NFL news: 3 final scores from 2022 that never happened before
By Asher Fair
Three of the 271 NFL games contested throughout the 18-week regular season had never been seen before in the history of the league.
The 2022 NFL regular season came to an end on Sunday night at Lambeau Field, with the Detroit Lions upsetting the Green Bay Packers to spoil their chance at getting into the NFC playoffs and thus open up the door for the Seattle Seahawks.
This game was the 271st game of the 18-week regular season, good for second most all-time. The record would have been tied if the Week 17 matchup between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals hadn’t been suspended and then ultimately canceled.
There have now been 17,367 games played in NFL history, going all the way back to the league’s first season in 1920. The first game was played on Sunday, October 3, 1920, when the Dayton Triangles hosted and defeated the Columbus Panhandles by a score of 14-0.
This final score was the first of 1,075 unique final scores (including playoff games) up until the end of the 2022 regular season.
Three of those 1,075 unique final NFL scores took place for the first time during this past regular season.
The first occurrence of a new score took place during Week 4, when the Lions hosted the Seahawks. The Seahawks won the game by a score of 48-45, which had surprisingly never happened before. With that being said, of the 23 scores that have ever happened with at least 90 points, only three have occurred more than once.
In Week 13, the second occurrence took place when the Dallas Cowboys hosted the Indianapolis Colts. Thanks to a 33-point fourth quarter, the Cowboys won the game by a score of 54-19.
Then most recently, the New England Patriots hosted the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 16, and the Bengals held on to win by a score of 22-18 after opening up an early 22-0 lead.
While many believed that the Miami Dolphins’ victory over the New York Jets was the first ever 11-6 game in NFL history, that was not actually the case. The St. Louis Rams won the 1999 NFC Championship by the same score over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.