- 3 months ago
In the NFL’s modern era, teams often create scorigami – in other words, a final score that’s never happened before – by way of baffling decision-making or a special teams disaster. They’re accidental and unpredictable. We know this. And yet, they also feel as though they’re guided by an invisible, supernatural hand. In Part 3 of Scorigami, Jon Bois and Alex Rubenstein draw from the expertise of special guest Mina Kimes to investigate this phenomenon.
Special thanks to Secret Base’s Patreon members, who had special early access to this episode back in August.
Special thanks to Secret Base’s Patreon members, who had special early access to this episode back in August.
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SportsTranscript
00:00It's 1993, the 74th season of NFL football. While the concept of Scorigami is still decades
00:08away from emerging, we, the omniscient time-traveling Scorigami enthusiasts, have reached a point in
00:13history in which things get pretty interesting. All the reasonably achievable scores have already
00:17happened. Many bizarre and outrageous scores are off the board as well, ranging from low
00:22Scorigami, such as 10-4, to once-in-a-lifetime shootouts like 72-41. Scorigami is now evolving
00:28from a simple curiosity to a real challenge. Perhaps it's even too challenging. Across
00:34the entire 1992 season, 235 games were played, and exactly one of those registered as Scorigami.
00:41In previous eras, whenever Scorigami began to stall out, a rule change was required to
00:45defibrillate it back to life. The last time this happened, in the 60s, it arrived in the
00:49form of the two-point conversion introduced by principal AFL founder and chiefs owner,
00:53Lamar Hunt. The two-pointer was the driving engine behind dozens of Scorigami, but when
00:57the AFL merged into the NFL, the NFL demanded they ditch the rule. Reluctantly, they left
01:03it on the porch like a pair of muddy boots and Scorigami leveled off.
01:06But Hunt has not given up on it. Year after year, decade after decade, he's lobbied his
01:11fellow owners to reintroduce the two-pointer. It's typically been laughed out of the room,
01:15but following the 1993 season, attitudes are shifting. The 90s of the decade is steroids,
01:20extreme sports, NBA Jam, and ultimate fighting, and yet, in the NFL, scoring has cratered. For three
01:26straight seasons, scoring has hovered around 38 total points a game, a very disappointing
01:31departure from the explosiveness of the 80s. So finally, prior to the 1994 season, Lamar Hunt's
01:37two-point conversion is implemented by the NFL. Teams fool around with it a little bit during
01:42the Scorigami ineligible preseason, but some with short memories predict that once the games
01:47actually matter, it'll be shoved into the junk drawer with all the other obscure curiosities
01:51of the rulebook and largely forgotten. Wrong. The eight-pointer, in other words,
01:56the touchdown plus successful two-point conversion, will account for more than 3% of all scoring
02:01events throughout the 1994 season, and while its use will regress somewhat in the years to follow,
02:05it will become a mainstay of the modern NFL. More importantly, it immediately gives Alex an
02:10opening to reference Seinfeld.
02:12Truer words never spoken, John. On the Thursday night of September 29th, 1994, NBC airs the iconic
02:19Big Salad episode of Seinfeld, wherein George Costanza expresses his fascination with the
02:24spelling of the surname of a Falcons backup quarterback.
02:27Know what's interesting? The quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons is Bobby A. Bear. No R.
02:36Which I find fascinating. A. Bear. H-E-B-E-R-T. A. Bear. It's a fun name to pronounce.
02:45I have never not giggled at his delivery of the B. Anyway, just three days later in Anaheim,
02:51after not having taken a meaningful snap through Atlanta's first four games of the season,
02:55A. Bear — damn right, that's fun to say — enters the game in the final seconds of the third quarter
03:00to replace starter Jeff George after he absorbs a helmet-to-helmet hit. A. Bear inherits a bizarro
03:055-0 deficit as the frame winds to a close, which is nearly third-quarter egami. No score has stood at 5-zip
03:12entering the fourth quarter since the steamroller held such a lead exactly 67 years earlier, which
03:17remained the final score. So 5-0 wouldn't ultimately represent a score-agami. For that to occur,
03:23we need a hero to emerge, and right on cue, A. Bear dons his cape. Needing to travel 89 yards in the final
03:30minutes of regulation, he fires off key completions to Andre Risen, then Ricky Sanders, then Ironhead
03:37Hayward, and then Terence Mathis to get him within striking range. On third down, A. Bear threads a
03:43pass in between two Rams that finds its way to Sanders for the go-ahead touchdown. With just a
03:48few minutes left on the clock, the Falcons want to go up a clean three, and so they attempt their first
03:52two-pointer in franchise history. A. Bear connects with Mathis over the middle, the defense hangs on,
03:59and the score is cemented as the lone 8-5 game through the league's first 105 years and counting.
04:06Summoned to reality by the power of Costanza.
04:11In this chapter, we will examine the modern era of score-agami, the stat about nothing.
04:26It's clear that the two-point conversion is fated to be a lot more than an irrelevant answer to a
04:31trivia question. That honor goes to another scoring type that very quietly sneaks into the record
04:36books in 1994, the forfeit rule. It states that if a team forfeits a game, the other team is
04:41automatically awarded a 2-0 victory. This is a rule that entering the 2025 season has still never once
04:48been used, and even if it were, it would be useless for our purposes since a 2-0 game already happened all
04:53the way back in 1923. As useless and boring as it is, this rule was tantalizingly close to becoming an
04:59object of great fascination. Because although the NFL never had a forfeit rule until now, college
05:04football did. For a very long time, if a college team forfeited, its opponent was granted a 1-0 win.
05:11If this were the NFL rule, it would single-handedly open up one zip for business and make it one of the
05:15very most alluring pieces of scorigami on the entire board. A score that could only ever be triggered
05:21by a forfeit. How cool is that? So why did the NFL opt for a 2-0 forfeit score? Since the rule is so
05:27obscure and has never once been used, it would appear that no explanation has ever been offered or even
05:32asked for. It's impossible to say. Sadly for us, 1-0 remains legally impossible, so let's now return to
05:39the world of the possible. It's Thanksgiving in 1998, Vikings 46, Cowboys 36. Longtime viewers may
05:51remember that we spent several minutes relishing this game in our series The History of the Minnesota
05:55Vikings. It's known as the game in which rookie Randy Moss punished the team who was too scared to
05:59draft him by scoring three long touchdowns on just three catches. We mentioned that this was scorigami.
