Scorigami!

By THEO BJORNSTAD

Scorigami!

Something happened this week in the NFL that has never happened before- in the entire history of the NFL Super Bowl Era.

The event was not Aaron Rodgers’s season-ending ACL tear, which happened only 4 minutes and 20 seconds in to his first game of the season, it wasn’t the hopes of all 29 remaining Bears fans being crushed for yet another year in a row, and it wasn’t even the Arizona Cardinals managing to beat a team that actually knows how to play football. It wasn’t even just one never-before-seen event, but two.

Allow me to introduce Scorigami, a concept thought up by sports writer Jon Bois. Scorigami is the art of building football scores that have never before been seen before in all of NFL History. Because you can’t score just one point at a time in football, only in increments of 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8. This makes some scores almost impossible to achieve, like the coveted 4-0, occurring when one team acquires two exceedingly rare safeties as the only points scored throughout the whole game. Above, we see the Scorigami Chart, a map of all possible football scores. A green space means the score has happened, a black space means the score is impossible, and a gray space means the score is possible, but hasn’t happened yet.  This week, we have seen not one, but two spaces be filled. These two scores have never been seen before in the history of the NFL– the Dolphins-Broncos 70-20, and the Eagles-Buccaneers 25-11. 

The Broncos didn’t just lose. They didn’t just lose badly, and they didn’t even manage to lose spectacularly. They got sauced. Obliterated. Reduced to elementary particles. Nobody has gotten a score over 60 in a professional game since 2011, and before that in 1989. There has not been a professional score above 70 points since 1966 There have only been four games at or above 70 points in all of NFL History, now, this is one of them. It’s the kind of football game you say: “I was there” for. 

As to how the Broncos, who surprisingly aren’t even the worst team in the league right now, could be annihilated so completely: even I don’t have an answer. My running theory is that Tua Tagovailoa (QB) performed a forbidden blood ritual with Tyreek Hill (WR), Raheem Mostert (RB) and De’Von Achane (RB) in the Dolphins locker room before the game- attaining godlike power. 

The other Scorigami this week was Eagles-Buccaneers, which can aptly be described as an extremely strange game. A rare aligning of the planets, with a safety on Rachaad White by Nicholas Morrow during the 3rd quarter for the Eagles and a successful 2-point conversion for the Buccaneers in the 4th. Safeties only happen once about every 14 games or so, and 2-point conversions are uncommon in and of themselves, being attempted once every 10-ish touchdowns, and are only successful just under half the time.

 Also in historical news, this is the first time the Eagles are up 3-0 since 1992. Eagles fans everywhere are expected to be happy for a record-smashing four weeks, until it’s their turn with the Dolphins. 

As I’ve recently gotten more into football- I’ve developed a greater appreciation for all the weird stuff that happens in it– stuff I wouldn’t normally pay any mind to. To me, points were just points up until a few weeks ago. Now, I’ll cheer just as I would for a touchdown every time a quarterback is tackled in his own end zone. At this rate, we probably won’t even have to wait long to see another Scorigami. The NFL is becoming increasingly data driven. 

2-point conversions are becoming increasingly common, and so too will new Scorigami. This year has proven to already be an extremely exciting one for football, and I bet we’ll see even more Scorigami in the weeks to come. Maybe one day, we’ll even get to see every square on this board filled with green. But until then, I’ll celebrate every score that gets us one step closer.

Featured Image Credit: https://nflscorigami.com/