Defense figures to be the name of the game when the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots face off in Super Bowl LX on Sunday, Feb. 8. Seattle might be the best D in the entire league, allowing the fewest points per game in the NFL while ranking second in EPA allowed per play. But the Patriots might be the hottest, allowing a grand total of 26 points across their three playoff wins to date.
All of which would suggest that the record for most combined points in a Super Bowl game isn't at risk of being broken in Santa Clara. Far be it from us to underestimate guys like Drake Maye and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, but that bar has been set pretty high by some of the greatest players in football history.
The 10 highest-scoring games in Super Bowl history
The Super Bowl scoring record was set more than 30 years ago, when Steve Young finally got the monkey off of his back by leading the San Francisco 49ers to a 49-26 rout over the then-San Diego Chargers in January of 1995. We've seen plenty of fireworks since then, but none have been able to equal the 75 points those two teams combined for in Super Bowl XXIX.
Super Bowl (season) | Point total | Winning team | Losing team | Final score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
XXIX (1994) | 75 | San Francisco 49ers | San Diego Chargers | 49-26 |
LII (2017) | 74 | Philadelphia Eagles | New England Patriots | 41-33 |
LVII (2022) | 73 | Kansas City Chiefs | Philadelphia Eagles | 38-35 |
XXXVII (2002) | 69 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Oakland Raiders | 48-21 |
XXVII (1992) | 69 | Dallas Cowboys | Buffalo Bills | 52-17 |
XIII (1978) | 66 | Pittsburgh Steelers | Dallas Cowboys | 35-31 |
XLVII (2012) | 65 | Baltimore Ravens | San Francisco 49ers | 34-31 |
XXIV (1989) | 65 | San Francisco 49ers | Denver Broncos | 55-10 |
LIX (2024) | 62 | Philadelphia Eagles | Kansas City Chiefs | 40-22 |
LI (2016) | 62 | New England Patriots | Atlanta Falcons | 34-28 (OT) |
We're getting closer and closer to seeing the record fall, though. Six of the top 10 highest-scoring games in Super Bowl history have taken place in the 21st century, and five of those have taken place just since 2012. The Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots nearly matched the 75-point mark in their memorable shootout in Super Bowl LII. That game saw a whopping 1,151 yards of total offense; if each team hadn't missed an extra point, and the Eagles' two-point conversion attempt late in the fourth hadn't fallen short, who knows what might have happened?
That's one of two times the Big Game has had a point total over 70 in just the last few years. Which makes sense: The explosion of the passing game and the tightening of defensive rules has created a far friendlier scoring environment in the NFL than we saw in the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s. While the game is trending toward record combined totals, though, individual totals might be going in the other direction.
Most points scored by a single team in the Super Bowl
The record for the most points scored by a single team also involves the 49ers: the 1989 edition, which hung 55 on the Denver Broncos in a lopsided win in Super Bowl XXIV. Joe Montana went 22-of-29 for 297 yards and five touchdowns (three of them to Jerry Rice), while San Francisco's defense added four turnovers to the cause.
Super Bowl (season) | Points scored | Team | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
XXIV (1989) | 55 | San Francisco 49ers | Win, 55-10 |
XXVII (1992) | 52 | Dallas Cowboys | Win, 52-17 |
XXIX (1994) | 49 | San Francisco 49ers | Win, 49-26 |
XXXVII (2002) | 48 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | Win, 48-21 |
XX (1985) | 46 | Chicago Bears | Win, 46-10 |
The difference in dates here is stark. While there are plenty of recent editions on the list of highest-scoring games in Super Bowl history, no individual team has scored over 43 since 2002. In the modern salary-cap era, there's just too much talent to go around, and too much parity as a result. We're unlucky to get a Super Bowl matchup lopsided enough to result in the sort of complete erasures we used to see in the 80s and 90s.
Average total score for a Super Bowl
Across 59 Super Bowls so far, the average total score is nearly 47 points (46.88, to be precise). The median winning score is 31, with the average just a tick below at 30.37. And if you think that's being dragged down by some earlier editions of the Big Game, when football was played differently than it is now, think again: Just looking at the last 10 Super Bowls, the average score of the winning team is exactly 30, while the average combined total is 50.2 — and that includes the only two overtime games in Super Bowl history.
What's the recipe for a high-scoring Super Bowl?
Big plays help a whole lot, as you might expect. The Niners opened Super Bowl XXIX with touchdowns from 44 and 51 yards out, putting 14 points on the board within the first five minutes of game action. It's also not a coincidence that the top-10 list above features some of the best quarterbacks of all time, names like Brady and Mahomes and Young and Montana and Bradshaw and Staubach. Having a great passing game makes scoring a lot easier, and a lot quicker.
One more X-factor? Points coming from either on defense or special teams. Super Bowl XXIX featured a kickoff return for a touchdown in the second half, and fully nine out of the 10 highest-scoring Super Bowls ever featured at least one non-offensive touchdown. (The lone outlier? Super Bowl LII between the Eagles and Patriots, in which both offenses traded haymakers for 60 minutes.)