06:04What we did not tell you was that this is one of the most interesting and instructive
06:09scorigami ever seen. I wasn't originally planning on showing you figure 11 until much later, but
06:15let's go ahead and open this present early because there's something I want to show you. This illustrates
06:19the combined odds of every scorigami that has ever happened. By combined odds, I mean that I simply
06:25multiplied the odds of team A finishing with their score with the odds of team B finishing with their
06:30score. This is really crude math. Statisticians are throwing tomatoes at their screens right now and
06:35they're right to do it. I'll explain by way of example. Let's take another look at that
06:39eight to five game Alex just told you about. The historical odds of finishing with eight points
06:43are about one in 700. The odds of finishing with five points are about one in 1700. Multiply those two
06:49figures and you have one in about 1.2 million, implying that this is a score that you see once
06:54every 4,000 years or so. Do I really think that an eight to five game is that unlikely? Absolutely not.
07:00Nowhere close. This is not meant to be predictive. It's instead an opportunity to look at the odds
07:05through the funny mirror that is historical precedent and appreciate the weirdest scores for what they
07:10are. There are lots of other mathematically irresponsible goodies in here but for now let's
07:14keep our focus to this 46 to 36 Vikings win. Like eight to five it belongs to this ultra exclusive
07:20collection of 25 scorigami that register here with odds of lower than 300,000 to 1. The odds are as long
07:27as they are because this score pairs a pretty rare number 36 with an extremely rare number 46. How did it get
07:34there? How does a score this rare happen? Let's walk over to figure eight. Here we see how often
07:40teams have decided to go for two depending on the number of points by which they're leading or trailing.
07:44Most often teams go for two if they're trailing by 10, trailing by two or leading by one and for good
07:50reasons. Cutting the deficit from 10 to 8 would make it a one score game. Going for two while behind
07:54two would tie it up. Going for two while already up one would ensure you at least stay tied if your
07:58opponent kicks a field goal. As you'd guess teams generally go for two more often when they're behind
08:03although they do go for two about half the time when they're leading by five to extend the lead to
08:08seven and about a third of the time when they're by 12 to extend the lead to 14. This is where it gets
08:13wacky leading 30 to 19 in the third quarter Vikings coach Dennis Green opted to go for two and was
08:19successful. Going for two up 11 is a decision coaches only make five percent of the time when presented
08:26the option which makes sense because there's not really a case for doing so. If you just take the extra
08:31point and go up 12 that requires your opponent to score two touchdowns to take the lead away from
08:36you. What more would a 13 point lead get you? Pretty much nothing barring scenarios that are way too
08:40specific to bother accounting for and your odds of making it go from a near certainty to about a coin
08:45flip. It just generally doesn't make any sense to do it but Green did do it and this right here
08:52is what it's going to take to achieve a lot of these astronomically unlikely scoreagami.
08:56A coach making a bizarre two point decision at a very strange point in the game. Sometimes they're
09:02playing 95 dimensional chess sometimes they only think they're playing 95 dimensional chess and are
09:07actually sitting in front of a tic-tac-toe board. Green at various points in his career was capable
09:12of being both but for what it's worth a couple months after this game he'll bring the Vikings to
09:16the doorstep of the Super Bowl. The game will be tied with half a minute left in regulation. The Vikings
09:20will have the ball in two timeouts. Green will have his offense the greatest offense in NFL history to this
09:26point take a knee, run out the clock, settle for overtime and lose. After the game he will
09:32inadvertently reveal that he forgot he had any timeouts at all. These are the men who build Scorigami.
09:45In 1995 the NFL expanded further introducing the Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers. The next
09:50year the Browns packed up and moved to Baltimore to become the Ravens replaced in Cleveland by the new
09:55Browns in 1999. Now in 2002 the Houston Texans are founded they are the 32nd and as of 2025 final
10:02NFL team. We're here last I finally get to talk about my personal favorite Scorigami of all time.
10:09Chiefs at Browns in the 2002 season opener. This game is what I will call the however game.
10:15After a late touchdown puts the Browns up 36-31 they go for two to try to extend the lead to seven
10:29however they fail. The Chiefs take the lead back go for two to try to extend their lead to three
10:34however they also fail. The Browns answer back with a long drive and with 29 seconds left in regulation
10:40kicker Phil Dawson knocks down a field goal to give Cleveland a 39-37 lead. However Dawson then stands
10:46over a Chiefs player on the ground and talks some trash to him which earns a flag for taunting. However
10:51the penalty is instead issued to holder Chris Gardocki probably by mistake. In any case while I'm
10:56unable to confirm this I don't think there's been any other instance of a kicker or punter or holder
11:01ever drawing a taunting call in the NFL. This penalty backs up the Browns ensuing kickoff 15 yards to their
11:07own 15-yard line however with 29 seconds left a penitent Dawson bombs a masterpiece of a kick near
11:13the sideline. Since the Chiefs only have seconds on the clock and no timeouts and the clock doesn't
11:17start until return man Dante Hall touches the ball he should just let it bounce out of bounds however
11:23Hall takes the bait running sideways to try to make something happen killing precious seconds for not
11:28a lot of field position. On first down from his own 35 quarterback Trent Green goes shopping finds
11:33nothing on sale makes a run for it slides near midfield and keeps the clock running play-by-play
11:38man Ian Eagle can't believe it. However it's the right call by Green who likely understands that
11:49they wouldn't be able to get back up to the line in time after a non-scoring completion and wants to
11:53set himself up for one last Hail Mary. He does so spiking the ball and stopping the clock with four
11:59seconds left. Green takes the next snap evading the two-man rush and stepping up in the pocket.
12:03However spying Browns linebacker Dwayne Rudd takes this as his cue to swoop in and end this thing.
12:08He wraps up Green by the legs and swings him to the ground however on his way down Green flings it
12:14backwards to the only red jersey he sees tackle John Tate. Tate will ultimately play 10 seasons in the NFL
12:21he's fallen on a loose fumble once before but in no other instance will he ever have the chance to
12:26actually run with the ball however he does here catching the desperation flip and rumbling upfield.
12:32Tate an offensive lineman weighing well over 300 pounds never planned on this life experience
12:37a makeshift convoy forms in front of him it's incredible that he's even getting this far it's
12:41beyond anybody's wildest dreams. However the line finally breaks and he's forced out at the Browns 26
12:49yard line. As miraculous as that was he's still miles away from the goal line. Coach has trot onto the
12:54field to shake hands Tate is left to catch his breath and wonder what might have been. However
13:06remember Dwayne Rudd the guy who took Green to the ground as he did so his view of the play was
13:11obscured he didn't see Green's pitch to Tate he thought the game was over he thought he was the
13:16hero who made the game winning sack in jubilation he ripped off his helmet and threw it which is
13:22explicitly forbidden by rule. If the game really were over the refs would have no jurisdiction here
13:27but the game was not over it earned the Browns a 15 yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. The
13:34football newcomer might reason that this is mere harmless bookkeeping since time has expired however
13:39a game cannot end on a defensive penalty so the coaches are directed back to their sidelines so the
13:45Chiefs can run one last play with zeros on the clock. 70,000 Browns fans in attendance process
13:52the ramifications of this in real time. This game was one it was over however Tate's heroic stomp down
13:59the field is suddenly a lot more than a meaningless curiosity. The Chiefs not only get the ball here
14:05they tack on 15 more yards thanks to Rudd's penalty. Down by two points Kansas City uses their final
14:12having since untimed down to trot out kicker Morton Anderson for a very short very easy three points.
