once again.
44:50Kickers have become so reliable that about 95% of all scorers are now sevens and threes, placing
44:56the vast majority of final scores in extremely well-worn territory.
45:00Season after season, fewer and fewer Scorigami are produced.
45:03In 1959, only three are produced league-wide.
45:07Both institutions, Scorigami and the NFL, are about to benefit from a major transformation.
45:13It will arrive in the form of a league merger, as the last one did, but this time, a brand
45:17new scoring rule is coming with it.
45:20In 1960, we'll finally be able to break the glass and reach for the favored tool of modern
45:25Scorigami.
45:26The part that will at long last allow us to reach so many of the unscratchable itches that
45:31litter this board, the two-point conversion.
45:35It will change everything.
45:57It will change everything.
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