Highest Score in an NFL Game: Every Record, and What It Was Worth in Fantasy

The most points ever scored in a single NFL game is 113, in Washington's 72–41 win over the New York Giants on 27 November 1966. It has stood for sixty years, and nothing since has come within seven points of it.

That game is the answer to the question, but it is not the interesting part. The interesting part is what a scoreline like that would have done to a fantasy roster, because the games at the top of this list are the games where a single manager posts a score nobody in the league can beat.

The Highest-Scoring NFL Games of All Time

Combined points, both teams:

Rank	Date	Game	Score	Combined
1	27 Nov 1966	Washington vs New York Giants	72–41	113
2	28 Nov 2004	Cincinnati vs Cleveland	58–48	106
3	19 Nov 2018	LA Rams vs Kansas City	54–51	105
4	22 Dec 1963	Oakland vs Houston Oilers (AFL)	52–49	101
5	1 Nov 2015	New Orleans vs New York Giants	52–49	101
6	27 Nov 1983	Seattle vs Kansas City (OT)	51–48	99
7	6 Oct 2013	Denver vs Dallas	51–48	99
8	16 Sep 2007	Cleveland vs Cincinnati	51–45	96
9	21 Sep 1986	New York Jets vs Miami (OT)	51–45	96
10	10 Jan 2010	Arizona vs Green Bay (playoff, OT)	51–45	96

Two things stand out. The 1966 record is an outlier by a margin that no other NFL record carries: second place is seven points back, and the gap between second and tenth is only ten points. And the modern entries cluster after 2000, which is what you would expect from rule changes that protected quarterbacks and receivers, but they still cannot reach a sixty-year-old number.

The Arizona–Green Bay game at number ten is the only playoff game on the list, a wild card round that finished 51–45 in overtime.

The Most Points by One Team

Rank	Date	Team	Result
1	8 Dec 1940	Chicago Bears	73–0 vs Washington (NFL Championship)
2	27 Nov 1966	Washington	72–41 vs New York Giants
3	24 Sep 2023	Miami Dolphins	70–20 vs Denver
4	22 Oct 1950	Los Angeles Rams	70–27 vs Baltimore Colts
5	29 Oct 1950	Los Angeles Rams	65–24 vs Detroit
6	13 Nov 1949	Chicago Cardinals	65–20 vs New York Bulldogs
7	6 Nov 1934	Philadelphia Eagles	64–0 vs Cincinnati Reds

The Bears' 73–0 in the 1940 championship game is both the single-team record and the largest margin of victory in league history. Nothing about it is repeatable: it was a title game played under a rulebook that no longer exists.

The one on this list that matters to fantasy managers is Miami's 70–20 in 2023, because it happened recently enough that people were rostering the players involved.

What Those Games Were Worth in Fantasy

Miami 70, Denver 20 — 24 September 2023

The most fantasy-relevant blowout in modern NFL history. Miami put up 70 points and it was distributed across four players, not one.

Player	Line	PPR points
De'Von Achane	18 car, 203 yds, 2 TD; 4 rec, 30 yds, 2 TD	51.3
Raheem Mostert	13 car, 82 yds, 3 TD; 7 rec, 60 yds, 1 TD	45.2
Tyreek Hill	9 rec, 157 yds, 1 TD	30.7
Tua Tagovailoa	23/26, 309 yds, 4 TD, 0 INT	28.4

Achane's 51.3 came from a rookie who had been on almost nobody's roster three weeks earlier. Two Miami running backs each scored four touchdowns in the same game, which is the part that breaks a normal week: whoever owned both was unbeatable, and whoever owned neither watched a 96-point running back room go past them. Check any of these lines yourself in the PPR scoring calculator.

Note also what Tua's line is worth. Four passing touchdowns and 309 yards in a 70-point game produced 28.4 points, less than either running back. That is the passing touchdown at four points doing exactly what it always does, and it is the strongest argument you will find for the 6-point passing TD setting.

