What was the last football game where a safety was scored?

In gridiron football, a safety is scored when the ball becomes dead behind the goal line of the team in possession of the ball (unless the ball arrived in the end zone due to impetus from the other team). Due to their uncommon nature, there are a number of records relating to safeties. According to Pro-Football Reference, only 37 games in NFL history (including the AFPA, AAFC and AFL, leagues that were later merged into the NFL) and only seven since the NFL/AFL merger of 1970 have ended with one team scoring only a safety (or multiple safeties).

^ This is the only game in NFL history that finished with either the winning or the losing team scoring a total of 4 points. † This was the first ever game of the Pittsburgh Steelers, then the Pirates, thus scoring the franchise's first points on a safety. ‡ This is the only playoff game where a team scored a total of 2 points.

The NFL team record for safeties in a game is three, which all occurred in the third quarter of play by the Los Angeles Rams against the New York Giants on September 30, 1984. 16 The individual record is two, by the Rams' Fred Dryer against the Green Bay Packers on October 21, 1973. 16 Jared Allen, Ted Hendricks and Doug English share the NFL career record for safeties with four.

League-wide, the record for most safeties scored by all teams in a regular season is 26 in 1988. The fewest safeties scored across the league is 0, occurring in 1943. The season with the greatest frequency of safeties was 1932, with 8 safeties in 48 games (one safety every six games).

The season with the lowest frequency of safeties, outside of the 1943 season, was 1966, with 3 safeties in 105 games (one safety every 35 games). Only three regular-season NFL games have ever ended in overtime with a safety: in 1989 when the Minnesota Vikings defeated the Los Angeles Rams 23–21 when Mike Merriweather blocked a punt into the end zone, in 2004 when the Chicago Bears defeated the Tennessee Titans 19–17 when Billy Volek fumbled in his own end zone and a teammate recovered it but was unable to get out of the end zone, and in 2013 when the Miami Dolphins defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 22-20 when Cameron Wake sacked Andy Dalton in the end zone. In a 1989 pre-season game, the New York Jets defeated the host Kansas City Chiefs 15–13 in overtime when Jets defensive lineman Dennis Byrd sacked Chiefs third-string quarterback Mike Elkins in the end zone.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association does not keep individual statistics for safeties. Three Division I-A teams have scored three safeties in a game: Arizona State in 1996 (in a 19-0 victory over then-No. 1 and two-time defending national champion Nebraska, ending the Cornhuskers' 26-game winning streak); North Texas in 2003; and Bowling Green in 2005.

In Division I-AA, the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2007 scored only six points in a game, from three safeties against Rhode Island. UMass had also scored three safeties in a game against Albany in 2005, a Division I-AA record. In 2004, when Iowa defeated Penn State 6–4, because of Iowa's two field goals and Penn State's two safeties, it was the only instance of such a score in the modern era, and it was the first time since Florida lost to Miami 31–4 in 1987 that a team finished a game with exactly four points.

The only other occasion on which a game ended with that score was when Rutgers defeated Princeton in 1869 by six "runs" to four in what is recognized as the first intercollegiate football game. On January 1, 1929, the California Golden Bears faced the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Midway through the second quarter, Roy Riegels, who played center, picked up a fumble by Tech's Jack "Stumpy" Thomason.