Highest-Scoring Game in NFL History: Washington's 113-Point Shootout (1966)

The highest-scoring game in NFL history is Washington’s 72-41 win over the New York Giants on November 27, 1966 — 113 combined points, a record that has stood for nearly 60 years. That same game holds the record for the most points scored by one team in a game (72). The closest any team pairing has come since is 106 points, in 2004 — still seven points short.

The record: Washington 72, Giants 41 (113 combined points)

On November 27, 1966, at D.C. Stadium, Washington beat the New York Giants 72-41 in a game that remains the highest-scoring in NFL history nearly six decades later. The two teams combined for 16 touchdowns — 10 by Washington, 6 by the Giants — including a fumble return, an interception return, and a punt return, all scored by Washington’s defense and special teams. Nine of the 16 came on plays of 30 yards or longer.

Washington’s 72 points are also the most any team has scored in a regular-season game; only the Chicago Bears’ 73-0 rout of Washington in the 1940 NFL Championship Game sits higher, in the postseason. The Giants that season had one of the worst defenses in league history and finished 1-12-1, while Washington — in Otto Graham’s first year as coach — kept scoring into the final seconds, sending its field-goal unit out late to pad the total, which the Giants’ side considered running up the score. Washington attempted 13 extra points that day, and without goal-post netting yet in use, the team reportedly lost 13 footballs into the stands.

Ranked: the 14 highest-scoring NFL games ever

Only 14 games in NFL history (through the 2025 season) have produced 95 or more combined points. Washington’s 1966 record sits alone at the top, 7 points clear of second place; everything below it is a cluster of modern shootouts and a handful of pre-merger blowouts.

Ranked by combined points across both teams, regular season and playoffs, through the 2025 NFL season. Sourced from NFL.com and Pro Football Reference game logs.

Two things stand out. The gap at the top is real — 113 to 106 is a bigger jump than any other two consecutive spots on the board — and only one game on the list is a playoff game: Arizona’s overtime win over Green Bay, capped by a Larry Fitzgerald touchdown catch, in the 2009 NFC Wild Card round.

Most points by a single team in one game

Washington’s 72 is the standalone regular-season ceiling — no team has come within 8 points of it since. The Rams (70, in 1950) and the 49ers and Chicago Cardinals (63 each, in 1948) are the only other teams to top 60 in a game. A modern 70-point performance is close to unthinkable: better defenses, deeper rosters, and the clock-management effect of the two-minute warning mean leading teams stop pressing once a game is decided.

Why modern shootouts still fall short

League-wide scoring has climbed since the 1960s as rules protect quarterbacks and receivers, which is why 7 of the top 14 games have happened since 2004. But cracking the leaderboard takes more than a good passing attack — it needs a defense bad enough to keep both offenses scoring into the fourth quarter. The 2018 Rams-Chiefs game came closest, with Patrick Mahomes throwing for 478 yards and 6 touchdowns, yet it still finished 8 points shy of 1966. Special-teams and defensive scores matter too — a pick-six, a scoop-and-score, or a safety adds points without the offense touching the ball, and that mix is what let 1966’s total run away.

Where this record stands in 2026

As of the 2025 season, no game has cracked the top 14 since the Rams-Chiefs 105-point game in November 2018 — the highest-scoring game of 2025 itself was an 89-point Bears-Bengals contest in Week 9, well outside this list. The 113-point and 72-point marks remain two of the most durable records in the NFL book, in the same tier as the biggest single-game blowout and the record for most touchdowns by one player in a game. For a title-game equivalent, the highest-scoring Super Bowl tops out at 75 combined points — nowhere close.

How this list is ranked

This leaderboard ranks games strictly by total combined points scored by both teams, counting regular season and playoffs alike, using final scores checked against the NFL’s official record book and Pro Football Reference’s game logs. Ties are broken by date, oldest first. We did not pad the list to hit a round number — 14 is the honest count of games that have reached 95 or more combined points across more than a century of play, and every score, date, and total was verified against at least two independent sources before publishing. Overtime counts toward the final total the same as regulation, which is why several tied games carry an OT tag.

Related NFL scoring records

Washington’s 72 sits just below the 73 the Bears hung on Washington in the 1940 title game, still the largest blowout margin in league history. For more single-game extremes, see the longest field goal, the longest touchdown play, and the NFL’s biggest fourth-quarter comebacks.