NFL Football is a curious game to those who live beyond the borders of the continental United States. Its rules are many and complex, and its scoring system is built on arcane magic. This system means that there are many possible final game scores that have never actually happened in practice. For fans keen to hear of any first-time scores as they happen, Scorigami bot is here to help.
Charting and researching these is the practice of Scorigami, an idea first posited by Jon Bois, and is explored in this SB Nation video. It covers the many impossible scores in NFL, such as 1-0 and 1-1, as well as the possible-but-extremely-unlikely, like 6-1. To keep track of the state of Scorigami means following every score of every NFL game as its played. The ‘bot makes this easier; scraping the NFL livescores page with some nifty Javascript, it tracks each game live for potential first-time scores; the most recent as of writing being the Chiefs beating the Texans 51-31. Not only that, but the ‘bot estimates the most likely possible scorigami scores of games in progress, keeping fans on tenterhooks until the final whistle is blown. Or is it a siren in NFL? Inquiring minds need to know.
Code is naturally available on Github if you want to independently audit the Twitter feed; obviously the sanctity of scorigami results is absolutely paramount, and ensuring as such is a community responsibility. We’ve seen other live-score projects before, like this glowing Super Bowl football.
Really neat, I love stuff like this. Thanks for posting!
Took me a while to figure out how the 6-1 score was even possible. I’m not surprised there are no recorded x-1 games.
I wasn’t surprised to see most of the unscored numbers are at the low end – for example, they only had one game where a team had a final score with 4 points.
For those, like me, who’ve been following football for 40+ years, and still could figure out how you could score a single point, I’ll save you a google. A turn-over on a 2-pt conversion results in a 1 point safety for the defense. Learn something new everyday.
Well, after getting a turnover on the 2-point play, the defensive team then needs to turn it over back to the offensive team at least once because they need to tackle/sack the offence behind their own goal line to score the point. I wonder how many points would the defence score if they just straight out run the ball back to the other end? It wouldn’t be a touchdown, would it?
If the defense forces a turnover on a PAT and run it all the way back they get 2 points with it still being kicked for them.
For example 0-0 game. Team one scores a touchdown, 6-0. If the defense then intercepts the PAT and runs it back they get 2. It is now 6-2 with the ball being kicked to team 2.
How many scores have only one game attached to them? >100? Also, other than Cowboys over Lions 5 – 0 in ’70, any other games with this score?