14:1830 yards away Anderson he nails it! Had the score remained 37-36 as it was just minutes ago this
14:26would have been scorigami however Cleveland's late field goal made it 39-37 however this also would
14:33have been a scorigami however the Chiefs game winning kick on the final play moved the score to 40-39
14:40however this is also a scorigami.
14:49Let's parachute into the second quarter of a 2002 playoff game where the Niners and Giants are
14:53deadlocked at 14 apiece. New York then parlays a muffed punt into a quick Imani tumor touchdown before
15:00they parlay a Jason Seahorn interception into a second tumor score in the half's final three minutes.
15:05They cap their first drive of the second half with a Tiki Barber touchdown and a subsequent field goal
15:10makes it 24 unanswered points. San Francisco finds themselves staring down the barrel of a 24-point
15:17deficit with just over 17 minutes remaining. Dire circumstances seemingly impossible to overcome.
15:24But the presence of the two-pointer offers a glimmer of hope that it can be erased in three
15:28possessions instead of four. All-pro wideout Terrell Owens gets the ball rolling on the daunting task
15:33when he takes a short pass and muscles into the end zone before completing the octopus to potentially
15:38make it a two-score game even if Michael Strahan gleefully launches some verbal jabs while pointing
15:43at a scoreboard that shows his Giants still comfortably in pole position. But 87 seconds later the Niners
15:49take over deep in New York territory and on the first play of the fourth quarter Jeff Garcia takes it in on
15:54a keeper. For the ensuing two-pointer he again connects with Owens to make it a one possession
15:59game in the blink of an eye. On the Giants sideline tight end Dan Campbell melts down and apoplectically
16:05weaponizes his helmet to nearly decapitate himself before drop kicking it nearly decapitates a teammate.
16:11Absolutely nothing to see here. Then a Niner field goal midway through the quarter cuts their deficit to
16:17five and on the Giants next drive they reach a fork in the road. With three minutes to play in regulation,
16:22New York faces a fourth and one on San Francisco's 24. A first down would give him a stranglehold on
16:28this one, but instead coach Jim Fossil summons his field goal unit to try and turn his five-point
16:34one-score lead into an eight-point one-score lead. Snapping the ball is 41-year-old Trey Junkin,
16:40lured out of retirement just for this game during a campaign in which they've had zero stability at
16:45long snapper. They cycled through a half dozen different guys amid persistent problems all regular
16:51season in the most taken-for-granted element of the game and paid dearly in a two-point loss to
16:56the expansion Texans. Finally, they now have a proven vet to stabilize the position for the playoffs.
17:02But just a few days after remarking about such games where long snapping proved fatal,
17:07Junkin flubs the snap, rookie kicker Matt Bryant shanks the field goal, and a couple minutes later
17:12Garcia and the Niners surge in front. Up a single point, they of course again go for two in pursuit of
17:18a field goal advantage. Owens, who's already become the only player to ever score multiple
17:22two-pointers in a playoff game, is targeted for a third. An interception kills the play,
17:28but Will Allen attempts a return anyway, with some extracurricular shenanigans stemming from
17:32efforts to contain the Fugazi return. Despite relinquishing their massive lead, the Giants still
17:38very much have a pulse. In the final minute, they're able to matriculate their way well into field goal
17:43range, where on third down, they mobilize the kicking unit to boot him to victory. In the wake
17:48of his previous mishap, and with the weight of the world on his shoulders after being blissfully
17:52retired a week earlier, the camera pans in on Junkin, eyeing his target, before he fires off
17:58another errant snap. Holder Matt Allen fails to realize he could quickly throw the ball away,
18:03or give himself up and call their last timeout to get a mulligan, and in the chaos that ensues,
18:08his makeshift attempt at a miracle sees him hurl the ball downfield toward offensive lineman Rich
18:13Soybert that falls incomplete. A flag is thrown. While Soybert had reported as eligible, the officials
18:20call ineligible receiver downfield on a different offensive lineman. What they don't call is the
18:26Niners' Chike O'Keefer's interference on Soybert, which would have resulted in offsetting penalties and
18:31an untimed down for another shot at a game-winning kick. It thus goes down as the 39-38 score-a-gone.
18:39Bummer. A collapse of epic proportions. Junkin is inconsolable after the excruciating loss,
18:47marking the end of a 20-year career that previously contained just four bad snaps out of several
18:52thousand before lightning struck on each of his final two. He profoundly laments his decision to
18:58unretire after losing sight of the foremost rule of long snapping.
19:02The 2007 season offers us a couple of chances to reflect on what I am calling the sad two-point
19:10conversion. It's the cousin of the sad field goal, in which a team that's getting hopelessly clobbered
19:14settles for a field goal often because they're getting shut out and they at least want to get
19:18a few points on the board. The sad two-pointer is different in that it demonstrates admirable
19:23obstinance rather than just resignation, but it's still sad in its own way when a team losing by 40
19:28points decides to go for two. That's what the Raiders do with six seconds remaining against the
19:33Jaguars. Quarterback Jamarcus Russell has just thrown his first of not very many career touchdowns to
19:38shrink the deficit on the scoreboard to 49-9. Head coach Lane Kiffin decides to leave him out there
19:44just to give him an extra rep. Jamarcus delivers, finding a receiver in the back of the end zone for
19:48the Deuce to lock in the final score at 49-11. Earlier you might have noticed this flawless 100%
19:55mark all the way to the left on this chart. That is all thanks to this play. Across the entire modern
20:00two-point era, this is the only time a team down by 40 points was offered the chance to go for two,
20:05and they took it, and they made it. I understand that 15 years after his career ended, people still
20:10have all kinds of jokes for Jamarcus Russell and his disappointing career. I don't care. This man made
20:16an eternal score-agami. He made a Week 16 Jags Raiders blowout mean something. Find somebody else who
20:22can do that. More pleasant aesthetics await us in a similar scenario that played out a couple months
20:27prior. In Week 7, trailing the Giants 33-15 with only 16 seconds left, the Trentville for 49ers
20:33decide to go for two. In its own way, it's considerably sadder than the last one because
20:38they're behaving like a team that still has a chance of winning. Converting this would cut the
20:42deficit to 16 and make it a two-score game, but to make up those 16 points in 16 seconds,
20:47the Niners would have to try an onside kick, recover it, bomb a Hail Mary, race down there as fast as
20:53possible to catch a touchdown pass and pull off a second onside kick recovery. And if you somehow
20:58did all of that, there is the slimmest of possibilities that you'd still have like one
21:02second on the clock to try another Hail Mary. Dilfer tries to find Arnaz's battle near the pylon,
21:08but battle can't secure it. Honestly, good. The score is now stuck at 33-15, which is eternal
21:13score-agami, but I actually care more about your well-being at this point, Niners. Making it would have
21:18compelled you to continue this fruitless logic by lining up for an onside kick, which almost never
21:23works and which carries a much higher risk of injury than the average play. Wait, are you still
21:28doing this? You're still trying an onside kick? Dudes, you're down three scores. You would have to
21:34literally bend space-time in order to score three times in 16 seconds. Not only are you risking injury
21:40here, you're opening up your secret onside kick bag-o tricks and giving upcoming opponents free tape
21:44to look at. Don't do this to yourselves. Go home. The Giants put a merciful end to this exercise and
21:50self-loathing by recovering the kick to end the game, allowing us to now appreciate the importance
21:55of this 33-15 score-agami. The Niners' futile two-point obstinance now completes the most
22:02recognizable formation on the score-agami board, the Tetris Cannon.
