What is the earliest in a game a team scored a touchdown?
Probably a runback from the opening kickoff.
Yeah, in Super Bowl 41, Devin Hester returned the opening kickoff for a TD. [edited to correct the number of the Super Bowl]
In Week 6 of the 2003 season, the Eagles led off the game with an on-side kick, which the Cowboys returned for a TD. With 14:57 left in the first quarter, the Eagles were down 6-0 (and then 7-0).
Given that it was an on-side kick, I’d be hard pressed to think a team could score any faster.
In the NFL it was officially three seconds in 2003, when the Eagles decided to try an onside kick to open their game against the Cowboys. The Cowboys were not taken by surprise.
Okay, yearofglad posted faster, but I linked to the video!
Agreed. The clock doesn’t start on a kickoff until the ball is touched, but an onside kick is fielded much closer to the goal line than a normal kickoff – in this case, it was only a 37-yard run for the Cowboy. Most kickoffs which are returned are fielded inside of the receiving team’s own 10 yard line, meaning that a TD on a “normal” return is usually 90+ yards, and takes more like 10+ seconds.
Yeah, Hester’s kickoff return in SB41 took 14 seconds, which is pretty typical for a KO return for a TD - kickoff returns not only start further away, but usually involve at least some juking and weaving, while the Cowboy returner just scooped up the ball and ran straight forward. Hester’s return was the quickest score in Super Bowl history, but I doubt there could have been a quicker score in NFL history than 3 seconds.
Theoretically, a touchdown can be scored in 0 seconds, if on the opening kickoff the receiving team fails to call a fair catch and the kicking team catches their own kick in the receiving team’s end zone, since the clock doesn’t start running until a member of the receiving team touches the ball (if the ball hits the end zone and no one touches it, it would be ruled a touchback).
However, this is wildly improbable because:
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The kicking team would have to kick the ball in a ridiculously high, mortar-like arc in order for a member of the kicking team to reach the receiving team’s end zone before the ball touches the ground. This would require a drop kick instead of a tee for the customary place kick, because the kicker definitely can’t get the right angle with a place kick, and I’m not sure if it is even humanly possible to drop kick the ball high enough to get the requisite hang time in the air
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Even if a kicker was able to kick the ball high enough and at the right angle, the person on the receiving team who is catching the ball would know that members of the kicking team can reach the ball at the same time as them, so they would obviously call a fair catch, negating the kicking team’s strategy altogether
For a theoretical quicker score, it occurred to me you could in theory have a ridiculously botched onside kick, where the kicker kicks the ball backwards, towards his own endzone, where it’s recovered by the receiving team, but I don’t know if that would even be a valid play. I think the three second return is for all practical purposes the quickest possible score in the NFL. And that may not have actually been possible, either:
The fastest 40 yard dash ever recorded at the NFL Combine was 4.22 seconds. Deion Sanders had an unofficial, “wind-assisted”, 4.21 second 40 yard dash. A three second return from the 37 yard line would translate into a 3.2 second 40 yard dash, which is to say the least unlikely in actual play. Unless I’m missing something, it seems like the clock operator must have hesitated slightly in starting the clock, and the play “actually” took more like 4 or 5 seconds. Just watching the video, it seems like it was more like 5 seconds from when Randall Williams first touches the ball until he crosses the goal line.
Well, that certainly was embarrassing! 
This is just as embarrassing and almost as quick! A safety on the opening kickoff!
https://i.insider.com/522cb179ecad048208696479?width=700&format=mp4
That may be the fastest touchdown in a Super Bowl, but not the fastest score. In Super Bowl XLVIII the Broncos fumbled the snap on the first play and recovered the ball in their own end zone; giving up a safety 12 seconds into the game.
…and that basically took the wind out of the Broncos sails for the rest of the game.
It wouldn’t be legal (in the 2021-2022 season, anyway), because of Rule 6, Article 3, Section B, Subsection 2:
Yeah, upon re-watching that video, I noticed that the clock doesn’t actually start running until ~3 seconds after Williams catches the ball, which meant his run took 6 seconds in real time. Either the clock operator dun goofed bigly, or he/she got too caught up in the unexpectedness and excitement of the play.
I seem to remember there being some clip where the kick returner had a brain fart and treated a kick off like a punt and just let the ball go. I don’t think the kicking team scored a touchdown but they recovered the ball around the 10 yard line.
In a case like that, if the ball hasn’t been touched by the receiving team, while the kicking team can recover the ball, they can’t advance it. (Onside kicks work the same way.)
So, unless the ball was in the end zone, the kicking team couldn’t score. And, I think that the current NFL rule is that, if a kickoff is untouched when it reaches the receiving team’s end zone, it becomes a dead ball, and a touchback.
Oh right, I forgot about that rule.
Was it this one?
In this case, it wasn’t so much the kick returner having a brain fart, as it was the ball taking a fortuitous bounce for the kicking team.
I’m glad I asked, this is interesting! I enjoy football but don’t know a lot about it 
No, there was a different one. The returner straight up started walking away like he thought the play was over.
Hmm, the closest I can find is this one. But in that one I don’t think the returner thought the play was over, I think he just misjudged the ball’s path in the air, and it initially seemed like he was going to let the ball roll into the end zone so that he could down it for a touchback and return the ball to the 25-yard line.
However, he did have a major brain fart by forgetting to down the ball once it crossed into the end zone, letting the kicking team recover it for a touchdown instead.