The most points ever scored in an NFL game came on November 27, 1966, when Washington beat the New York Giants 72-41. That is 113 points, and in the sixty years since, the closest any game has come is 106. Because the record is so far ahead of everything else, the honest answer to "what is the most points in an NFL game" comes in parts: 113 combined in the regular season, 72 by one team in the regular season, 73 by one team in any game, 96 combined in the playoffs and 75 in a Super Bowl. Here are those records, the games that set them, and the odd pattern at the top of the list - it has held partly because the teams in a position to add to it chose not to.
Four Records, Not One
"Most points in a game" means four different things, and the record book keeps them apart.
Combined, regular season: 113. Washington 72, Giants 41, in 1966. Seven NFL and AFL regular-season games have reached 99 points, and all seven are ranked below. An eighth, the 49ers' 63-40 win over the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948, scored 103 in the All-America Football Conference, whose statistics the NFL added to its official records only in 2025.
One team, any game: 73. The Chicago Bears beat Washington 73-0 in the 1940 NFL Championship Game. The regular-season mark for one team is Washington's 72, from the game above.
Combined, postseason: 96. Arizona 51, Green Bay 45 in overtime, in a wild-card game in January 2010.
Combined, Super Bowl: 75. San Francisco 49, San Diego 26, in Super Bowl XXIX.
The season-long version of the question belongs to the 2013 Denver Broncos and their 606 points, covered in the NFL single-season records that still stand. That team turns up below as well, winning a game by refusing to score.
1. Washington 72, Giants 41 (1966) - 113 Points
Washington led 34-14 at halftime and scored 24 more in the fourth quarter. It scored ten touchdowns: three passing, four rushing and three on returns. Brig Owens ran back a fumble 62 yards and an interception 60, and Rickie Harris returned a punt 52 yards. Sonny Jurgensen completed 10 of 16 passes for 145 yards and three touchdowns, two of them to Charley Taylor.
The strange part is that the Giants outgained Washington, 389 yards to 341, and had 25 first downs to Washington's 16. They also turned the ball over six times. New York finished 1-12-1 and allowed 501 points in 14 games, a league record at the time.
The last three points are the famous ones. Leading 69-41 in the final seconds, Washington sent out Charlie Gogolak for a 29-yard field goal. Coach Otto Graham said it was practice for his kicker. The other story, never settled, is that the kick was ordered by linebacker Sam Huff, whom Giants coach Allie Sherman had traded to Washington in 1964 and who said he would never forgive Sherman for it. Kicking for the Giants that day was Charlie's older brother, Pete.
2. Bengals 58, Browns 48 (2004) - 106 Points
The betting total for this game was 37.5 points. Cincinnati and Cleveland went over it by 68.5.
Cleveland's Kelly Holcomb completed 30 of 39 passes for 413 yards and five touchdowns, and lost. Three of the touchdowns went to tight end Steve Heiden, and the last of them put the Browns ahead 48-44 with a little over ten minutes left. Cincinnati scored the final 14 points: Rudi Johnson's second 7-yard touchdown run of the day, then a 31-yard interception return by Deltha O'Neal with 1:43 left. Johnson finished with 202 yards on 26 carries, and Carson Palmer threw four touchdown passes.
The game was played on November 28, 2004. Two days later, Butch Davis resigned as the Browns' head coach and general manager.
3. Rams 54, Chiefs 51 (2018) - 105 Points
This game was supposed to be played in Mexico City. Six days beforehand, the NFL moved it to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum because of the field conditions at Azteca Stadium, and two 9-1 teams met on a Monday night, November 19, 2018.
It was the first NFL game in which both teams scored 50, and Kansas City's 51 set the record for points by a losing team. Patrick Mahomes threw for 478 yards and six touchdowns, with Tyreek Hill catching 10 passes for 215 yards. Jared Goff threw for 413 yards and four touchdowns. The defenses added three more: the Rams' Samson Ebukam returned a fumble forced by Aaron Donald and, later, an interception, and the Chiefs' Allen Bailey ran a Goff fumble back two yards for a score.
The lead changed hands four times in the fourth quarter. The last change came on Gerald Everett's 40-yard touchdown catch with 1:49 left, and Marcus Peters and Lamarcus Joyner then intercepted Mahomes on Kansas City's last two possessions. It set the Monday Night Football scoring record.