22:12Although none of us will take notice of it until 2016, it fully forms here in 2007. Up here, the unclaimed
22:19scores of 31-11, 32-11, 33-11, and 32-12 form a Tetris block of scores that have never been achieved.
22:27Below it, right along the difficult-to-reach 32 column is a mostly rhythmic scattering of
22:32more unachieved scores so as to resemble laser beams firing out of the nose of this spaceship.
22:37Upon its discovery, it will become something of a fan favorite among score-agami enthusiasts.
22:42It's great to see. This board has character now. It has depth. It's been weathered by nearly a
22:47century of football. A lot of the near side of the board is defined not by score-agami,
22:52but by absences thereof. Filling in these gaps will take time. And we're left to wonder how much time
22:58exactly, and what form those stories will take.
23:01We're now midway through the 2012 season. You know how many little green squares are now on this
23:13board? I'm not going to make you count. 999. Yep, that's right. The next score-agami is going to be
23:19the big 1-0-0-0, the 1,000th unique final score in NFL history. What do the score-agami gods have in
23:27store for this once-in-a-lifetime event? Well, let's see. It is November of 2012, huh?
23:34It'd be pretty funny if it was the Butt Fumble game. It is the Butt Fumble game.
23:44I understand that Alex and I have spent this entire time zeroing in on the funniest, dumbest
23:48stories we can find, but revisiting the Butt Fumble seemed a little bit too predictable. You know,
23:53Butt Fumble is so infamous that you've probably seen it even if you don't watch football.
23:57Even when we found out this game was a score-agami, I planned on skipping it.
24:00When I realized it was an eternal score-agami, I still wanted to skip it.
24:04But then I found out that this was score-agami number 1,000. The score-agami gods could not make
24:09it any more clear. They demand that we celebrate this. So, here you go.
24:14On Thanksgiving night, in front of a national audience, the Jets trail the Patriots 14-0.
24:19A miscommunication leads to a broken play, and Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez resolves to run
24:23up the middle and salvage whatever gain he can. He thinks he has a small opening on the right side,
24:28but guard Brandon Moore is stonewalled by the Pats' Vince Wilfork. The gap never appears.
24:32Sanchez runs his face at full speed into his own guy's butt. He fumbles. It's recovered for a Pats
24:37touchdown. The floodgates immediately bust all the way open, and we end up with the first and only
24:4249-19 ball game ever. All right, okay. I need to stop acting like I'm too good for this. I'm not
24:50too good for it. That was great.
24:55In 2013, we see the greatest single-season score-agami explosion of the 21st century,
25:00with 14 of them happening this year. Logically, we are bound to see more eternal score-agami pop up
25:05as we get closer to the present day, since the window of time in which a score-agami can be repeated
25:09gets smaller and smaller. Still, though, 12 of these 14 are officially one-of-a-kind eternal score-agami.
25:15And for the first time ever, there are three score-agamis in a single post-season. None have
25:20ever been repeated. All three are defined by fleeting instances of chaos. The Chiefs enter this post-season,
25:26having lost seven consecutive playoff games dating back to the 1993 season, one of the longest
25:31playoff losing streaks of all time. Three of the five most recent losses have come at the hands of the
25:36Colts. Their first-round opponent this year is the Colts. When the Chiefs race out to a shocking
25:4138 to 10 lead, things feel like they're gonna turn out a lot differently this time around, which they
25:46are. Rather than being merely disappointing or heartbreaking, this loss is going to be
25:50comprehensively soul-annihilating. In the second half, Indianapolis claws all the way back into this
25:55thing to trail by only 10, but nothing quite feels predestined until we see this play early in the
26:01fourth. At the Chiefs' two-yard line, Colts running back Donald Brown coughs up the ball, but the
26:05fumble just happens to drop perfectly in front of quarterback Andrew Luck as though he selected
26:10it from a vending machine. Chiefs are everywhere, but none of them are quite in the right position
26:14to stop them from snaking through them all and reaching across the goal line for the touchdown.
26:19Technically speaking, the Colts still trailed after this, but everyone now understood that they
26:23were fated to send the Chiefs packing in the playoffs again, and everybody was absolutely right.
26:28This game ended in a 45-44 eternal score at Gami. The 28-point lead the Chiefs once held in this game
26:35is the third largest blown lead in NFL history, playoffs or otherwise. It is the very largest
26:40blown lead in NFL history within games that didn't even require overtime to settle. They blew the whole
26:46thing, not only in regulation, but with a full four and a half minutes left in the game.
26:51As is so often the case, a safety plays a critical role in the Colts' scoring on a loss against the
26:56Patriots a week later, but this is a very unique safety in that an element of choice is involved.
27:01Near halftime, New England rookie punter Ryan Allen watches in horror as the long snap flies over his
27:07head and finally comes to a stop at his own three-yard line. He runs back toward it, and as he
27:12approaches the ball, he has options, albeit very bad ones. He could simply fall on it, which would
27:17give the Colts the ball and a very likely touchdown. The better option would be to just kick it through
27:21the back of his own end zone to limit the damage to an intentional safety. But Ryan Allen, a rookie fleeing
27:26in terror who has milliseconds to make his decision, instead decides that he is going to attempt to
27:31play football. I bet at this point some part of him still intends to punt it away, but upon realizing
27:36that's a no-go he tries to evade tacklers and when he can't do that he's still obstinate enough to try
27:41to lateral to a teammate. Allen is doing everything he can to ensure that this play will result in a
27:46touchdown for his opponent, which would kill off virtually any chance of a scorigami. But
27:50Jaris Pendleton is here to the rescue. Highly recruited as a linebacker in high school,
27:55Pendleton could have played for a top college program but gave up on football while still a
27:59teenager in order to support his girlfriend and newborn son. He worked any job he could get,
28:04and if five bucks an hour was all he could make, that's what he made. Years passed, he gained 100
28:09pounds, he started smoking, he fell completely out of football shape until he was 23, at which point
28:14he watched a former high school opponent make a big play in Super Bowl 41. He stared longingly at the TV and
28:19said, that's supposed to be me. Then Jaris Pendleton decided that it would be him. He joined a JUCO team
28:26in a D2 program, driving a barely operational old Buick to countless practices and workouts that would
28:31in turn leave his body about as operational as his Buick. He became a standout at Ashland University,
28:37and at age 28 he was drafted by the Jaguars. A little bouncing around has led him to Indianapolis,
28:43where last week he played a significant role in their comeback against the Chiefs.
