There’s not usually much drama on the field during the waning minutes of a blowout game in the NFL, but there was definitely some drama during the final three minutes of Denver’s win over Cleveland due to the fact that the teams were going for a scorigami, which is when a game ends with a final score that’s never happened before in NFL history.
With just minutes left to play in the fourth quarter, the Broncos were leading the Browns 27-12, which wouldn’t be a scorigami since that final score has happened multiple times in NFL history. However, the two teams ended up making history thanks to Broncos defensive end Zach Allen, who recorded a safety on Browns quarterback P.J. Walker with under two minutes and 30 seconds left to play in the game.
The safety pushed the final score to 29-12, which is notable, because it marked the first time in NFL history that a game had ever ended with that exact final score.
As you can see above, it’s the 1,081st unique final score in NFL history.
When the fourth quarter started, the Broncos led the Browns 17-12 and it didn’t look like there was any way that the game would end in a scorigami. Less than 90 seconds into the fourth quarter, Adam Trautman caught a touchdown pass from Russell Wilson to push Denver’s lead to 24-12.
Later in the quarter, the Broncos recovered a Browns’ fumble and they ended up getting a field goal out of the ensuing drive to make the score to 27-12. At that point, it didn’t look like there was going to be anymore scoring, but then Allen came up with the huge safety.
This marks the second time this season that the Broncos have been involved in a scorigami, although they’d probably prefer to forget the first one, since it came in a 70-20 loss to the Dolphins.
As for the Browns, this marks the first time they’ve been involved in a scorigami since January 2021 when they beat the Steelers 48-37 in the wild-card round of the playoffs.
The 2023 season has somehow already given us six scorigamis through 12 weeks, which is pretty wild when you consider that there were only four scorigamis during the entire 2022 season.