4. Saints 52, Giants 49 (2015) - 101 Points
Thirteen touchdown passes, setting an NFL single-game record, and not a single rushing touchdown by either team.
Drew Brees completed 39 of 50 passes for 505 yards and seven touchdowns, tying the single-game record. Eli Manning threw six, with no interceptions. Brees now ranks second only to Tom Brady in career passing yards and touchdowns, as laid out in the NFL career records and the men who hold them.
The Giants went ahead 49-42 on Trumaine McBride's 63-yard interception return with 7:11 left. Brees tied it with a 9-yard pass to C.J. Spiller inside the final minute, and the Giants punted with 20 seconds left, hoping for overtime. Marcus Murphy returned it 24 yards, punter Brad Wing was flagged 15 yards for grabbing Willie Snead's facemask, and Kai Forbath kicked a 50-yard field goal as time expired.
5. Raiders 52, Oilers 49 (1963) - 101 Points
An AFL game, played on December 22, 1963, before the two leagues merged; the record lists count it alongside the NFL's. It was tied 35-35 at halftime.
Oakland's Tom Flores completed 17 of 29 passes for 407 yards and six touchdowns, four of them to Art Powell, who caught 10 passes for 247 yards. Houston's George Blanda threw five touchdown passes and kicked all seven of the Oilers' extra points.
Houston led 49-42 after three quarters and did not score again. Powell's fourth touchdown, a 23-yarder, tied it, and Mike Mercer's 39-yard field goal won it.
6. The Two 99-Point Games: Seahawks-Chiefs (1983) and Broncos-Cowboys (2013)
Both finished 51-48, thirty years apart.
Seahawks 51, Chiefs 48 (OT), November 27, 1983. It set the scoring record for an overtime game. Seattle rookie Curt Warner ran 32 times for 207 yards and three touchdowns, and Kansas City's Bill Kenney threw four touchdown passes and ran for two more. The Chiefs' last touchdown came without an extra point, leaving them up 48-45, and Norm Johnson tied it with a 42-yard field goal. He won it in overtime from 42 yards as well, his third 42-yarder of the day.
Broncos 51, Cowboys 48, October 6, 2013. Tony Romo threw for 506 yards and five touchdowns and lost to Peyton Manning, who threw for 414 and four. Knowshon Moreno tied it 48-48 with under three minutes left, and on Dallas's next possession Danny Trevathan intercepted Romo at the Cowboys' 24. Denver reached the 1-yard line and then stopped trying to score: Manning lost four yards on a run, knelt twice, and let the clock fall to two seconds before Matt Prater kicked a 28-yard field goal. A touchdown would have handed Dallas the ball back with time to answer, so a team on its way to the season scoring record won by declining to score.
The Postseason Record: Cardinals 51, Packers 45 (OT), 2010 - 96 Points
An NFC wild-card game on January 10, 2010, and still the highest-scoring playoff game ever played.
Kurt Warner completed 29 of 33 passes for 379 yards and five touchdowns - four incompletions all game. Aaron Rodgers threw for 423 yards and four touchdowns and ran for another. Arizona led 31-10 in the third quarter. Green Bay recovered an onside kick while trailing 31-17 and tied it 45-45 with under two minutes left, and Neil Rackers then missed a 34-yard field goal with 14 seconds to go.
Green Bay won the overtime toss. On third down, Michael Adams sacked Rodgers, the ball came loose, and Karlos Dansby returned it 17 yards for the winning touchdown. Replays showed Adams's hand on Rodgers's facemask; the league said afterward the contact was incidental. It was the last win of Warner's career: the Saints beat Arizona 45-14 the next week, and he retired that offseason.
Next on the postseason list are the Eagles' 58-37 win over Detroit in December 1995, at 95 points, and Indianapolis's 45-44 win over Kansas City in January 2014, at 89 - the second-biggest comeback in playoff history, covered in the greatest comebacks in NFL history. The Epic in Miami, Chargers 41, Dolphins 38 in overtime, totaled only 79 and still sits among the greatest NFL playoff games of all time. Games like these are the raw material for Roll Call, where you name everyone who touched the ball in a playoff game.