LA Rams 54, Kansas City 51 — 19 November 2018

The highest-scoring game of the modern era and the only one in the top three from this century.

Player	Line	Points
Patrick Mahomes	33/46, 478 yds, 6 TD, 3 INT	37.1 (4-pt TD) / 49.1 (6-pt TD)
Tyreek Hill	10 rec, 215 yds, 2 TD	43.5 PPR
Jared Goff	31/49, 413 yds, 4 TD, 0 INT	32.5

Mahomes threw for 478 yards and six touchdowns and finished behind his own receiver in PPR scoring. Three interceptions cost him six points, and at four points per passing touchdown the ceiling on a historic quarterback game is lower than the ceiling on a good one from a WR1.

Why the 1966 Record Has Survived

Modern offences score more consistently than 1960s offences did, but they do not produce single-game explosions in the same way. Three reasons:

Blowouts end early now. A team leading by 40 in the fourth quarter pulls its starters, runs the ball and lets the clock go. In 1966 Washington kept scoring, including a late touchdown that was widely criticised at the time.

The clock rules changed. Runoff rules after out-of-bounds plays and the reduction in untimed play stoppages have cut the number of possessions in a game.

Defences are better at preventing chunk scoring even when they are losing. The 1966 game featured 16 touchdowns. Modern high-scoring games get there through sustained drives, which consume the clock that would be needed for more of them.

The practical read for a fantasy manager is that you should not wait for a 113-point game to appear. The scoring environment that produces enormous fantasy weeks is not the record-chasing shootout: it is the 70–20 blowout where one offence is functional and the other has stopped competing.

What This Means For Your Lineup

Game totals are a real signal, but a weak one. A high Vegas total tells you a game is expected to be played fast and close. It does not tell you which of the eight or nine relevant players will get the touchdowns, and touchdowns are what separate a 12-point week from a 30-point one.

Blowouts favour the winning team's running backs. This is the single most reliable pattern in the table above. Miami's 70-point game gave 96 PPR points to two running backs. When a team is up four scores, the carries keep coming and the goal-line work stays with the backs.

Losing teams produce garbage-time receiving. The other side of the same blowout: a team down 40 throws on every down. That is why a receiver on a bad team can be more startable than his team's record suggests.

Once you have a line to evaluate, the fantasy points calculator turns it into a score under your own league's settings, and the most fantasy points ever scored post covers the individual side of this: the biggest single-player weeks in fantasy history rather than the biggest team scores.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the highest score in an NFL game?

113 combined points, in Washington's 72–41 win over the New York Giants on 27 November 1966. It is the highest-scoring game in league history by seven points and has stood for sixty years.

What is the most points scored by one NFL team in a game?

73, by the Chicago Bears against Washington in the 1940 NFL Championship Game, which finished 73–0. That is also the largest margin of victory in NFL history. The record for a regular-season game is 72, set by Washington in the 1966 game above.

What is the highest-scoring NFL game of the modern era?

The Los Angeles Rams' 54–51 win over Kansas City on 19 November 2018, worth 105 combined points. It is third on the all-time list and the highest-scoring game ever played on Monday Night Football.

Has any team scored 70 points recently?

Yes. The Miami Dolphins beat Denver 70–20 on 24 September 2023, the first team to reach 70 since 1966. Four Miami players finished with at least 28 PPR fantasy points in that game.

What is the highest-scoring playoff game in NFL history?

Arizona's 51–45 overtime win over Green Bay in the wild card round on 10 January 2010, worth 96 combined points. It is the only playoff game inside the all-time top ten.

Do high-scoring NFL games always produce high fantasy scores?

Not reliably. A shootout spreads points across both teams' quarterbacks and receivers, while a blowout concentrates them: Miami's 70–20 win gave two running backs 96 PPR points between them. Blowouts are better for individual fantasy ceilings than close shootouts are.