28:46And now, Scorigami enthusiast, he's coming through for me and for you.
28:51One of the least advisable lateral attempts of all time hangs suspended in the air. Pendleton,
28:56whose job has never been to touch the football, tries to pinch and grab it as one might a baseball.
29:01And what should have ended up a recovery touchdown that evaporates any chance of Scorigami instead
29:06smacks off his hand and through the back of the end zone for a transformational safety.
29:11This safety compels a later two-point attempt from the Patriots, more scoring happens and the game
29:15comes to rest at the first and only 43-22 score ever. This postseason though, the Scorigami gods have
29:22saved the best for last. Remember how to this point we've seen two Scorigamis in a Super Bowl,
29:32and both were eternal Scorigami, and both featured the Denver Broncos getting annihilated? Well,
29:36on February 2nd, 2014, there is a third Super Bowl Scorigami. It is an eternal Scorigami and it does
29:43feature the Denver Broncos getting annihilated. Seahawks 43, Broncos 8. Other Super Bowls have
29:50produced larger margins of victory, but this is the one that feels over the soonest. It only takes 10
29:56seconds to start feeling that way. On the Broncos' first play from scrimmage, as Peyton Manning steps
30:00out from behind center to call an audible, center Manny Ramirez snaps the ball to nobody to gift wrap an
30:05eventual safety. It's the kind of goof you virtually never see at the pro level and it's the first of
30:10a nine module masterclass in what it means to be on the butt end of an eternal Scorigami.
30:16Module number two, a system reset in the form of a humdrum three and out. Module three,
30:20a three and interception. Module four, a plotting eight minute expedition down the field that's
30:24rendered pointless when it ends in a pick six. Module five, a sure sign of distress, a fourth down
30:29conversion attempt well within field goal range before halftime. It fails. Module six,
30:35a Seattle kick return touchdown to open the second half. Module seven, a punt in Seahawks territory,
30:41down 29 nothing, the kind of decision that indicates a spiritual annihilation has taken place here.
30:47Module eight, the Broncos biggest play of the day goes for 23 yards and ends with a lost fumble.
30:53And module nine, in the closing seconds of the third quarter, they finally score their first points
30:57with a touchdown. Perhaps a little punch drunk from the evening's proceedings, they attempt a very
31:02obviously irrelevant two point conversion, and they get it. And this is what I was talking about
31:06earlier. This is a weird two point decision that avoids the precedent at 43 to seven and an outcome
31:12that avoids the precedent at 43 to six to lock in a 43 to eight Scorigami that's unlikely to be repeated
31:18for a very long time. This game so perfectly represents an especially merciless and chaotic style of Scorigami
31:25win that was perfected by the Seahawks, who throughout the 2010s mastered the art of producing unique final
31:30scores in a way no other team ever has. I wanted to better understand exactly how and why they pulled
31:36this off. So I spoke to somebody who's a little bit of an authority on such matters. It was a weird
31:41experience to watch a Super Bowl that did feel pretty, you know, as a fan, you never like your butt doesn't
31:47unclench until you got like at least three scores, but they just looked so much better than them so
31:53quickly. I didn't think I remember the time it would be this uneven. But I've seen I've watched and heard a lot of
32:00interviews with players on the team, all of whom to a man with this game, thinking they're gonna kick their asses.
32:07So players are much more aware, I think, of talent discrepancies than we on the outside are.
32:13I know way more about football than NFL players do.
32:16I should be out there. And I'm bitter that I'm not. That's why I'm a YouTuber, because I just like it's as close to the game as I can get.
32:24They won't let me because they know I'd be so good. And that's why they won't let me play.
32:27Same. Same.
32:29Yeah. Yeah. You too? You too. Yeah. See, that's why we end up in sports media, because we're too good.
32:33For reasons that defy explanation, both Mina Kimes and myself have been shut out by the NFL.
32:38Maybe that's what's drawn us both to Scorigami, the study of how the seemingly impossible can happen.
32:44And we couldn't ask for a more edifying case study than these 2010 Seahawks led by head coach, Pete Carroll.
32:50This timeline of the Super Bowl era includes every instance of a team winning a Scorigami in at least three consecutive seasons.
32:56Within the first era of two-point conversions in the 1960s AFL, teams feasted on Scorigami.
33:02Not long after, scoring cooled down globally. Multi-season Scorigami win streaks picked up again
33:07when the two-pointer was reintroduced in 1994 with the Niners piecing together an impressive six-year streak.
33:13By the odds, though, most of the low-hanging fruit was picked clean. You could still get a Scorigami,
33:18sure, but the days of a team actually bottling up Scorigami magic over a span of several years seemed
33:24dead and gone. And then the Pete Carroll Seahawks won a Scorigami in nine consecutive years.
33:30Not only is this far and away the longest such streak, they pulled it off in the recent past,
33:35a time in which Scorigami were less available and considerably tougher to get.
33:39As opposed to just appearing in a Scorigami, winning a Scorigami generally confers an ownership
33:45of that Scorigami. It takes two to tango, of course, and losing teams should always be proud
33:50of the part they played in making history, but the winners are the ones in the driver's seat,
33:54the primary influencers of a Scorigami's character.
33:57What is it about Pete Carroll's overall Pete Carrollness that made him drive the Seahawks to
34:05so many Scorigami wins? Do you think it was just the way he coaches a team, the way he builds a team,
34:10or is it something more mystical about it?
34:12You see the role that Pete Carroll himself played in getting to some of these results. And that role,
34:20as best I can kind of sum it up and put in layman's terms, is there's often no rhyme or reason to his
34:27in-game decision making. And when he goes for it, or when he, as a Seahawks coach, would go for it,
34:34when he didn't, when he would kick field goals, when he would attempt two-point conversions,
34:38that, there's, it's, it often, and I say this as a, with an analyst and a fan who was at times
34:44frustrated by it, a lot of times didn't seem to make a lot of sense.
34:50I would love your take on the Seahawks getting to this 36-18 Scorigami in 2010 by virtue of Carroll
34:59sending Alindo Mare out to attempt two field goals from the opponent's one-yard line on fourth and one.
35:06Uh, that was very, very funny to me. I would laugh at a team doing that even once. He did it twice in a game.