The Super Bowl Record: 49ers 49, Chargers 26 (Super Bowl XXIX) - 75 Points
San Francisco was favored by more than two touchdowns and played like it. Steve Young threw a 44-yard touchdown to Jerry Rice on the third play of the 49ers' first drive and finished 24 of 36 for 325 yards and six touchdowns, still the Super Bowl record. Rice caught three of them and Ricky Watters scored three times.
San Diego supplied the rest, including Andre Coleman's 98-yard kickoff return and the first two two-point conversions in Super Bowl history, in the first season the NFL allowed them. The 75 points and ten touchdowns are both still Super Bowl records.
Second is Super Bowl LII, the Eagles' 41-33 win over New England, at 74 points. It set an NFL record for any game with 1,151 total yards, and the teams punted once between them. Tom Brady threw for 505 yards, still the most in any postseason game, and lost after Brandon Graham strip-sacked him with 2:16 left. Third is Super Bowl LVII, Chiefs 38, Eagles 35, at 73, in which Philadelphia's 35 became the most points by a losing team in a Super Bowl.
The One-Team Record: Bears 73, Washington 0 (1940)
Three weeks before the 1940 NFL Championship Game, Washington beat the Bears 7-3 at Griffith Stadium, and owner George Preston Marshall called them crybabies for complaining about a missed pass interference call on the final play. The rematch was at the same stadium on December 8.
Chicago scored 21 points in the first quarter and 73 in all, the most by one team in any NFL game and the most lopsided result in league history. The Bears ran 53 times for 381 yards. Washington ran 15 times for 5 and threw eight interceptions, three of them returned for touchdowns. Ten different Bears scored touchdowns, and so many extra points had sailed into the stands by the end that officials asked George Halas to run plays for the last two conversions, because they were down to their last football.
The regular-season record for one team is Washington's 72 in 1966. The Los Angeles Rams scored 70 against the Baltimore Colts in 1950, and the Miami Dolphins scored 70 against Denver on September 24, 2023. Miami gained 726 yards that day, at the time second only to the 1951 Rams' 735. With 32 seconds left, Miami faced fourth-and-14 at the Denver 27, in range for a field goal of about 45 yards that would have made it 73 - a regular-season record, and level with the Bears. Mike McDaniel had his quarterback kneel. Chasing points and a record, he said afterward, was not what his team had come to do.
Why 113 Has Lasted Since 1966
Three things keep turning up among the seven 99-point games, and together they explain why the record has not moved.
The first is that defenses score. Washington returned three touchdowns in 1966, two by its defense, the 2018 Rams and Chiefs scored three defensive touchdowns between them, and the 2004 and 2015 games both turned on interception returns. The biggest totals are not two great offenses trading drives. They are games where the ball keeps changing hands in the wrong places.
The second is that they stay close. Five of the seven were decided by exactly three points, and six by ten or fewer. A team leading by three touchdowns runs the ball and spends the clock, so a giant total needs a game in which neither side can afford to.
The third is restraint, and it is why the top of the list may never change. Washington reached 113 because it kept scoring long after the game was decided, field goal included, and the Giants kept scoring too. Modern teams in that position do the opposite: Miami knelt on fourth down in 2023 rather than kick for 73, and even in a tie game Denver knelt at the goal line in 2013, because the clock was worth more than the points. Bears 59, Panthers 37 in September 2026 was the highest-scoring regular-season game since 2018, and its 96 points were still 17 short.
The record needed a rout in which the winning team never stopped and the losing team never stopped either. That has happened once. Even the near-misses are worth knowing exactly, because the numbers sound alike and are not - Mahomes's 478 yards in a loss against Goff's 413 in a win is the kind of call Higher Lower asks you to make every day.
Related Reading
- The NFL Single-Season Records That Still Stand
- The Greatest Comebacks in NFL History, Ranked
- The NFL Career Records and the Men Who Hold Them
- The Greatest NFL Playoff Games of All Time
High-scoring games make the best record trivia, because 113, 106 and 105 all sound like the answer until you know which one is. Guess which player's stat is higher in our daily Higher Lower, or name the leaders in Top 10.