portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsscore'' and ''
origami
) is the Japanese art of paper folding. In modern usage, the word "origami" is often used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a f ...
'') is a scoring combination that has never happened before in a sport or league's history. The term was originated by sportswriter
Jon Bois
Jon Bois (; born September 24, 1982) is an American sports writer, video producer, and YouTuber. He is the creative director at ''SB Nation'', a sports blogging network. Bois is known for his speculative fiction works on sports, such as '' 1777 ...
for
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
scores and is primarily used in this context.
History
The term was coined by ''SB Nation'' sportswriter Jon Bois in 2016 and most commonly refers to scores in
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...
, particularly in the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
(NFL). Bois charted all of the unique scores in professional football since the inaugural season of the American Professional Football Association in 1920. Due to the unusual point values in football compared to other team sports, the distribution of the chart was irregular. Bois noted scorelines that could occur but had not yet done so, referring to the occurrence of a never before seen scoreline as "scorigami". As an example, the Seattle Seahawks' 43–8 win over the
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquar ...
in
Super Bowl XLVIII
Super Bowl XLVIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos and National Football Conference (NFC) champion Seattle Seahawks to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for th ...
was scorigami, as no prior NFL game had ever finished 43–8.
A notable feature of the chart that Bois created was the highly unlikely possibility, never fulfilled, of a team ending a game with a single point due to the potential for the defense to score a conversion safety. This renders 1-point totals theoretically possible for the losing side against opposition scores either exactly 6, or 8 or more.
Since the term's inception, a
Twitter bot
A Twitter bot is a type of software bot that controls a Twitter account via the Twitter API. The social bot software may autonomously perform actions such as tweeting, re-tweeting, liking, following, unfollowing, or direct messaging other account ...
has tracked scorigamis in the NFL. The most recent scorigami for an NFL game was when the Cincinnati Bengals defeated the New England Patriots by a score of 22–18 on December 24, 2022, being the 1,075th unique score.
Bois and other media observers have noted the tendency of the Seattle Seahawks under head coach
Pete Carroll
Peter Clay Carroll (born September 15, 1951) is an American football coach who is the head coach and executive vice president for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). He was previously the head football coach at USC from ...
to create scorigamis; Bois dubbed Carroll "the wizard of modern Scorigami, without question". From 2011 to
2018
File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...
, the Seahawks had exactly one scorigami per season. Carroll himself has acknowledged his team's frequent scorigamis, joking to reporters after another game with a unique score:
There has been occasional uses of the term for other sports. On September 9, 2020,
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
(MLB) had its first scorigami in 21 years, a 29–9 victory by the
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The Braves were founded in Bos ...