Scorigami

In sports, a scorigami (a portmanteau of ''score'' and ''origami'') is a final score that has never happened before in a sport or league's history. The term was originated by sportswriter Jon Bois for American football scores in the National Football League (NFL) and is primarily used in this context; it has also been applied sparingly across other sports leagues.

Overview

In an 2014 article for ''SB Nation'' and subsequent 2016 YouTube video on their Secret Base channel, Jon Bois defined Scorigami as "the act, and art, of producing a final score in a football game that has never happened before." In football, points can be scored by touchdowns (6), field goals (3), and safeties (2), with teams able to score 1 or 2 points on extra-point attempts after touchdowns. This uneven distribution, and their differing frequencies in play, means that some scorelines are more probable than others. Bois charted the history of scorelines in the NFL and noted gaps in the chart for various scorelines that have never occurred, dubbing these potential "scorigamis". As an example, the Seattle Seahawks' 43–8 win over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII was a scorigami, as no prior NFL game had ever finished 43–8.

Bois also notes in the 2016 video that American football is the largest sport in the U.S., and perhaps the world, where unique scores still regularly occur, as the vast majority of common sports will only allow points to be scored one at a time, such as soccer, baseball, or hockey, or in much smaller multi-point increments as in the case of basketball. While still possible elsewhere, professional American football remains the most common place to see these unique scores. It could also be done for American college football, but the vastly greater number of games over time and disparity in team quality would lead to disingenuous marks, including one infamous 222–0 football game.

Since the term's inception, a Twitter bot has tracked scorigamis in the NFL. Bois and other media observers noted the tendency of the Seattle Seahawks under former head coach Pete Carroll to create scorigamis; Bois dubbed Carroll "the wizard of modern Scorigami, without question". From 2011 to 2018, the Seahawks had exactly one scorigami per season. Carroll himself has acknowledged his team's frequent scorigamis, joking to reporters after another game with a unique score, "That's ridiculous. I don't know how that happens. I'm thrilled that that happened again, for no reason. It's just something we've been working on in the offseason."

Scorigamis in other sports are occasionally noted. On September 9, 2020, Major League Baseball (MLB) had its first scorigami in 21 years, a 29–9 victory by the Atlanta Braves over the Miami Marlins—the previous scorigami for an MLB game had been a 24–12 win by the Cincinnati Reds over the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999. The 2024-25 NBA regular season featured 20 scorigamis, including a 145-111 win by the Oklahoma City Thunder over the Utah Jazz on April 11, 2025.

The concept has also been extended to weather, with first-time occurrences of combinations of daily maximum and minimum temperatures at a location being termed "weathergami".

References

{{reflist

External links

Every NFL Score Ever , Chart Party
on YouTube.
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Chart Party: Exploring 'scoragami,' the art of inventing new final scores
a 2014 article.
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Chart Party: Scorigami, or the story of every NFL final score that has ever happened
a 2016 article.

Scorigami: Final Scores that Have NEVER Happened Before
by NFL Films, featuring Bois.

NFL Scorigami
a website tracking occurrences of Scorigami.

2014 neologisms
NFL culture
SB Nation
Sports records and statistics
Applied statistical analysis