35:13Um, thumbs up or thumbs down? Mina, what do you think?
35:16Didn't love it, John. Didn't love it.
35:19Carroll being, I think, a defensive coach, and this is a common through line we would see with defensive coaches,
35:25was kind of always a little bit risk-averse. And some of that was that he was betting on his defense,
35:31although I would argue if you're on the one-yard line you should then bet on your defense to get
35:35it to another stop, which is a big part of the reason why you should go for it on the one-yard
35:38line and fourth and one generally, but I digress. He just tended to err on the side of conservatism.
35:44And yeah, looking back, both very bad decisions that ultimately led to a beautiful result, which was Scorigami.
35:50So, sometimes the Seahawks produced Scorigami on account of Carroll coaching like a magic eight ball.
35:56Other times they got there by pulling you up by your underpants, stuffing you into a trash can,
35:59and kicking you down a hill, as they did when they clobbered the Cardinals 58 to nothing.
36:04Do you know how many passes Russell Wilson completed in that game?
36:09Ooh, offhand? I'm going to say not that many. I'm going to guess like 16.
36:15Seven.
36:16Seven. Seven completions. That somehow eluded me.
36:21They put in Matt Flynn. This three-game series where the Seahawks were just dominating.
36:27teams. I remember there was actually some national backlash too. Like, who is this guy? Pete Carroll.
36:35What's his problem? So overconfident, putting up these 50 burgers on teams. He's not showing good
36:40sportsmanship. And it was kind of like, I think the moment when this team really developed a national
36:48identity as being brash and defense-led. This was the game where I feel like the beginning of this
36:55three-game series where that really was established. That was their third straight year with a Scorigami
37:00win. The fourth was secured just before the bell with that Super Bowl win at the end of the 2013
37:04season. And the fifth was locked in by a 36-16 win over the Packers. So this game features one of
37:12those strange Pete Carroll decisions that you and I spoke about. And decisions that can go when,
37:18by the way, and sometimes they're conservative, sometimes they're not.
37:22Leading 29-16 with about two and a half minutes left in regulation, the Seahawks sat at fourth and
37:27one of the Packers' 15. Any other team in this situation would kick the field goal in large part
37:32because the win is pretty much sewn up either way and you may as well do the expected thing.
37:35Had they attempted the field goal, the final score would have been either 29-16 or 32-16,
37:40neither of which would have been Scorigami. Pete Carroll instead goes for it. Russ finds
37:45fullback Derek Coleman on a dump off and Coleman runs it in. There's not a strong analytical case
37:50at all to do what he did in that moment. And I just wanted to clarify that because,
37:54again, it reflects this broader trend with Pete Carroll, which is, I guess, I don't know,
38:00all right, like it's just no consistency or through line with a lot of his decision making.
38:07And I say this as someone who thinks he's one of the best coaches in NFL history.
38:09This is a fun one. This is from 2015, November 2015, Seahawks 39, Steelers 30.
38:17Both Pete Carroll and Steelers coach Mike Tomlin were active participants, but I would say
38:24even though the Seahawks won this one and they were in the driver's seat for the victory,
38:28that usually means that they kind of can claim that they built the Scorigami. But this time,
38:33I'm not so sure because Tomlin kind of got the ball rolling with this really weird kick he was on
38:41to start going for two while he was leading by two. Within the modern two-point conversion era,
38:47when teams up by two points are offered the choice of kicking an extra point or going for two,
38:51they opt to kick the extra point about 99% of the time. Here are the 23 times in which they went
38:58for two. Teams did it four times in the 90s when the dark arts of the two-point conversion were still
39:02new to everybody. Nine years passed before it happened again and only then because of a botched
39:07hold. Then for six entire seasons nobody did it. Then in 2015 for reasons known only to Mike Tomlin
39:13and God Mike Tomlin Steelers did it four times in the space of two months. Then he immediately ceased
39:19this curious behavior and years passed before anybody tried it again. One of those Tomlin decisions
39:24to go for two up two occurs in this game. Like a penny on the railroad track, it derails this game
39:29into an unusual cadence with significant Scorigami potential. However, there's that word again,
39:34Tomlin then immediately jumps it back on the track with a field goal to return the score to a norm core
39:4021-14. But it's as though the Scorigami gods said, hey, wait a second, this is a Pete Carroll game.
39:46This is our moment. When the Seahawks answer with a touchdown, the extra point is blocked.
39:50They score another touchdown, try to compensate with a two-pointer and fail. The Seahawks try
39:55another two-pointer and fail. It powers an eventual Scorigami that feels like it was destined all along.
40:01But as for this particular decision to try to go up four instead of settling for a three-point lead,
40:07highly unusual, yeah, but is it necessarily wrong? Wouldn't it be of value to make your opponent
40:12score a touchdown to take the lead from you? I hesitated to land firmly on one side or the other,
40:18but Mina made a really good point about gamesmanship that we tend to not consider very often.
40:23If you succeed and you get to be at four points instead of two points, you're incentivizing your
40:29opponent to try to beat you with a touchdown. That's sort of a recent thing where I think coaches
40:34think a little bit more about the behavior that they're incentivizing when they make two-point
40:37decisions and whatnot, but I digress. Yeah, you go up four, it means they can't beat you with a field goal,
40:43but it kind of feels to me like if you have five windows in your house and you just like
40:49deadbolt one of them and you're like, you're never breaking into this house through this window,
40:54you can just forget it. You got to use some other window to break into my house. Like,
40:58that's kind of what it feels like. It's also saying like, hey, also you have this information
41:02now of knowing that so you're going to get four tries on every down to break the window instead of
41:08three tries because you know you're getting, it like changes the way that the offense completely
41:14approaches every series knowing that they have to, they have all four downs to work with.
41:19Three entire decades into the modern two-point conversion era, we're still not done exploring
41:24its many possibilities and implications. As it stands now, six of the nine Scorigami that make up
41:29Pete Carroll's streak are eternal Scorigami. None of them are going to be easy to repeat, but there are a
41:34couple in particular that Carroll placed on the very tippy top shelf next to the cake mold and
41:39busted crockpot and all the other kitchen unit askers you don't even know you still own. Both
41:43belong to that exclusive club of the 25 unlikeliest Scorigami achieved on the board. One was that Super
41:50Bowl win. The other from 2017, Seahawks 46, Colts 18. Mina, there is something very special and very
41:58foreboding about this 46 to 18 Seahawks win. The odds of a 46 to 18 game, just purely mathematically,
42:06um, irrespective of any other factors, uh, would be one in 364,292. Mathematically speaking,
42:15it's probably going to be about 600 years before, uh, we see another one. And, um, as an NFL analyst and
42:22NFL fan, um, I don't know if, if you had to guess on when the last football game will ever be played
42:29in the NFL, what, what, what year are you putting it at? Oh man. Um, I'll take the under on 600,
42:36but that applies to more than football.
