The 18:22 between the New England Patriots and the Cincinnati Bengals is one of the wildest games of Game Day 16 – plus, the game also produces something historic: a Scorigami.

The 18:22 between the New England Patriots and the Cincinnati Bengals was one of the wildest games of the 16th day of play – in addition, the game also produced something historic, as the result had never been seen before. The final score was thus a special feat: a scorigami.

The portmanteau word scorigami is made up of the English “score” and the Japanese paper folding art “origami”.

Already the 1075th Scorigami

To be exact, the Bengals’ 22:18 was the 1075th scorigami in NFL history. The list of never before scored final scores of a game is similarly long. Because of the different ways of scoring points in American football, the possibility of results is almost unlimited.

CIN 22 – 18 NE
Final

That’s Scorigami!! It’s the 1075th unique final score in NFL history.

– Scorigami (@NFL_Scorigami) December 24, 2022

Only some results where a team has only one point are mathematically excluded. For this rare case, a team would have to score a safety on the opponent's PAT as a defence. For example, a 1:1 is not possible, but a 0:0 has already occurred 73 times - the last one, however, was in 1943.

The most frequent result so far is 20:17 (282), followed by 27:24 (229) - that was between the Minnesota Vikings and the New York Giants on this matchday.

Third scorigami of the season

This season's 22-18 scorigami between the Bengals and Patriots was the third of the season. The first happened in Week 4 in the Seattle Seahawks' 48-45 win over the Detroit Lions. The second came in the Dallas Cowboys' 54-19 thumping of the Indianapolis Colts on Game 13.

There were a total of six Scorigamis last season - but with each successive one, the likelihood of a new one diminishes.

Contributing to the latest Scorigami, however, have been the kickers on both teams. Nick Folk of the Patriots missed the extra point twice after scoring a touchdown. Bengals kicker Evan McPherson also missed one and a field goal to boot. If only one of the kicks had gone in, there would have been no scorigami.