Awkward title, sorry.
Here’s one for all of you football stats nuts:
Has any pro football team ever scored all the available scoring opportunities in a single game:
touchdown, single PAT (and, later, the 2-point conversion PAT), field goal, and safety in a single game?
I’m sure it’s happened, though I don’t know where to look to confirm. What would also be interesting is if a team has ever scored a touchdown all possible ways: passing, running, fumble recovery, interception.
There’s at least one that would be impossible to score along with the others: the point awarded to a team if the other one doesn’t show up. I can’t even remember if it results in a 1-0 score for the ones who appeared, or something else like that. Anyway, it would be all by itself.
And kick return and punt return.
Actually there are five different ways to score in a pro football game, although two of them are worth the same value:
#6 has never happened in an NFL game, but it does happen very rarely in college ball (there was one in the Texas-Texas A&M game two years ago).
To get the one point safety, you would need a scenario like this. I will use players from today’s Super Bowl. The Seahawks are going for two points and then hand the ball off to Shaun Alexander. He runs to the right and is in the clear, but the ball slips out of his hands. As Alexander runs to pick it up, Troy Polamalu of Pittsburgh sees that Alexander is going to recover his own fumble (on a 2-pointer only the fumbling player can advance the ball), so he dives at the ball and sends it squirting out the back of the end zone.
After a long huddle, the officials realize that the ball went out of the end zone because of the impetus of a Pittsburgh player and it’s a safety. But since it’s a PAT, the safety is only worth one point.
Seattle would then kickoff to Pittsburgh.
I’d never heard of this, so I went Googling.
It’s a 2-0 score. The rule is in the section on Emergencies:
I’d also never heard of the safety-on-conversion situation BobT describes; interesting.
This is like D&D to me; I get a geeky thrill out of obscure football stuff.
I’m not sure why this one started out life in Cafe Society, but I AM sure that Uke wouldn’t have approved.
Come on over to the dark side…GQ.
Moved.
samclem
In the UT vs A&M game, I believe that Texas had an extra point blocked and A&M tried to pick it up and run it back (which is good for 2 points in college), but the A&M player ended up running back into the end zone where he was brought down for 1 point.
The ABC crew was baffled by the whole thing.
Now I’m confused, and I own a copy of the NFL rulebook.
In your scenario Seattle scores the one point from this safety-on-a-try, correct? At least that the way it sounds in my book. It states that the point is awarded to the offensive team, in this case Seattle.
Can you give us a rule-book cite for this?
As a further question:
What would happen if for some reason the team who scored the touchdown and was attempting the extra point retreated and was tackled in their own end zone. Does the defense score anything? I suspect this isn’t covered in the rules though I can imagine one scenario when it would be important.
Due to the tie breaker rules a team must win this game – the last of the season – by 4 or more points to qualify for the playoffs. On the last play of the game they score a touchdown to take the lead by one point. Since a win is insufficient for them to qulify for the playoffs they take a deliberate safety on the extra point to give one point to the other team creating a tie. They hope to win by a touchdown in over-time.
Of course if the “safety” counts two points for the defense, just change the scenario so the touchdown put them up by 2 and say they need to win the game by 5 or more points.
Wow, devious, OldGuy. It sounds almost as clever as the infamous Barbados-Grenada soccer match.
And I’m guessing that this was originally in the Cafe because football is entertainment, but this being a nitty-gritty technical question, it’s probably better in GQ.
No, that would be a Great Debate. 
I can. It’s
Rule 11 (Scoring)
Section 3 (Try)
Article 1
And more to the point for my own confusion is the wording of Article 5 from the same Section
It seems it is covered in the aforementioned rule and in the case of the offensive player retreating to their own end zone and being tackled would seem to indicate that the defensive team receives nothing, but rather the offensive team receives one point!
I’ve been combing the rule book for some insight on this bizarre rule but that’s the way it reads…
That’s how I read it, too. Can this possibly be correct? Imagine the following scenario; I’ll use the Steelers and Seahawks for exemplary purposes:
The Steelers are losing 16-10, and then they score a touchdown, tying the game with one second left on the clock. They can kick or go for two on the conversion; obviously they’d rather take the safer, easier option, which is normally to kick. Remember, they only need one point to win the game.
The twist: The Steelers’ kicker, and all their backup kickers, and in fact everyone on the team who has ever kicked a football, have ALL been horribly injured and are unable even to walk, let alone play.
The Steelers don’t want to try for 2 points against the fearsome Seattle defense, so here’s what they do: They line up as if they’re going for a two-point conversion, and put their absolute fastest sprinter in there. At the snap, they hand him the ball, and he turns around and runs as fast as he possibly can the other way, into the other end zone and out the back of it.
This would normally result in a safety (and 2 points) for Seattle’s defense, but according to the rule that MonkeyMensch has quoted, it would actually be a point–and the win–for Pittburgh.
(It would be mighty embarrassing if the coach had read the rules wrong and accidentally gave away two points–and the win–in this mistaken belief.)
Well, in a game in the late 60s, the Oakland Raiders scored all possible ways before the Denver Broncos had a play from scrimmage. (Note that this was just after the AFL/NFL merger, when the AFL went by NFL rules and did not allow a 2-point conversion. That would also rule out the possibility of a safety on a 2-point conversion, and I can’t imagine how there could be a safety in an extra point try).
Oakland elected to recieve the kickoff and marched down the field for a touchdown. They made the extra point. On the ensuing kickoff, Floyd Little of the Broncos picked up the ball on the one and ran back into the end zone, thinking it would be a touchback. Of course, it was a safety. Then the Broncos were required to kick off, and the Raiders kicked a field goal. 12-0 before the Broncos got the ball.
I’m guessing it was week nine of the 1968 season; the final score was 43-7 Raiders, and the math works out.
This almost sorta answers one of the many questions in this thread, but I can say that in a game against the Giants this season, the Minnesota Vikings became the first team ever to score on an interception return, a kickoff return, and a punt return in the same game. They also scored a field goal in that game, but they didn’t score an offensive touchdown. So any combination of scoring that involves punt return, kick return, INT return and [pass and run, pass run safety, pass run FG, etc.] has never happened.
Taken from the “Ask Jerry Markbreit” column on the Chicago Tribune’s website:
As for running backwards and out of your own end zone to score one point on the PAT, that won’t work. The safety is awarded if the defense makes the ball dead in its own end zone only.
And as an adjunct, in Rugby Union it’s not all that uncommon for a team to score all four possible ways (try, conversion, penalty goal, drop-goal), and it’s rare-ish but not unheard-of for one player to manage the feat.
We don’t have any of this fannying around after a try (our touchdown), btw. It’s a two-point kick or nothing. Very rare is for the side scoring the try to refuse to attempt the conversion - if the two points aren’t enough and they are hoping to score again before the clock runs out, they don’t have to attempt the kick, and this can save a minute or so of playing time.
There is no “safety” in Rugby either - not such as to give points to the opposing side, that is. If a defender makes the ball dead in in-goal, play restarts either with a five-metre scrummage if a defender took the ball into in-goal, or a 22-metre drop-out (a kick-off on or behind the 22-metre line) if an attacker did (but did not score).
According to a newspaper account, the ball bounced off of Little’s chest in the end zone onto the field, Little picked it up at the one and retreated to the end zone and downed it. The end result was as you said–safety.