42:39In 2018, Pete Carroll extended his team Scorigami win streak to a ninth and final season with a 43 to
42:5516 win over the Niners. Carroll surely didn't know that one of his games in this streak, the 36 to 16
43:01win over the Packers in 2014 is the very game that inspired me to invent the term Scorigami in the first
43:07place. It was the visual. It was the pairing of two numbers on a score bug that resembled the score of
43:13some obscure darts game, not a football game. A couple years later, when I made my first Scorigami
43:18video, I noticed Carroll's streak, which by that point had stretched to seven. Little did I know that
43:23he'd actually keep it going for two more seasons. I also wouldn't have guessed that by the last one,
43:28he was well aware of what exactly he was doing.
43:32I don't know if you'd know, but that's another unique score for you guys. That final score never
43:36happened. Awesome. Really? That's, that's ridiculous. I don't know how that happens. I'm
43:43thrilled that that happened again for no reason. I got no reason, but that's, it happened. What was the
43:48score? Was it 43 to 16? That's never happened in football before? Wow. I don't know. Just something
43:56we've been working on in the off season. As we enter the 2025 season, Pete Carroll will be entering
44:03year one as Raiders head coach. He's one of a few head coaches who by this point are aware of the
44:08concept of Scorigami, but he seems like the only one who might, just might, intentionally put one
44:14on the board if the game is wrapped up. Maybe his Raiders will score a touchdown in the final minutes to
44:19lead 34 to 12. Somebody will tip him off that 36 to 12 would be Scorigami and he'll decide,
44:25eh, what the hell? Let's go for it. We can dream, but either way, he and his Seattle Seahawks of the
44:312010s achieved more in the field of Scorigami than any other team of modern times. They're a weird team,
44:38man. I don't know what to tell you. There's just, there's just something. I know we've been trying
44:41to like, I try, I've been trying to be analytical about all of this and, and I've pinned a lot of it
44:46on Pete Carroll, but I think that this team was just kind of strange.
44:55In November of 2017, the Bills traveled to LA to face the Chargers in their soccer stadium.
45:02Buffalo coach Sean McDermott has just benched quarterback Tyrod Taylor, so rookie Nathan
45:07Peterman's set to make his first career start. His first drive ends inauspiciously when his fullback
45:13does him no favors on what becomes a pick six. Two passes and 69 seconds later, while under duress from
45:19Joey Bosa, he lofts a ball off his back foot that softly flutters into the arms of a charger.
45:25After Shady McCoy ensures they won't have to put the ball in the air on drive number three,
45:29on drive number four, Bosa crunches Peterman as he's throwing, leading to another can-of-corn
45:34interception. On Buffalo's very next snap, Bosa remains a nuisance with a quick inside move,
45:40leading to immediate pressure and another pick. For those scoring at home, this marks his fourth
45:45interception in his last seven passes. After orchestrating a couple three-and-outs that feel
45:50like wild successes because they get to punt, Peterman's riding high with a four-pass
45:55interception-less streak. But with intermission approaching, you will never guess who torments
46:00him into airmailing his receiver for his fifth INT of the first half of his very first career start.
46:07Five picks and 14 passes! And having completed each of his first two attempts, that means across his
46:13last 12 he completed four to Bill's teammates against five to Chargers opponents. Suboptimal ratio.
46:20Trailing 37-7, McDermott unbenches Taylor for the second half, but the damage has long since been
46:26done in this first, and as of 2025 last, 54-24 game. Peterson's interception total from a mere half of play
46:35wasn't even matched by a fellow AFC signal caller across any entire game in the ensuing seven-plus
46:41seasons and counting. He was picked on more than 35 percent of his passes. Not only is that the most
46:46among the more than 28,000 Super Bowl-era player games with at least 14 passes, but no one outside
46:5210-23-77 Dan Pastorini's top 28.6 percent, and in recent decades no one's even come close.
47:00Granted, that disingenuously excludes 9-16-73 Archie Manning who tossed five picks and even fewer
47:07passes in his own scorigomic loss, but to counter my own counter, Archie at least tossed a TD.
47:12And as a man born in 1994, that also means in Peterman's entire lifetime, every other five
47:18interception game by a QB occurred in conjunction with throwing at least twice as many passes.
47:27You should only ever bet on whether a game is going to be scorigami if you hate money. The one and only
47:32exception to this rule ever might be the 2018 Monday night matchup between the Chiefs and Rams.
47:38This is one of the most unique NFL games ever played for a few reasons, one being that in the
47:43weeks leading up to kickoff we have fully understood that it's going to be unique. At this point we don't
47:48yet know that at season's end the Chiefs will be the third highest scoring team the NFL has ever seen,
47:53or that the Rams will rank number 11, but for once we scorigami enthusiasts pick up the scent of a unique
47:58score before the opening kickoff. Quarterbacks Jared Goff and Patrick Mahomes trade blows all night,
48:04both finish with at least four passing touchdowns and 400 yards through the air. It's a shootout
48:08that looks a lot more like high school ball than anything ever seen in the NFL. Rams 54, Chiefs 51.
48:15This score is unique in that it's scorigami, yeah, but it's also unique in that it's the first NFL game
48:21ever in which both teams put 50 points on the board. It requires us to add seating capacity to the
48:26scorigami board for the first time in many decades by expanding to a 51st row. Most unique though,
48:32and most surprising, it was an NFL game that delighted just about everybody who saw it.
48:38This game was played almost exactly 50 years after the 1968 Heidi game between the Jets and Raiders.
48:4450 years and two days to be precise, and I find that significant because while that game's viewing
48:50experience sent America into fits of rage and made hundreds of fans so mad they called it cops,
48:55everyone left their living rooms happy tonight. In part because it was a regular season game that
48:59didn't do much to alter the Chiefs fortunes either way, even fans of the losing team were at liberty to
49:04sit back and say, we just witnessed a masterpiece. A lot of fans will tell you it was objectively the
49:09greatest regular season game ever played. It's even been ranked among the greatest games, period.
49:14It came as close as any NFL game ever has to pleasing every last customer. For one night,
49:21the football watching masses got to feel what it is like to be a scorigami fan.
49:30As we inch closer and closer to 2025, we find ourselves in a golden age of scorigami,
49:36which is not to say that they happen all the time. In fact, it's good that they don't.
49:39These days we can expect to see between 5 and 10 scorigamis per season, so about once a month,
49:44maybe more. That's enough scorigami to keep us interested while still remaining special.
49:49And of course, when your team achieves a scorigami, it's not just a scorigami. Each one is unique.
49:55That's kind of the point. It's a discovery of a new little world, always known, but never expected.
