The Safety: The Sweetest Two Points in Football
Originally published on The Bleacher Report
Right before it happens, as the offensive line is taking shape in it’s own end zone, your nervous twitch kicks into gear. Maybe you’re a toe-tapper, or a leg shaker or maybe you just silently raise your hands above your head. The teams are ready, the play clock is running down, the ball is snapped, it’s in the quarterback’s hands, he passes it off, and the running back struggles not for a first down, not even for decent yardage; he just wants to cross that line. He can’t, from the left and the right, the holes are closed, he is straining to hold on to the ball, struggling to break through, and then he crumples, he goes down, under three or four men much larger than he. The whistle is blown, the play is over, and in a matter of seconds the defensive line is jumping up and down and the scoreboard above changes adding the two sweetest points in football.
There’s just something magical about the safety.
According to the NFL Record and Fact Book, no team has ever recorded more than four safeties in one season, most recently Tennessee in 1999, or more than three in one game, the L.A. Rams in a game against the New York Giants on September 30, 1984. Fred Dryer holds the record for most safeties in one game, which is two, and Ted Hendriks, holds the record for the most safeties in a career, which is only four. So perhaps it’s because the safety is so rare that it is so exciting to see.
Like every other football fan, I like a last minute win. I enjoy the thrill of a team, on their last possession, engineering a winning drive. I liked watching Rob Bironas’ 60-yard field goal sail through the uprights on Sunday. But those things happen every season. Winning, by a safety however is an unexpected gift from the football gods. It’s only happened once this season so far; September 10, New England beat Buffalo by a score of 19-17.
Because of their rarity and their location, safeties carry with them a kind of humiliation exceeding that of other defensive points. A defense comes in to a team’s home, to their own end zone, uninvited and shuts them down. They disgrace a place generally reserved for celebration and the safety can’t be ignored because every time a team sees the score of the game they see 5, 15, 19, or 23, numbers rarely seen on Sundays.
Now I know there will be shouts of “what about the two-point conversion.” And I agree that there is nothing like a team successfully reaching the end zone on two consecutive plays to kill the spirit of a defense. But the job of an offense is to score points and to sometimes resort to aggressive play calling. The two-point conversion is planned, but the safety, no matter how badly a defense wants it, is unpredictable.
Data about game winning safeties is difficult to find, but by far the most impressive statistic is that two NFL games have been won, by a safety, in overtime. The first, a 1989 Vikings vs. L.A. Rams game and the second, a 2004 Bears vs. Titans game. In that one, the Titans fumbled the ball in their own end zone, and though they recovered it, they could not get past the line, resulting in a 19-17 Bears victory.
There have been some amazing plays in this football season thus far. Devin Hester’s 108 yard missed field goal return for a touchdown, the Ravens blocking a potential game-winning field goal to beat the Titans by one point, that same Titans team overcoming a 21 point lead in the fourth quarter to beat the Giants, and Matt Bryant’s 62 yard field goal for the Bucs to beat the Eagles after he was 0-for-3 from beyond 40 yards.
These are all great moments, and made for incredible games, but when it comes to scoring points in unexpected ways, I still think the safety is the sweetest play of them all.
Right before it happens, as the offensive line is taking shape in it’s own end zone, your nervous twitch kicks into gear. Maybe you’re a toe-tapper, or a leg shaker or maybe you just silently raise your hands above your head. The teams are ready, the play clock is running down, the ball is snapped, it’s in the quarterback’s hands, he passes it off, and the running back struggles not for a first down, not even for decent yardage; he just wants to cross that line. He can’t, from the left and the right, the holes are closed, he is straining to hold on to the ball, struggling to break through, and then he crumples, he goes down, under three or four men much larger than he. The whistle is blown, the play is over, and in a matter of seconds the defensive line is jumping up and down and the scoreboard above changes adding the two sweetest points in football.
There’s just something magical about the safety.
According to the NFL Record and Fact Book, no team has ever recorded more than four safeties in one season, most recently Tennessee in 1999, or more than three in one game, the L.A. Rams in a game against the New York Giants on September 30, 1984. Fred Dryer holds the record for most safeties in one game, which is two, and Ted Hendriks, holds the record for the most safeties in a career, which is only four. So perhaps it’s because the safety is so rare that it is so exciting to see.
Like every other football fan, I like a last minute win. I enjoy the thrill of a team, on their last possession, engineering a winning drive. I liked watching Rob Bironas’ 60-yard field goal sail through the uprights on Sunday. But those things happen every season. Winning, by a safety however is an unexpected gift from the football gods. It’s only happened once this season so far; September 10, New England beat Buffalo by a score of 19-17.
Because of their rarity and their location, safeties carry with them a kind of humiliation exceeding that of other defensive points. A defense comes in to a team’s home, to their own end zone, uninvited and shuts them down. They disgrace a place generally reserved for celebration and the safety can’t be ignored because every time a team sees the score of the game they see 5, 15, 19, or 23, numbers rarely seen on Sundays.
Now I know there will be shouts of “what about the two-point conversion.” And I agree that there is nothing like a team successfully reaching the end zone on two consecutive plays to kill the spirit of a defense. But the job of an offense is to score points and to sometimes resort to aggressive play calling. The two-point conversion is planned, but the safety, no matter how badly a defense wants it, is unpredictable.
Data about game winning safeties is difficult to find, but by far the most impressive statistic is that two NFL games have been won, by a safety, in overtime. The first, a 1989 Vikings vs. L.A. Rams game and the second, a 2004 Bears vs. Titans game. In that one, the Titans fumbled the ball in their own end zone, and though they recovered it, they could not get past the line, resulting in a 19-17 Bears victory.
There have been some amazing plays in this football season thus far. Devin Hester’s 108 yard missed field goal return for a touchdown, the Ravens blocking a potential game-winning field goal to beat the Titans by one point, that same Titans team overcoming a 21 point lead in the fourth quarter to beat the Giants, and Matt Bryant’s 62 yard field goal for the Bucs to beat the Eagles after he was 0-for-3 from beyond 40 yards.
These are all great moments, and made for incredible games, but when it comes to scoring points in unexpected ways, I still think the safety is the sweetest play of them all.
