Scoring of a Safety

One of the most infrequent scoring plays in all of football is the two-point safety play. We will share what exactly a safety is and some of facts, figures and big games that safeties have been scored in.

The gridiron scoring opportunity of a Safety is one of those rare occurrences in football that bring a little bit of anxiety and excitement. Safety in its most basic form is when the ball is taken into the endzone of the team in possession by a force caused by that team and becomes dead in their own end zone by rule. Safeties can also be scored when a spot foul is committed by a team in possession of the ball in their own end zone.

The naming of the play has an interesting back story. It comes from early rules of football when a team that possessed the ball near its own goal line could simply down it in the end zone. Should they have done that the penalty would be to give up two points to their opponents and then the ball would then be moved to the 25 yard line, and punted from there. It was called a safety because it was considered a safe strategy. Remember the punting game was oh so improtant before the foward pass became legal and a prevelant part of the game. Field possession for the running game was so important in that era.

Like we said earlier these are rare occurrences. According to the Pro-Football-Reference, there have been only 9 games in the 100-plus years of the NFL where both teams scored a safety. Likewise, there have been only 38 NFL games where a team has scored only a safety in a contest as their only points. The 1943 season was the low point for NFL safeties scored when there were 0 that were committed and on the flip side the record for safeties being scored in a season is 26 and that happened in 1988.

Talk about defensive battle stalemates! Early NFL games saw five games where the only scoring in the contest was the safety. These were:
 
November 29, 1923 -    Akron Pros: 2, Buffalo All-Americans: 0
November 21, 1926 -    Kansas City Cowboys: 2, Buffalo Rangers: 0
November 29, 1928 -    Frankford Yellow Jackets: 2,  Green Bay Packers: 0
October 16, 1932 -    Green Bay Packers: 2, Chicago Bears: 0
September 18, 1938 - Chicago Bears: 2, Green Bay Packers: 0

The NFL team record for safeties in a single game is three, which all occurred when the Los Angeles Rams recorded 3 against the New York Giants on September 30, 1984. 

The individual record for safeties in a single game is two, by the Rams' Fred Dryer against the Green Bay Packers on October 21, 1973.  Ted Hendricks, Jared Allen, Doug English, and Justin Houston share the NFL career record for scoring safeties with each of them tallying four.

Oddities of the two-pointer in football are not reserved for the professional level. In the NCAA there have been three Division I-A teams have scored a triple tally of safeties in one contest: 

Arizona State in 1996 (in a 19-0 victory over then-No. 1 and two-time defending national champion Nebraska, ending the Cornhuskers' 26-game winning streak)
North Texas in 2003. 
Bowling Green in 2005. 

In Division I-AA, the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2007 scored only six points in a game, from three safeties against Rhode Island. UMass had also scored three safeties in a game against Albany in 2005, a Division I-AA record. 

Want a real wild one? How many remember back in 2004, when Iowa defeated Penn State by the score of 6–4?  Iowa's kicked two field goals and Penn State's dropped the Hawkeyes for two safeties, it was the only instance of such a score in the modern era, and it was the first time since Florida lost to Miami 31–4 in 1987 that a team finished a game with exactly four points.

Safeties in Big Games

The first story of a safety play is often remembered as the worst blunder in the history of college football. At the Rose Bowl game played on January 1, 1929, the California Golden Bears faced the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the prestigious Pasadena post-season game.

Part-way through the second quarter, Cal’s defensive center Roy Riegels picked up a fumble by Tech's Jack "Stumpy" Thomason at the GT 30 yard-line, as he scooped up the loose ball the D-lineman was turned around during the play and ran 69 yards in the wrong direction.

Teammate Benny Lom chased Riegels at a full sprint and finally caught the lumbering lineman screaming for him to stop. Riegels finally realized his error at California's 3-yard line and tried to turn around, but he was hit by a wave of Tech players and thrown back to the 1-yard line.

The Bears chose to punt rather than risk a play so close to their own end zone, but Tech's Vance Maree blocked Lom's punt for a safety, giving Georgia Tech a 2–0 lead. Georgia Tech go on win the game, and the safety made all the difference in a final score of 8–7. 

A more famous wrong way run

Now that sounds very familiar, as an almost identical wrong way scoop of a fumble and wrong way run occurred to Minnesota Vikings star defensive lineman Jim Marshall in 1964. On that October 25 day, Marshall was having his way with the San Francisco 49ers on that day. Even on the play in question, Marshall got his paws on Niners QB George Mira and caused Mira to lose control of the ball. Marshall promptly picked the ball up and proceeded to run 66 yards to what he presumed was an extremely easy scoop and score. Unfortunately for Jim and the Vikes, Marshall had run in the wrong direction for a safety. 

How about some safeties in NFL title games?

On December 16, 1945  there was a big one scored early in the NFL Championship game between the Cleveland Rams and the Washington Redskins due to an old field setup and strange rules at the time. In the first quarter, Washington had the ball at their own five-yard line. Dropping back into his own end zone, quarterback Sammy Baugh launched a pass, but the ball hit the goal post which back then was positioned on each goal line. The NFL rule at this time was pronouncing the ball hitting the structure as the ball becoming dead, and hence scored as a safety, thus giving the Cleveland Rams a 2–0 lead. The Rams went on to win 15–14, meaning the safety proved to be the determining factor in the margin of victory.

Two years later the Rams would lose a title game to the newly merged into the NFL, Cleveland Browns on a play that many felt should have been called a safety. With LA losing 28-30 late in the contest, Rams QB Norm Van Brocklin launched a 47-yard bomb to the endzone. Cleveland’s DB Warren Lahr picked off the pass at his won ten-yard line and then was taken into the endzone and out of bounds by a piggyback hit by Ram Glenn Davis. The play when watched was not a safety and should have been Cleveland’s ball at the 10 due to the forward progress after the pick. So not allowing the two points was a correct call by the stripes.

Safeties have occurred in back-to-back Super Bowls twice in history so far, and in three straight contests for the Lombardi at one point: 

Super Bowl IX and Super Bowl X; 
Super Bowl XX and Super Bowl XXI; 
Super Bowl XLVI, Super Bowl XLVII, and Super Bowl XLVIII.

That last one, Super Bowl XLVIII had the safety scored on the very first play from scrimmage, when the snap for the Denver Broncos center flew over Quarterback Peyton Manning’s head and into the end zone where the Broncos recovered it.
A 1972 game where the Washington Redskins went to Foxborough to play the New England Patriots is one that may indeed be the most controversial in the history of the NFL game. After a missed field goal attempt late in the game, the Patriots were clinging to a 24-21 lead. Washington’s defense stepped up and their stand led to a 3 and out with New England about to punt from the shadows of their own goal line with 57 seconds remaining. Number 24 Bill Malinchak of Washington blocked the punt and then seemingly recovered it in the endzone before rolling over the end line. The officials ruled that Malinchak never had possession, but replays show evidence that he did. Regardless there was no Instant Replay that could overturn plays in that era and the Redskins lost the game 24-23.

An even rarer safety is one that to this point has never been scored, the NFL one-point safety. We will talk about that more in a future podcast.
 

The banner photo is from the Wikimedia Commons collections of  Wyatt Tidwell being tackled in a football game circa 2013 contributed by Wyatt Tidwell.

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