50:00And until the end of time, you're always going to be able to say that you were the first to set
50:04foot there. And although achieving scorigami becomes a little bit more challenging with every
50:08passing year, opportunities still abound. Entering 2024, there's plenty of space out in the burbs,
50:14but there are also very compelling empty lots sitting both downtown and uptown. 15 entire years
50:20after it first emerged, the Tetris Cannon still holds completely firm, a striking monument to the
50:25sheer unreachability of the 32. There's no telling how much longer it might stand.
50:30We haven't had occasion to open up the parts store in quite a while now, but there's a fun
50:34little piece of business to get to. Let's rewind the clock just a bit to 2013. We're in the middle of
50:39a very funny Eagles-Lions game that was so buried in snow that both teams decided to attempt two-point
50:44conversions after every single touchdown. The Lions did attempt one extra point after a two-point
50:50attempt was blown dead by a false start, and the resolve to never kick in the first place was
50:54validated when right guard CJ Mosley lost his footing and allowed Benny Logan to cut through for the block.
50:59When Bradley Fletcher scoops up to run it back, announcer Kevin Burkhart reluctantly fulfills
51:04his role as official party pooper. But Burkhart seems to be the only one in the building who knows
51:12the play is dead. The crowd thinks he's gonna score. Fletcher thinks he's gonna score. His teammates
51:16think he's gonna score. This guy thinks he's gonna score. And Fletcher runs it in for what sure looks
51:21like a score. It finally falls upon the official to explain that this is not a score. We know we're
51:26really in for it when an official has to flip all the way back to Genesis 1-1 and use the phrase
51:32in the NFL. Why not? If this were a field goal attempt, the Eagles could have returned it for
51:41a score. Why would it be any different with an extra point try? But it is. If the opposing
51:45team possesses the ball, the play is automatically over, no points for anybody. It's so counterintuitive
51:50and nonsensical that not even the players on the field can fathom such a rule. Over the years,
51:55this scenario has repeated itself over and over, just not quite often enough for people to remember
52:00that the dead ball rule exists. It applied to two point conversions as well. Defenders who
52:04intercepted a pass were expected to simply drop the ball and move on with their lives.
52:08Perhaps motivated by that return in the snow that was whistled dead, the Eagles soon propose a rule
52:13change allowing for defensive scores on conversion attempts. It passes overwhelmingly, which makes you
52:18wonder why the NFL spent more than 20 years playing under a rule that pretty much everybody
52:22understood to be arbitrary and stupid. Pretty handy illustration of how the NFL works and does not.
52:27At any rate, welcome to our defensive two point conversion unboxing video. This fella doles out
52:33six points to the offense for scoring a touchdown in the first place and then two points to any defense
52:37that manages to force a turnover and take the ball all the way back to the house. Certainly intriguing,
52:42since any type of score that issues exactly two points to anybody is intriguing. Returning to figure
52:47one, we can see that the defensive two pointer is extraordinarily rare, accounting for a completely
52:52trivial percentage of all scoring events. Entering 2025, it's been in place for 10 seasons and has
52:57only been seen 14 times, meaning most teams have never even scored one. But during the 2024 postseason,
53:04it helps to produce a transformational scorigami.
53:07January 11th, 2025, in the wildcard round of the playoffs, the Texans host the Chargers in Houston.
53:21It's here where we see scorigami number 1091. It is, as of the time of this narration,
53:28the very most recent scorigami. Early in the fourth, down 23-6, Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert starts
53:34to turn around what has been a pretty terrible day for him so far, completing an 86-yard touchdown
53:38pass to Ladd McConkie. The Chargers then opt to try the extra point to cut the deficit to 10,
53:43it's blocked, and the ball pops high into the air. Kicker Cameron Dicker parks himself under it.
53:48If he can snag it and then just hit the deck, he can cut his losses and kill the play.
53:52But remember AJ Jones forgetting to return the kickoff back in 84? Remember Bradley Fletcher running the
53:57block extra point back in 2013 because he thought he could score? Football players understandably
54:01sometimes fail to remember football rules because there's a lot of them. Evidently, Dicker thinks
54:06he can do what quarterbacks do when a pass is tipped and just bat it down. Legally, this does not stop
54:10the play, so when he takes one for the team and gets absolutely nailed, he does so for no reason at all.
54:15It remains a live ball, and D'Angelo Ross runs it back for one of the only defensive two-point conversions
54:21ever. It pulls the score to a very rare, albeit precedented, 25-12. We're only a Texans touchdown an
54:27extra point away from Scorigami, and in the game's final minutes, we get it. 32-12. This score sits
54:34very close to our beloved Tetris Cannon, which is, um, um, I think we've gotten lost somehow. No,
54:43we're not lost. It should be here. It's supposed to be right here. Uh-oh. Let's rewind the tape.
54:52Okay, uh, here it was in 2007. We will advance year by year. Still there, still there, still there.
55:00At the end of 2023, still there. 2024, it's just gone. Let's see what happened here. September 9th,
55:092024, Niners beat the Jets 32-19, and the Cannon lost one of the Tracer Bullets down here. Um, and then
55:16on December 8th, the Dolphins beat the Jets 32-26, so because of the Jets giving up 32 points twice in
55:22a season, it lost a couple of its bullets, it seems like this thing would've remained somewhat intact
55:29anyway, but that Texans-Chargers game, that 32-12 game made possible by the defensive two-point
55:35conversion, that was the nose of the Tetris. It's just a sad little dash now. It's gone.
55:41It survived perfectly intact for 15 years. For much of that time, nobody even knew it was there.
55:50And then, in the space of one season, the structure collapsed.
55:59Approximately 10,000 years ago, as the most recent ice age ended and glaciers retreated,
56:04water froze and then thawed in such a way as to sculpt the old man of the mountain.
56:09A 40-foot tall formation in New Hampshire that resembled an old man's profile.
56:14There's no telling exactly how many lonely years the big guy spent out there,
56:18gazing over the white mountains before indigenous peoples first took notice of it.
56:22It began to attract wider attention after a team of surveyors recorded its existence in 1805.
56:27Here it is photographed in 1865. New Hampshire made it its state emblem, but it remained little
56:32more than a regional curiosity until 2000, when its image was minted on New Hampshire's state quarter.
56:38After spending many millennia completely unnoticed by anyone, the old man in the mountain was suddenly
56:43known by millions. One morning three years later, some state park rangers clocked into work and looked
56:49upward like they did every morning. It was gone. There was no particular event that caused it.
56:54Sometime around midnight, it had simply collapsed under its own weight and ceased to exist. And that was
56:59that. It survived just long enough to be noticed and celebrated, and not much longer than that.
57:06Things last for a time, then they don't. For how much longer will any of this last?
57:12In our final chapter, we will explore the future.
57:24In our final chapter, we pick up the future.
57:28android.com
57:31Mon플 tweet
57:36On equality
57:38N送來了
57:41Angela
57:46liberty
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